‘Gurus say anything to get clicks’: Advisor slams finfluencers for messing up investors' portfolios amid SEBI crackdown

A SEBI-registered Investment Advisor (RIA) has strongly criticized financial influencers (“finfluencers”) for misleading retail investors and damaging their portfolios.

Shruti Bhatia, an RIA, wrote on LinkedIn: “I shudder to think of the people who put their trust and hard-earned money in the mass-market advice given by most of these ‘gurus’. I’ve had to clean up the mess created by their advice many times in my clients’ portfolios, and I am afraid this ‘guru’ advice is not going away anytime soon. Most of them don’t even mention client risk profiling, which is the first brick in the foundation of financial planning. Today’s ‘gurus’ are busy saying whatever gets the clicks and selling online courses to gullible people.”

Her remarks come as SEBI carried out a major search operation against a prominent financial influencer in Mumbai.

While the regulator acknowledged that some influencers are genuinely educating investors, it warned against those crossing the line into unregistered advisory services.

“If they are doing education, we have no problem. But if in the name of education, you are misguiding the youth, promising guaranteed returns, giving calls in the classroom, or using live data to trade… you cannot do that without SEBI registration,” said Kamlesh Varshney, SEBI Whole Time Member.

This isn’t the first such action. Earlier this year, SEBI issued guidelines restricting unregistered individuals from making market-linked recommendations, even indirectly. It also barred regulated entities—like stock exchanges, brokers, and mutual fund distributors—from associating with unregistered finfluencers.

Last year, the market regulator made registration mandatory for anyone providing investment advice, directly or indirectly, on securities.