DELIRIUM IN THE MARKETS

Market regulator SEBI says there is froth” in the mid-and small-cap stocks; banker Uday Kotak says there is no bubble. Caught in this cross-current are traders in small towns who are betting heavily in risky derivatives. What is next for the turbocharged Indian markets and what of the retail investors rallying behind it?

- Ayaan Kartik and Devanshu Singla

Mahesh Kumar, а 32-year-old resident of Gaya, Bihar, earns Rs 25,000 a month as a salesman at a mobile phone showroom in Delhi. Inspired by YouTube videos by financial influencers, he invested all his savings in the stock market without any insights of his own. He recently bought a bike for over Rs 1 lakh with his earnings from the market.

Twenty-year-old Krishn Vohra from Yamunanagar in Haryana decided to drop out of college and get into full-time stock trading instead of a formal job. According to him, it is better-paying.

Mohammad Afzal from Lohardaga in Jharkhand earns Rs 15,000 as a cab driver in Delhi. Having seen YouTube videos on trading, he is convinced he can make more money from the stock market. He is further encouraged by the profit he had earned once.

For Kumar, Vohra and Afzal, who hail from smaller towns where people are perceived to be frugal and cautious with their money, the plunge into an unchartered territory like the stock market, with little or no understanding of its workings, defies logic.

Jobs are scarce, retail inflation, especially food, is high, opportunities for growth are minimal and skill sets limited. In such a reality, the only way Kumar & Co. can jump on the Viksit Bharat bandwagon is to take risky bets with their money.