It was FOMO, or Fear of Missing Out, that got Kanishk* to start investing in the stock market.

He told DW that as India battled the second wave of COVID-19 in 2021, he started noticing ads on Instagram featuring social media influencers giving money-making tips.

"I didn't want to miss out on this — the way people were making money. That, I would say, is the first thing that got me into the market," Kanishk said.

He explained how, after initially investing in mutual funds, he gradually moved to trading on the stock market.

Like a lot of amateur investors, he had no clue about the fundamentals of investing, he said, but he kept up with the market trends, "especially on Reddit," the US-based social media platform.

And in the beginning, "everything was great."

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Saloni Puj* and Ishan Shah shared similar stories to Kanishk's.

Both Puj, a media professional from Kolkata, the capital of the state of West Bengal, and Shah, who runs a cultural center that teaches art and music in the western city of Ahmedabad, also started trading in the stock market sometime during the pandemic lockdown.

"The market was doing so well it felt anyone who was making any money was making it in the markets," Shah said, who added that he bought random stocks, sometimes based on the recommendations of others. "Weirdly, whatever I did, I kept making money."

Puj took a more guarded approach. "I knew that the market [was] in a euphoria stage, I was very aware of the bubble that was happening," she said.

Then came September 2024 and all three were hit hard when the bubble burst. After months of rallying, the market eventually corrected, followed by a monthslong slump.

For most Indians who started trading on the stock markets, the rally after the pandemic slump was a........

© Deutsche Welle