The bears mauled 87 per cent of all actively traded stocks in the first half of 2004. Only 13 per cent of the stocks in the active trading lists ended the first six months of calendar 2004 with gains.
This is a sharp reversal of the trends in the first half of calendar 2003, when 71 per cent stocks ended with gains and only 29 per cent lost ground.
Of the 2,119 actively traded scrips, the prices of as many as 1,843 stocks, which account for the 87 per cent, declined in the last six months.
Of these, the stock prices of 465 companies dropped by more than 50 per cent, while those of 541 declined by between 35 per cent and 50 per cent.
With the stock prices of another 587 companies having eroded by between 17 per cent and 35 per cent, the prices of 250 stocks dropped by less than 17 per cent.
That leaves just 286 stocks standing at the end of the first six months of the year. Among these winners, 33 are from the A group, 64 from the B1 group and the rest from the B2 and Z groups.
The major frontline and second-line winners include HCL Infosystems (up 39 per cent to Rs 548), Bharti Tele-Ventures (up 30 per cent to Rs 136.40), Adani Exports (up 28.6 per cent to Rs 498.65), Mahindra & Mahindra (up 13.6 per cent to Rs 441.95), Hero Honda (up 13 per cent to Rs 507.50) and Reliance Energy (up 11 per cent to Rs 566.50).
Explaining the weak performance of the capital markets this year, Karvy Stock Broking vice president Ambreesh Baliga said, "Since the beginning of the current year, a lot of money has moved out of the secondary markets into IPOs. Secondly, the
period saw an election and the market is poised to face a Budget. In the circumstances, the markets tend to be jittery, with investors adopting a wait and watch policy."
The bear hug wiped out Rs 2,41,000 crore (Rs 2,410 billion) in the market capitalisation of stocks traded on the Bombay Stock Exchange. In the aggregate, the BSE's market capitalisation declined by 19.4 per cent to Rs 10,04,151 crore (Rs 10,041.51 billion).
In fact, the broad markets fell by more than the benchmark indices. The BSE Sensex ended the first half of the year 17.87 per cent lower to close at 4795.46 on Wednesday, and the BSE 500 lost 18.7 per cent to close at 1923.78. But the S&P CNX Nifty has fallen by 19.90 per cent to close at 1505.60.
Among the BSE indices, the BSE consumer durable index declined 36.5 per cent from 1411.46 to 894.95 in the first half of the calendar year. The fast moving consumer goods index was the second largest loser, declining 26 per cent from 1109.80 to 824.64, and the BSE PSU index declined by 22 per cent to 3001 (3855.45).
Other BSE indices -- capital goods, pharmaceutical, healthcare and banking indices -- declined less than 13 per cent each, outperforming the narrow indices. The BSE TECk index was the best performing index, losing a relatively much lower 7.09 per cent while the BSE IT index declined 10.9 per cent.
Except for companies in the telecommunications, automobiles, textiles, sugar and tea industries, the share prices of companies in all industries classified by the Business Standard Research Bureau declined between by 10 per cent and 64 per cent.
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