Worst Fiscal for Sensex in last Five Years???

Stock market appears to be heading for its worst fiscal in the past five years with a 951-point fall in the benchmark Sensex on Monday dragging its year-to-date gain to just about 13 per cent. Following Monday's fall of over Six per cent, which saw the Sensex dropping to the sub-15,000 level, at least one in every three stocks is currently trading below the level it was at the beginning of the current fiscal.

The Sensex closed at 14,809.49 points at the end of today's trading, which saw an intra-day loss of 1,022 points. This represents a gain of 13.3 per cent over its level at the end of last fiscal ended March, 2007. Analysts believe there is no immediate signs of recovery in sight for the domestic market as global cues continue to worsen each passing day.

There are less than 10 days of trading left in the current fiscal, which ends on March 31, 2008. In 2006-07, the Sensex had gained 15.9 per cent, when it moved from 11,279.96 points to 13,072.10 points. Prior to that, the 30-share benchmark had registered a whopping gain of 73.7 per cent in the fiscal ended March 2006, while in 2003-04, the rise was even steeper at 83.4 per cent. In the fiscal ended March 2005, the gain was 16.1 per cent.

The market had seen losses in three consecutive fiscals before the uptrend began in the fiscal ended March 2004. The losses were of about 12 per cent, four per cent and 28 per cent in fiscals 2002-03, 2001-02 and 2000-01 respectively. Before that, the Sensex had gained about 34 per cent in 1999-2000, while it had dropped by about four per cent in 1998-99 and gained about 16 per cent in the fiscal prior to that.

An analysis of share price movements since the beginning of the current fiscal shows that close to 1,000 companies are currently trading at levels below those where they ended the last fiscal. However, close to 1,500 stocks are still maintaining a gain for the fiscal.

Today itself, as many as 125 stocks dropped to their all-time lowest levels.

Keywords: Sensex, Nifty, NSE, BSE, Indian Stock Market