A disagreement over retail investing and asset allocation between D-street experts Samir Arora and Shankar Sharma turned into a friendly social media exchange, with the former defending retail investors' preference for SIPs while questioning the case for investing in real estate. According to reports from NDTV Profit, Sharma gave a light-hearted reply to Arora's market advice, asking him to choose between four options describing their friendship while noting that his opinion on SIPs and mutual funds will not impact investments in these instruments.
In response to Sharma's comments, Samir Arora defended SIPs as a sound instrument for retail investor. As reported by NDTV Profit, Arora stated on social media platform X, "It was never Retail investors model to worry about what FIIs will do when they (retail) do their SIPs and still they are being criticized. Retail did their job exceptionally well in investing in liquid mutual fund/stock market investments which post tax did better than keeping money in FDs and this is even after 2 years of poor performance of the market." He added, "Advising retail to focus on illiquid, non transparent, high transaction cost, large ticket price "real estate" investment is poor advice indeed."
This comes after Shankar Sharma's comments at NDTV Profit's Townhall show raised concerns over retail investors investing in SIPs. According to NDTV Profit, he mentioned that SIPs are a great financial product to make money and grow wealth through risk-free compounding, however, the asset product is not retail investors. Sharma remained bullish on real estate, fixed deposits and gold for retail investors, calling them good investment opportunities for Indians, drawing mixed responses on social media.
The debate generated varied responses from social media users. As reported by NDTV Profit, one user wrote, "While real estate can act as a great diversifier for high-net-worth individuals, recommending it as a blanket alternative to retail investors who thrive on flexibility and compounding is highly impractical." Another added, "Large ticket real estate purchases is for the big boys. For young professionals, SIPs is a good way to get exposure into the stock market and create a corpus." Meanwhile, a user agreeing with Sharma's advice noted, "Gold has tripled in last 5 years and the only investment which is a hedge against inflation and dollar appreciation."
