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The question bothering the markets still remains - is there more pain left and what is the road ahead? To find out answers to these questions, CNBC-TV18’s Stocks Editor, Udayan Mukherjee caught up with ace investor and market expert Rakesh Jhunjhunwala in a special series called ‘Hunt for the Bottom’.

Jhunjhunwala feels that the markets have seen a bull-run since April 2003 and one cannot have a bull market without corrections. The corrections would be testing the investors’ patience and their sheer belief in the markets, he said. ”All the corrections we have had in the last four years have had been deep but they have not been deep time-wise. I think the real patience and the real belief in the equity and in the market comes when the market tests you time-wise. So I think this is going to be one of the deepest and the longest corrections that we are going to have, in what I believe is going to be a very long bull market,” Jhunjhunwala said.

Excerpts from Udayan Mukherjee’s conversation with Rakesh Jhujhunwala:

Q: How do you distinguish between a long time wise correction and a cyclical bear market, we could have five good years then two really bad years and people might classify that as a bear market after a bull market?

Jhunjhunwala: My clarification is very simple. We are in a secular and structural bull market. In a secular and structural bull market, every high is higher than the last (previous) high and every low is also higher than the last (previous) one. So the last low we have on the Index was about 12,500, the last high we had was 21,000. As long as the index is above 12,500 and the new high if we make is above 21,000, I think we are very much in a structural secular market.

Q: How long according to you could this painful phase be?

Jhunjhunwala: I think we are not going to make a new high this year. Even if we make it, I do not think it will sustain. Maybe we have started it all in January; I think it would last from anywhere from nine months to eighteen months - I would not be surprised. Market is remaining in a range.

Q: Let me paint the bearish scenario - what the bears say that interest rates go up even from here-maybe not justified. But in our country sometimes we do things which are not justified -GDP growth slows to 7%-sub7%, earnings growth slows to 10%-12%; could we have then in that kind of situation a compressed one-two year kind of a bear phase, is that a likely a scenario or even a possible scenario in your eyes?

Jhunjhunwala: In my eyes, 4,100-4,200, which corresponds to 12,500-13,000 on the Index, I think this is a level, which we are not going to penetrate on the downward side very easily. At the same level, I think personally 5,300-5,400 on the upside in the Nifty is a level that we will not penetrate easily. So I think we could be in a range 4,200; maybe I think the range could be 4,500-5,300 instead of 4,200-5,300 - we could a pass a year or eighteen months.

Source: Moneycontrol.com