Losing faith, gaining fear

You block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith. - Mary Morrissey

The misery on the Street continues as hapless investors try in vain to interpret market movement. A dip in food inflation to a 7-week low of 13.07% for the week ended January 29, failed to bring any cheer. The increasing probe in the spectrum scam continues to ring in alarm bells. The Sensex is now at levels last seen in early July last year. Rough calculations show that stock market wealth has crashed by over Rs11,000bn since the beginning of this calendar year.



The outlook for the day is not heartening at all. Harried investors will continue rushing in aggressively to sell part of their holdings with every fall. Ideally, the reverse would have been a better strategy in such a falling market. But not many seem to like being greedy when most others are fearful.

The Index for Industrial Production (IIP) is expected to slip yoy in December too. Remember, the November numbers had come as a shocker with IIP at 2.7%. The worst may be over for the IIP and it could probably only get better sequentially. Sadly, the same view cannot be echoed about the market as yet.

Omkar Speciality Chem crashed 57% on debut ending at Rs. 46.2 against the issue price of Rs. 98.

Global markets have nothing really to cheer about. US markets closed mixed as market participants tried to grapple with the events unfolding in Egypt.

The Dow ended 10.6 points lower while the Nasdaq ended a tad higher. Cisco Systems shares fell 14% after it posted lower results.

Egypt President Mubarak appears to be in no hurry to relinquish power.

The dollar rose against the euro, the Japanese yen and the British pound.