Bloodbath at Dalal Street despite ‘Strong Fundamentals’

Before the presentation of Union Budget 2008-09 in Lok Sabha, the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had said that the investors should show their confidence in Indian stock market despite negative signs because our fundamentals are strong. He was trying to console the retail investors who were losing their wealth in stock market. At that time the Sensex was stumbling between 18,000-17,000 mark. Our Finance Minister P Chidambaram had also echoed in same tone and told the investors to maintain calm at market.

indian stock market fall

Now, today on March 18, 2008, the market has opened below even 15,000-mark and retail investors are the worst losers. Now, I want to ask, where the Prime Minister and Finance Minister is. Can we expect few more words for those investors after the recent bloodbath at Dalal Street?

The financial crisis in the US has now shown its impact on Indian markets too and the result was a massive 6,000-point blow to the Sensex in the past two months. It might be called as the biggest absolute short-term loss in Indian stock market till date.

The recent fallout is different from what had happened on Harshad Mehta days. The recent market crash has been the hardest-hitting because investors have lost several billion dollars in just two days. The collapse of Bear Stearns caused major unwinding of the US investment bank’s P-note positions in Indian equities and affected the smooth running of Bull.

The US securities firm Bear Stearns had offloaded its positions in 25 top Indian companies and triggered negative sign in stock market. The US firm has its position in different 25 companies including Dabur Pharma, Oriental Hotel, Sonata Software, Taj GVK Hotels, Karur Vysya Bank, and Madhucon Projects.

It is hard to believe that the Sensex had touched 20,873-mark on January 8, ’08, and now on March 18, 2008, it has gone below 15.000- mark. It dipped 6,064 points (29 per cent) and investors lost wealth of staggering Rs 24.6 lakh crore to Rs 48.9 lakh crore in two months.

The previous market crashes were driven by national factors but the recent crisis is the result of the unrelenting global crisis.

The Sensex lost 951 points (6.03 per cent) in one day on Monday (March 17, 2008) the most since January 21 this year when it registered 1408-point loss. The Sensex has also gone below the 15,000-mark for the first time in past one year.

After the poor performance of Reliance Power IPO (Initial Public Offering), investors have started avoiding IPOs. Reliance Power IPOs taught retail investors that IPOs were no sure shot for making money, and they turned around from IPO market. Two major IPOs, Emmar MGF and Wockhardt Hospitals withdrawn their IPOs, when they failed to manage the required amount of subscription from investors after Reliance debacle.

Now, everybody has lost his wealth, who is a short-term investor and trader in stock market. Whoever started investing in the stock markets or mutual funds or IPOs to make quick money is facing difficult phase at this moment. Individuals, who borrowed money to invest, are the worst-affected investors. Those investors, who were patting their back for their skills to understand the market six months ago, are facing some of the most difficult periods of their life now. Where is the PM, FM? What happened to our strong fundamentals?