Vinod Sethi, the former managing director of Morgan Stanley, credits former Indian cricket captain MS Dhoni for teaching him how to sharply focus on one's area of expertise.
In an interaction with NDTV Profit, Sethi recalled one of his meetings with Dhoni in Chennai, where they were watching a cricket match together at the Madras Club.
"I was watching Dhoni and conversing with him. We were seeing the match," Sethi said. "Someone was bowling. Dhoni would see the ball, and on every ball, he had a forecast. 'This will be four, six, LBW, out etc.,' Dhoni would say. And he was accurate around 75% of the time."
"Then I realised why Dhoni is captain material. Because he is a true student of the game," Sethi added.
Speaking to NDTV Profit, Sethi also agreed that one such student of the game was Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, the late ace investor who was known for his strong bets in the Indian market.
According to Sethi, maintaining a sharp focus is essential to understand the market. "My idea of focus on the market is to go as deep as possible, and find where you can make 100 times the money over a period of time."
'India On Track'
Sethi said that one of the big changes in the recent period is that "India has come on track" and is on its way to reclaim the share it had in the global gross domestic product during the medieval period.
"If you take a larger expanse of history, India was always 25–30% of the global GDP," he pointed out. That is when the British came and brought it down to 3% or 4% in a couple of centuries, he added.
In the long run, India is on its way to reclaim the 25% share of the global GDP it once held, Sethi claimed. He pointed towards the demographic power that the country holds, which provides it an edge against Asian peers like China and Japan.
Following India's Independence, "we think that we took the slow road, and maybe Asia took the fast road", Sethi said. "But look what has happened? See the fertility rate in (South) Korea is 0.7%, one of the lowest in the world," he added. India, on the other hand, has a fertility rate of around 2%, Sethi pointed out.
The market veteran also believes that the exposure of equities to Indian families will rise in the period to come. In the US, the exposure stands to around 40% of the financial assets of the average American family, he said.
In India, the ratio is much lower as the country still has a "love affair" with hard assets such as gold and real estate, Sethi said. "I think the cycle is beginning to change, but there is still a long way to go as compared to Americans".
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