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Devina Mehra of First Global warns that expert stock and index predictions for Samvat 2082 are unreliable, citing data showing most Diwali pick forecasts often miss the mark.
Diwali Stock Picks 2025.
Even as the Samvat 2082 starts today with a one-hour special Muhurat trading session to take place between 1:45 pm and 2:45 pm, various brokerages have given recommendations for the next Samvat. In light of this, Devina Mehra, founder and chairperson of First Global, said yearly cycle of “expert” predictions are not just misguided but “fundamentally unknowable”. Her argument, she said, is backed by hard data.
“The projections don’t tell you anything at all. Everyone is equally clueless but they are in the media and speak with great authority. Remind yourself then that confidence is not equal to competence,” Mehra said in a post on X.
Eagerly taking down every expert’s Diwali picks and their Nifty projections for the coming Samvat? Planning to use those to guide your Investments?The facts may startle you!
Here is the data by @livemint on what happened to last year’s Diwali picks – only one third of them… pic.twitter.com/lKG3jvoP8k
— Devina Mehra (@devinamehra) October 20, 2025
Sharing a Mint article on X, Mehra highlighted how last year’s Diwali stock recommendations failed to deliver. Only one third of them were in positive territory – an even lower number out performed the index. The year before that wasn’t much better, with 49% of picks turning a profit, barely the odds of a coin toss. According to her, random stock selection would have yielded a better chance of success than following festive-season tips.
Also Read: Brokerages Recommend These Stocks As Diwali 2025 Picks
“As for the index projections, go back to earlier years and see what each of the experts had predicted and what happened. The truth? It’s in a category called ‘Objective Ignorance’ in the book ‘Noise’, by Daniel Kahneman, Cass R. Sunstein, & Olivier Sibony. Index predictions are only one example of humans forecasting things which are not just not known, but cannot be known. Yet they are made with huge conviction & confidence, in January and Diwali time,” Mehra said.
She said Bloomberg recently collected the data of index estimates on S&P 500 projections from leading Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citigroup, and Deutsche Bank. On average, these forecasts missed the mark by 15 percentage points, meaning a predicted 5% gain could easily become a 20% surge or a 10% fall.
Mehra also pointed out how forecasters tend to play it safe, crowding around 0–10% return estimates. Yet, over nearly a century of S&P 500 history, the market has actually moved within that narrow band only 14% of the time.
She ended on a nuanced note, suggesting that long-term projections — spanning 10 to 20 years — may have some merit. But for those who rely on confident one-year forecasts, Mehra left a final reminder: confidence is not competence.
A team of writers and reporters decodes vast terms of personal finance and making money matters simpler for you. From latest initial public offerings (IPOs) in the market to best investment options, we cover al…Read More
A team of writers and reporters decodes vast terms of personal finance and making money matters simpler for you. From latest initial public offerings (IPOs) in the market to best investment options, we cover al… Read More
October 21, 2025, 11:06 IST
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