'If I had listened to economists, I’d be broke': Rakesh Jhunjhunwala’s $4 bn rebellion still holds lessons

It wasn’t textbooks or economic forecasts that made Rakesh Jhunjhunwala a stock market legend—it was a ₹5,000 loan, contrarian guts, and the belief that doing what everyone else avoids can change your life. 

“If I had listened to economists, I wouldn’t have made any money,” he once said in a YouTube interview. On the third anniversary of his death, his story still reads like a battle plan for anyone bold enough to invest on instinct—and conviction.

At 25, Jhunjhunwala took the borrowed ₹5,000 and bought Tata Tea. The stock tripled in months. It wasn’t a fluke—it was the start of something bigger. He read balance sheets for fun, showed up at AGMs, and placed bets others wouldn’t touch. By 1989, his capital had grown to ₹25 lakh.

He didn’t play the market. He watched businesses. He didn’t follow the noise. He followed cash flows and promoter intent.

In time, he shifted from short trades to long bets—backing Lupin when pharma was under the radar, buying into CRISIL before anyone cared about ratings, and loading up on Titan when it was a struggling watch company. That Titan bet alone would later be worth over ₹10,000 crore.

Crashes didn’t scare him. He expected them. 2008, 1992, 2020—his portfolio bled red, but he stayed. Sometimes he bought more. “Bad times are good times—for those who can survive them,” he said. No leverage, tight portfolio, big conviction—he knew how to wait.

He had a checklist: scalable business, clean promoter, pricing power, capital efficiency. But above all, he wanted businesses that could survive a storm—not just post good quarterly numbers.

What really powered him wasn’t the market—it was belief. In India. In its people. In its growth. He didn’t invest in stocks. He invested in the country’s next decade.

Three years after his passing, his playbook still holds. No gimmicks. No perfect timing. Just clarity, conviction, and holding on when others panic.