Sensex Will Touch 10,00,000 Points by 2047

Dear reader, you have been clickbaited.

But I do have something important to tell you.

On August 4, 2026, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told Parliament that, according to the International Monetary Fund, the size of the Indian economy is expected to reach about $5.1 trillion by 2028-29.

This was another in a long series of $5 trillion forecasts made by Indian politicians, economists, analysts, stock market wallahs and social media warriors.

Honestly, there is nothing really wrong with this. As the size of the Indian economy keeps growing, it will eventually cross $5 trillion.

The trouble is that most such forecasts expected India to become a $5 trillion economy by 2024 or 2025.

But that hasn’t happened.

And that brings us to the first rule of forecasting: If you are in the business of talking up things, give a number, never give a date.  The number may eventually turn out to be right, but it’s the date that gets you into trouble.

Allow me to go back nearly 20 years to what was a slow news day in August 2007, when I worked for a now-defunct newspaper.

The TV in the newsroom was on. My boss – as was his habit – was watching a business news channel.

India was in the midst of a huge bull market in stocks.

Ved Prakash Chaturvedi – the then CEO of Tata Mutual Fund – was rambling about something, as those in the business of managing other people’s money tend to do.

And then he said: The Sensex would cross 100,000 points in “our lifetime”.  The Sensex – India’s most popular stock market index – had closed July 2007 at over 15,500 points.

It was a time when nobody was talking about the Sensex touching even 50,000 points. And here came a man saying it would touch 100,000.

It took me a few years to understand what Chaturvedi had done. He had followed the first rule of forecasting. Give a number, never give a date.

“During our lifetime,” is as vague as anything can get.

And at the same time, the Sensex will eventually cross 100,000 points someday, one day. Whenever that happens, the media – if it remembers – will go looking for Chaturvedi.

The funny thing is that those in the business of talking up things – politicians, bureaucrats, economists, analysts, stock market wallahs, influencers – keep making forecasts that do not follow the first rule of forecasting.

So, why are so many forecasts made?

The simple answer is that there is a huge market for them. There are people out there who are waiting and willing to be deceived.

As philosopher Carissa Véliz writes in Prophecy – Prediction, Power, and The Fight for the Future, from Ancient Oracles to AI: “We are vulnerable to prediction because we are wishful, anxious creatures who crave for certainty.”

And forecasts provide that certainty.

Forecasts are also about projecting confidence. The world likes people who project confidence. Talk in certainties. No ifs. No buts.

Or as Véliz puts it: “How gullible we are to those who seem to know more than we do.”

The politicians understand this very well. Hence, they speak in certainties – knowing perfectly well that the socio-economic-political system that they are trying to manage is very complex – and can’t be spoken about in certainties.

Then comes the case of forecasts as power moves – or wanting to be seen as someone who sets the agenda.

As Véliz writes: “When the CEO of a tech company predicts that in the future AI will do everything, for everyone, everywhere, he is doing marketing, he’s influencing us to want to buy AI.”

This is something that those in the business of managing other people’s money – or the OPM wallahs – understand very well.

Take the recent forecast made by Raamdeo Agarwal – the Chairman of Motilal Oswal Financial Services – where he said that the Sensex will touch 300,000 points by 2036.

Data for the Sensex starts from April 3, 1979. Between then and now, the index has given a return of a little less than 15% per year. (14.9% to be precise.)

At 15% per year, the Sensex will be around 314,000 points by 2036. So, what Agarwal has predicted seems to make perfect sense.

But does it?  

A bulk of the returns on the Sensex were earned between April 1979 and April 22, 1992, when the index reached its then all-time high.

The return during that period was 31.6% per year. And that return bumps up Sensex’s annual return between April 1979 and now.

Indeed, the return earned between April 22, 1992 and now, is a much lower 8.7% per year.

At around 9% per year, the Sensex will be around 1,84,000 points in ten years.

Of course, there is always a possibility of the Sensex growing at 15% per year and crossing 300,000 points in ten years. But the last three and a half decades of data don’t suggest that.

Which is why predictions are not facts, even though they are projected to be. But they do project confidence and power.

Agarwal is talking confidently about the future and projecting power. He is telling us that he can see India’s stock market future and it’s bright.

And given that brightness, it makes sense for investors to come invest with him. He is after all the Pied Piper of Prabhadevi.

But what happens when the predicted future doesn’t turn out to be right? Hopefully, everyone would have forgotten and moved on.

The trouble is that the digital era never really lets you forget. People tend to dig up things.

Which is precisely what has happened to the prediction about India becoming a $5 trillion economy.

What started as a great WhatsApp forward projecting the confidence and the power of those who govern us, has now – with its multiple postponements – turned out to be a joke – even though some politicians seem to be doubling down on it.

A similar thing is playing out with the OPM wallahs as well. The stock market hasn’t gone anywhere after reaching its all-time high in late September 2024.

But they need to keep projecting confidence and power, because like politicians that’s the only way they know to play the game. 

Nonetheless, the smarter politicians are hedging. They are following the second rule of forecasting: Make the deadline distant enough, and then the prediction can outlive the people who might question it.

Which is why we are also being told that India will become a $30-35 trillion economy by 2047 – when Amrit Kaal arrives. 

It’s more than two decades from now and sufficiently far into the future. And the OPM wallahs need to learn from this.

They need to come up with their BHAG – a Big Hairy Audacious Goal – as the management gurus Jim Collins and Jerry Porras called it in their book Built to Last.

And what can possibly be their BHAG? The Sensex will touch 10,00,000 points by 2047.

So, what’s the moral of the story?

When Ved Prakash Chaturvedi spoke about the Sensex crossing 100,000 in “our lifetime,” what I should have understood is that a forecast doesn’t have to be right today.

It only needs to survive long enough to become right someday. And that, really, is the genius of forecasting.

And if I am still around in 2047 – with a functioning brain and editors who are willing to publish me – I promise to get back on this.