After Jan carnage, investors now feel the Oct heat

Ten months after first bloodbath in January 2008 shook Dalal Street, bears returned on Monday with the same vigour, forcing investors to lose their courage and patience. As the Sensex cracked the psychological barrier of 12,000, many traders and investors chose to forgo their positions and incur losses.

With the market becoming directionless, many position traders who were not willing to square off their positions, were compelled to do so even at the cost of incurring losses. For the brokers too, the situation became grim. Though the situation was not as bad as in January, the risk managers at brokers’ offices were busy giving margin calls to their clients.

Monday saw many heavy-weight scrips shedding flab and causing heavy losses to retail investors. The BSE Sensex has lost 3,800 points during the past 40 trading sessions. This is the second-biggest crash after the 5,000-point dip during January.