Sensex@24,000; Indian stocks are now in a buying range: Marc Faber

NEW DELHI: The S&P BSE Sensex has come off quite a lot from its record high of 30,000 to 24,000 level, which now puts Indian stocks in a buying range, Marc Faber, author of The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report, said in an interview with ET Now.

Faber, a Swiss investor based in Thailand, said Indian stocks are more reasonably priced than they were six months ago. Going forward, sector selection will become more important. IT and pharma sectors have great potential for the long term, he said.

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The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report is an in-depth economic and financial publication, which highlights unusual investment opportunities around the world.

Faber said global volatility is likely to remain and investors just need to focus on where they will lose the least money. Centrally planned economies, such as Czechoslovakia, Russia, China, Vietnam, are a complete disaster, he said.

One thing to remember is that governments are a cancer and can only boost economic activity temporarily by throwing money at the system or launching huge spending packages. But in the long term, the government's expansion has a negative impact on a free market, Faber said.

He said the bureaucracy can be reduced significantly in India, not a little but significantly. “If the economy becomes more market-friendly and capitalistic, I think India could easily grow at say 6 per cent per annum over the next 10-20 years,” he said.