Investors double money in FY10

Investors on Dalal Street have doubled their money during the financial year just ended while the BSE sensex gained 81% to its Wednesday close at 17,528 and the broad-based NSE nifty index was up 74% to 5,249. Investors’ wealth jumped from Rs 30.6 lakh crore on March 31, 2009 to Rs 61.5 lakh crore now as some of the frontline stocks more than quadrupled during the past fiscal year, BSE data showed. Interestingly, the gains came from a point of extreme pessimism, in March 2009, through a time of overt optimism, during May 2009, to the current situation of a wait-and-watch approach by most market players. A large part of the sensex’s gains came during May 2009, soon after the Congress-led UPA government came back to power without the support of the Left parties. On May 18, for the first time in its history, the sensex hit the upper circuit twice and in just about two minutes during which trading was possible, the index gained a record 2,111 points (17.3%) to go up from 12,173 to 14,284. During FY10, FIIs too played a stellar role, pumping in over $23 billion as net inflows into the stock market although the domestic fund houses took money off the table, worth a little over Rs 9,600 crore. Although domestic funds have mostly parked themselves on the sidelines and are booking profits, FIIs are still bullish on the Indian market, institutional dealers said. However, they warned that another year of 100% or more growth in majority of stocks might not be possible in FY11, which begins on Thursday. On the sectoral front, metal, auto and consumer durable stocks led the gainers with BSE indices for these setors spurting over 100% during FY10. On the other hand, FMCG, oil & gas and power sector stocks were the laggards, closing the year with gains 39%, 44% and 67%, respectively. Data also showed that small-cap stocks had performed better than the midcap players. While BSE’s Smallcap index rose 162%, the corresponding figure for the Midcap index was 130%.