When the markets crashed on 21^st Jan, headlines screamed “there’s no better time to buy than now”.  Online traders rubbed their hands gleefully at the mouth watering prospects of picking up blue chip stocks at a deep discount. On 22^nd Jan markets opened on extremely disappointing note after the previous day’s catastrophic meltdown. Cues from the Asian markets added more pain to our markets. Sensex and Nifty both opened with over 10% cut and hit the lower circuit and the trading got halted for one hour only fourth time in Indian history. Sensex opened down 9.75% or 1716.41 points at 15888.94 and Nifty was down 12.10% or 630.45 points at 4578.35. Sensex so far was down 25% and Nifty 28% from its all time high.  10:55 am IST, the markets re – opened from the morning mayhem.  And then a mild shocker was in store for the all the retail investors trading online, none of them could log on to their trading platforms. I trade online, initially I believed my internet connection was erratic and hence the issue. But no, I start getting calls from the brethren enquiring if any trade is possible?  

Is this is a consorted effort from all the brokerages to stall retail entry into the market? Don’t these brokerages want us to make money? Is it only the FII’s who are entitled to such benefits? Can there be a genuine technical glitch? If yes then why on a day like this? 

These brokerages need to note small investors could soon call the shots in India’s equity markets. It is expected that these investors will bring in lose to $32 billion (Rs1.26 trillion) of household savings into the market in the 12 months to March 2008. This ideally insulates India’s markets from global shocks, much like China’s and South Korea’s. This amount is almost double the record $17 billion purchases of Indian equities by foreign institutional investors (FIIs) this year, till mid-December.  Its 11:45 IST now, I’m still waiting for an opportunity to place my orders.