Some lost business, some took a half-day off, and some lamented the missed opportunity, but all went home happily on a rare day like Monday, as the bulls took over and broke all shackles on Dalal Street.
Investors missed a chance to offload their holdings at higher-than-expected prices, but know the euphoria of a stable government would keep the spirit alive, with experts unanimously predicting similar rallies on the bourses in the coming weeks.
Right after opening at 9:55 am, the markets broke the upper circuit filter (20 per cent higher) in barely 60 seconds of the start of the trade.
Investors struggled to place sell orders through online trading, but only to receive a disappointing message reading 'order could not be confirmed'.
When the buy-sell web-page was refreshed, the markets had already halted trading due to the circuit filters and the next message said orders could be executed only during trading hours. A similar story happened again at 11:55 am, when markets reopened, to again break the circuit filters.
While most retail investors did not have much to do with trading being halted, some short-sellers tried to get in touch with their brokers to enquire about the margin money required for Tuesday, when short-covering is expected to dominate markets during the initial trading hours.
While brokerage houses termed it a day without earning, investors sounded slightly disappointed for losing a rare chance of profit-booking.
"What an opportunity missed! I am not sure if I will get a similar chance in the near future," said Abhijit Khandelwal, an investor whose online trading terminal got clogged due to heavy traffic on Monday.
But, market experts advised investors not to be disheartened, as another 7-8 per cent rally is expected in the next two days, adequate opportunity to make profits.
"In a normal day, we would have seen a record-breaking turnover today and that was expected. But the mood is still very positive, as the SGX Nifty continues to trade high. Investors need not be disappointed, as they will keep getting profit-booking opportunities in the coming days," said Anup Bagchi, executive director at ICICI Securities.
"As the day seemed to get over in a short span, our research team has engaged itself in gauging the market activities for Tuesday, while the sales team has been making calls to their customers who are planning to trade Tuesday. Also, some are getting in touch with clients to deposit the margins required for Tuesday's trading," Bagchi said.
Market players are preparing for a similar rally on Tuesday, as foreign institutional investors and a number of domestic investors too might be waiting to cover their shorts.
Surprisingly, only 846 stocks out of over 4,800 were traded on the Bombay Stock Exchange. The turnover of the BSE tumbled to Rs 127 crore (Rs 1.27 billion) from Rs 5,113.7 crore (Rs 51.13 billion) on Friday.
Similarly, the turnover of the Nifty fell sharply to Rs 2,599.35 crore (Rs 25.99 billion) on the futures & options segment from Rs 52,853 crore (Rs 528.53 billion) on Friday and the turnover of the equity segment dropped to Rs 170.3 crore (Rs 1.7 billion) from Rs 14,820.5 crore (Rs 148.2 billion) during the weekend.
According to industry estimates, the combined loss of all brokerage houses would be Rs 30-50 crore (Rs 300-500 million), considering a daily market turnover of Rs 80,000-1,00,000 crore (Rs 800-1,000 billion) and a brokerage fee of 3-5 basis points.
But, brokerage houses are confident of making up for Monday's losses with hopes of similar rallies in the coming days.
"We are happy because this rally is something that should sustain. Market activities will pick up momentum from Tuesday. So, in our dealing room, people are comfortable, while some are trying to revive their old contacts and bring more clients back into active trading," said D D Sharma, vice president, Equity at Anand Rathi Securities.
