Indian investors seek Goddess Lakshmi’s blessings for gains

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Bombay Stock Exchange Sensitive Index has surged 102 percent since falling to a three-year low on the eve of last year’s festivities.

Investor Roshan Chawla offered thanks to a garlanded statue of Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of wealth, on Diwali, praying for a repeat of this year's record surge in equities.

Chawla, 66, joined brokers and investors at the Bombay Stock Exchange in making token stock purchases during a one-hour trading session on Diwali, the festival of light and the start of the Hindu new year.  Indian stock bourses held the truncated trading session until 7:15 pm on October 17 in Mumbai. The Bombay Stock Exchange's Sensitive Index ended little changed after climbing 4.1 percent last week.

Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, India's largest software exporter, rose 1.6 percent to 608.85 rupees ($13.23) after reporting quarterly profit that beat estimates after clients increased spending.

Since falling to a three-year low on the eve of last year's festivities, the benchmark Sensitive Index has surged 102 percent, adding $729bn to investor wealth.

"Last Diwali was a disaster," said Chawla as he watched the stock ticker scrolling round the outside of the exchange's 28-storey building in Mumbai. "This year Diwali is much better, the sentiment is visible all around."

Overseas investors have poured $13.4bn into Indian equities this year, set to surpass the record $17.2bn bought by them in 2007, lured by an economy that's growing faster than every major nation except China. The rally has pushed valuations at Indian companies to the highest in 18 months, so investors can't expect another year of those gains, according to brokerage Enam Securities Pvt.

"The scenario is not as simple as it was last year when valuations were cheap, liquidity was frozen and business confidence almost nil," said Mumbai-based Dharmesh Mehta, head of equities at Enam Securities. "This time going into Diwali, it's exactly the reverse."

Enam last Diwali published a report dated October 2009 that looked back on an imagined 74 percent rally in the Sensex as investors recovered from the turmoil of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc's September 2008 bankruptcy and the freezing of credit markets. Mehta says investors have asked for reprints of his company's report that predicted the Sensex would rise to 15,109 by Diwali from the 8,701 level it traded at on October 24, 2008.

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