There are many economists and finance gurus who bristle with indignation at the description of the bourses or stock markets as gamblers’ dens. Gambling or wagering is a scheme, game or avenue whose ultimate outcome or result, loss or gain, cannot be predicted. In a way the apologists of stock markets are right; for a section of the players in the market, namely insiders, the results are predictable as the market dances and gyrates to their tunes during normal times. Of course, during abnormal times, such as the one being witnessed when POTUS Trump’s eccentricities are wreaking havoc across the globe, even the insiders are not spared of the downsides of the excessive dalliance with the market.

The malaise begins with the primary market, i.e., the market for Initial Pubic Offers or IPO. In the good old days when the Controller of Capital Issues (CCI), the bean counter operating under the Ministry of Finance, ruled the roost and called the shots, there was no free pricing, instead the issuers had to be content with whatever little, niggardly premium the Controller deigned to allow on public issue. Colgate-Palmolive, once the darling of the investors and operators alike that had to make a public issue of as much as 40% of its equity shares in 1978 under the diktat of the then industries minister George Fernandes lest the foreign company had to pack up and go, had to content itself with a measly premium of Rs 15 on its Rs 10 shares. Contrast this with the laissez-faire regime obtaining in India since 1991, orchestrated by the market........

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