To invest in equities or not ? Listen to these smart investors.

Seven of India's most known smart investors came together to discuss the prospects for Indian stock markets in 2006. The annual roundtable conference was organised by Capitalideasonline. The transcript of the conference was available in today's edition of Smart Investor (Business Standard).

The summary of the discussion is -

• Markets (more specifically the benchmark indices - BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty) to end lower this year, but not too low.
• Easy and large returns are a thing of the past.
• 2006 to be a stock picker's market.
• Instead of looking at companies undertaking investments, one should look at companies that will execute these investments.

Read the entire transcript here. I was a tad disappointed with the extremely macro nature of the entire discussion. At one point, one may feel as if a host of opinions (ones that we read in the newspapers almost daily) were delivered on a single platform. Nevertheless, I think it is worth atleast one read.