Indian market is 18 months ahead of its fair value: DSP Mutual Fund's Kalpen Parekh

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Financial news is now a 24/7 cycle of nonstop alerts, tempting investors to react to every minor market ripple. In an era where ‘financial noise’ has never been louder, navigating high valuations and volatile global dynamics requires more than just intelligence—it demands mental endurance.

True long-term wealth, however, rarely depends on tax tweaks or daily headlines. Mint spoke with Kalpen Parekh, managing director and chief executive officer of DSP Mutual Fund, about the discipline of tuning out the noise, risks for the Indian market over the coming year, avoiding common behavioural traps, and recent rebalances within his own portfolio. Here are some edited excerpts from the interview.

I’ve been an investor since 1998. There is a Budget almost every year, and some years there are two. Over 30 years, with all the ups and downs, the Indian markets have compounded at more than 13% annually.

The Budget is an annual accounting exercise of the government of India, like our household budget that we make once a month or so. We tend to over-allocate our time and attention to such annual events when managing our money over several decades. Over the medium to long term, the Budget has a very limited bearing on an investor's returns.

The only thing that truly matters is an investor's behaviour at different points in time. So long as investors remain disciplined, don't get excited when markets rise sharply or fearful when they fall, they should be fine. Obsessing about Budgets, credit policy, or Fed statements makes for interesting conversations, which have almost no connection to return outcomes.