“A lot of people have been quizzing me about when will retail give up? And I have got tired of saying this, they won’t. You will get the data tomorrow. I won’t be surprised if it’s a record high or near about there,” Desai said.
However, recent data has indicated a slowdown in the pace of new demat account additions courtesy of the recent market sell-off and also due to a slowdown in new IPOs being launched.
The Nifty 50 index has corrected 15% so far from its all-time high of 26,277 in September last year. The broader markets have seen greater pain with the Midcap index correcting 20% from its peak, while the Smallcap index has declined 25%.
“Retail is not going to give up, because this is a shift in the balance sheet allocation that got underway in 2015 again, because of a major policy shift. And I’m digressing a bit when the Prime Minister allowed retirement funds to buy stocks – there is provident fund and NPS, which was very similar to what Ronald Reagan had done in 1980 when he allowed 401(k) plans to buy US stocks, we got a 20 year bull market in America, which ended with the NASDAQ bubble. And it ended because a lot of baby boomers started retiring, and they had to take money out of the markets. Nobody’s retiring in 20 years. This has got many more legs to go. So the retail bid is persistent,” Desai added.
First Published: Mar 12, 2025 10:13 am IS
