At a time when Indian stock markets are hitting newer highs, Zerodha co-founder Nithin Kamath wondered on Friday on Twitter if this is the “most hated all-time high”.
“While markets are at all-time highs, the momentum in retail participation and activity is not nearly as much as it was at all-time highs this time last year. The monthly new demat account openings are down 40% even though markets are back to highs,” he tweeted while attaching a chart showing the dip in demat accounts.┬а
Global stock markets have faced a downturn in the last 12 months, especially after March 2022 when US Federal Reserve has started hiking interest rates to tamp down the raging inflation.
Kamath’s tweet was alluding to the phenomenon of the surge in retail investor participation since the Covid lows when central banks across the world kept interest rates unchanged to stimulate the pandemic-hit economies and, consequently, stock markets surged.
Indian share markets snapped an eight-session winning streak on Friday, but held on to weekly gains.
The S&P BSE Sensex closed 0.66% down at 62,868.50, while the Nifty 50 index settled 0.62% lower at 18,696.10. The Nifty 50 rose 3.6% over the last eight sessions.
Twitter users told Kamath in the comments section that the demat additions post Covid lows are an aberration and that retail investors are anyway now going to offices and their personal times has shrunk.
Another user said ever since Nifty has hit 15,200 in June, retail investors are cagey about the bear market and the subsequent crash that might be seen in 2023, as many analysts are predicting.
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