Laughing Stocks :- STOCK CLEARANCE SALE

When the Sensex was going up any excuse was good enough to push it up further. The Borivli local arriving on time, absence of traffic jam near Centaur Hotel, T-20 victory, Anil Kumble’s 5-wicket haul at Sydney, Mukesh Ambani’s hair style, his wife’s wardrobe, Abhi-Aish wedding, the film premier of Om Shanti Om, Harry Potter’s new Novel, every thing was cited to justify the valuation of the stocks.

Now the reverse has become true. People are waiting for any excuse to dump stocks.

I realized this when I visited Nair at his posh Chembur residence. Nair was nervously watching the rates roll out in NDTV Profit Channel and gestured me to sit.

Suddenly we heard a loud sound and Nair jumped out of his seat “Did you hear the sound of a bomb blast. I’d would better sell off my entire HLL holding which my grand father bought in 1969.”

“Nair, it is only the sound of a tyre burst and there is no need to dump the stocks which you have been holding for four decades. It happens all the time.” I said.

“Tyre does not burst during the market hours. Some thing is definitely wrong with the auto industry. I better sell off my Tata Motors. Or do you think I should off load Apollo Tyres? You can’t make which industry is in trouble these days. The tyres these days simply conk off without giving any clue.”

“I think you are reading too much into the silly events. Try to relax. The prices of those two stocks are where they are and there is no need to panic.”

Nair was adamant “You don’t know how the market works these days. It may discount these events during the 45 minutes break for sun outage and the stocks may open gap down on resumption of trading and block the exit route. Any way I will send my servant down stairs to confirm that it was simply a tyre burst and nothing more.”

We sank into our seats.

Now the power went off briefly and returned.

Nair exclaimed “Gosh! I should have exited Reliance Energy long before. Now after this power tripping every one would want to exit REL and the stock may not sell.”

I gave him some water and consoled him.

The screen wobbled because of transmission problems and went blank and in another minute the ticker resumed its normal run.

Nair panicked “It looks like there is trouble brewing at NDTV and they are practising how to exit the television business. Let me call up my broker and tell him to clean up the stock from my portfolio.”

Nair rang up his broker and held the receiver for a long time and looked worried. “What happened?” I asked. Nair said “No body is picking up the call. I wonder whether my broker too has quit the business during the 45-minute break.”