A Coalition In 2019 Won’t Rock The Market, Says Shankar Sharma

The next government is likely to be a coalition. But that will leave the market relatively sanguine.

That's the word from veteran market Shankar Sharma. An absolute majority for any one party in next year's general elections seems “doubtful”, Sharma told BloombergQuint in an interview. “The data does not support it.” If indeed a coalition government comes to power in 2019, it would not be “a determinant of what happens with the stock market,” the chief global strategist of First Global said.

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Sharma is one of the few veteran stock market investors who openly backs the Congress party. While maintaining that he's “apolitical”, he cites data to back his preference. India grew at a compounded annual growth rate of 7.6 percent in the “troubled years”, between 2008 and 2014, he pointed out. That's the period when the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance was in power.

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The last Congress-led government was widely criticised for so-called “policy paralysis” and was accused of involvement in a number of corruption cases. “I don't buy the term policy paralysis,” Sharma said, adding that the government of the day was cornered and not allowed to function.

Watch the full interview here.

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