NSE CEO Likens Indian Markets To Sachin Tendulkar — Here's Why

National Stock Exchange (NSE) CEO Ashish Kumar Chauhan has recently offered his take on the ongoing trend in the Indian stock market, comparing it to none other than Sachin Tendulkar.

Chauhan believes the Indian market is akin to Tendulkar's batting, calm and consistent, but often overlooked because of a 'lack of sixes'.

"Indian market is like Sachin Tendulkar's batting. We might score a 100 centuries, but people will wonder why we are not hitting a Six on overy ball," he said at the CII Financing Summit.

"People doing OFS are still investing somewhere, just that they are coming late to the secondary market," he added.

Chauhan's analogy is backed by data as well. The Nifty 50, after all, has gained only around 9% so far in 2025, making it one of the weaker major markets globally.

Broadly, while large-cap stocks have held up, more than half of the stocks in the NSE 500 are still trading more than 20 % below their 2024 highs — suggesting the batting may be technically solid, but the boundaries are missing.

Part of this restrained performance from the Indian market stems from a series of factors, including slow earnings growth, elevated valuations, and global tariff-related headwinds.

In addition to the Sachin Tendulkar reference, Ashish Chauhan also talked about concerns surrounding high valuations in the Indian stock market.

The NSE CEO backed India's rich valuations by arguing that faster-growing economies will have a higher price-to-earnings ratio.

"P/E differentials vary across different economies due to a variety of reasons," he said. "Faster-growing economies will have higher P/E."

Finally, Chauhan talked about the banking sector, at a time when Bank Nifty has hit fresh highs once again after a relatively impressive Q2 report card.

"We are among the least leveraged banking systems in the world. Our banking system has lagged behind in funding the economy. We need to take away incentives of not funding the economy," he concluded.