The Indian bourses, which only recently were the darling of retail investors and woo and courted in a vehemence, seems to have lost their Midas touch.

The Indian equities seem have lost their lustre and lure as for the fourth week in a row they spiralled to new lows on sustained selling as investors opted to book profits rather than making fresh commitments on slew of negative factors during the week under review.

That both the premier Indian bourses were firmly entrenched in the global bearish market grip was evident during the week.

Markets suffered losses for fourth straight week as selling pressure continued for index pivotals. Out of five trading session three ended in red. The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) 30-shares Sensex lost 777.69 points or 4.26 per cent to 17,464.89 in the week ended Friday. The S&P CNX Nifty lost 196.90 points or 3.70 per cent to 5,120.35.

Small-cap and mid-cap indices outperformed the Sensex, though they went down as well. The mid-cap index declined 128.27 points or 1.65 per cent to 7,633.27 in the week. The small-cap index lost 151.97 points or 1.51 per cent to 9,920.35. The pall of gloom continued mid-week with IT major Tata Consultancy Service (TCS) announcing 500 staffers had been given pink slip. According to Sebi data, in five trading sessions the Indian equity market attracted FII investment to the tune of $1,526.70 million.

Bruised sentiments

As if dread of US recession looming large like a Damocles sword was not worry enough, the fall in the country’s GDP growth, the renewed rise in inflation rate, sluggish global markets, a feeble response to the various IPOs all simply took a heavy toll on the stocks across all sectoral spans in a badly bruised market sentiment, opined market players.

Meanwhile, thanks to unsually lukewarm response to the initial public offerings (IPOs) following uncertainties plaguing secondary markets, compelled companies to withdraw their IPOs due to the poor investor response.
While corporate profits and private equity fuelled IPO growth story in 2007, this year fear of impending recession in US markets has hit Indian IPOs market really hard. According to Ernst & Young, Indian bourses in 2007 raised a whopping $8.3 billion from 95 IPOs, which was fifth largest and seventh largest in terms of proceeds of the year globally. During 2006 the Indian market had seen 78 IPOs raising $7.23 billion.