Mr Ganesh, a resident of Navi Mumbai who opened a trading account on the New Year's day is excited about how much money he has made on stocks in just one month. The BSE Sensex has delivered a 11 per cent return in January, the highest in this month since the year 1994.
Anyone who had invested in stocks of IVRCL, Hindustan Copper, Lanco Infratech and Suzlon Energy at end last year would be sitting on bumper gains today with returns of 55-70 per cent.
The rupee's about-turn to strengthen against the dollar, falling food inflation and positive news from the global arena with the US mulling a new round of stimulus saw markets receiving a boost.
Leading the rally
Several infrastructure and banking stocks figured in the top gainers from the BSE-500 index for January. Beaten down names such as IVRCL Infrastructure (up 79 per cent), Reliance Infrastructure (up 57 per cent), Suzlon Energy (up 56 per cent), United Bank of India (up 51 per cent), UCO Bank (up 51 per cent) are a few.
The ADAG group stocks also staged a good show. The stock of Reliance Capital, Reliance Power and Reliance Communications have risen over 40 per cent.
Tatas — the drivers
In Sensex however, the top gainers were from the Tata club. Tata Motors closed January with a return of 37 per cent, and Tata Steel ended 35 per cent up. However, half of the 1,700-point gain of the Sensex in January was contributed by the stocks of ICICI Bank, L&T, Reliance Industries and HDFC Bank.
One common trait of the sectors that made to the top gainers list in January is, they were all among the big losers of 2011.
FII fund inflow
Banking, for instance was a sector that was shunned by investors in 2011. The BSE Bankex was down 32 per cent in the year.
Now, who powered these stock price gains? Domestic institutional investors, that include mutual fund houses and insurance companies, have actually cashed out in the rally selling their holding to foreign investors.
According to BSE, the net fund inflow from foreign institutional investors into the Indian market totalled Rs 8,816 crore (till January 30).
Domestic institutional investors were net sellers pulling out an amount to the tune of Rs 6,495 crore. Retail investors too have been net sellers.