Turnover on 4 major SEs declines Rs 18.04 trillion

The turnover on the country's four major stock exchanges fell by 68.2 per cent, or Rs 18.04 trillion, in 2001-2002.

The turnover on India's oldest exchange, the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), fell 69.3 per cent, or Rs 6,92,782 crore, to Rs 3,07,182 crore. At the National Stock Exchange (NSE), it fell 59.8 per cent, or Rs 7,50,352 crore, to Rs 5,04,885 crore.

The smaller exchanges at Kolkata and Delhi, too, were in deep trouble, with their combined turnover declining 91.8 per cent, or Rs 3,61,804 crore. The turnover on the Calcutta Stock Exchange (CSE) fell 91.8 per cent, or Rs 2,84,874 crore, to Rs 25,592 crore. The Delhi Stock Exchange's (DSE) turnover declined 93.3 per cent, or Rs 76,930 crore, to Rs 5,508 crore.

Still, 2001-02 was the year of the debt market. Investors and traders alike discovered the joys of the debt market and, despite the heart-wrenching jargon of the debt trade, shifted wholesale from equity to debt. On the NSE, the turnover on the wholesale debt-market (WDM) segment zoomed to Rs 9,50,141 crore, while the combined turnover at the four major exchanges stood at Rs 8,43,168 crore.

The turnover on the WDM segment surged Rs 1,06,973 crore ahead of the combined turnover of the four exchanges. The aggregate turnover on the WDM segment soared by over Rs 5 trillion, or by 121.7 per cent, to Rs 9.5 trillion.

At the NSE's WDM segment, the shift in preferences was obvious in April 2001 when the stock market was rocked by a scam. In April 2001, the WDM turnover increased 35.4 per cent to Rs 46,285 crore. It zoomed by over 155 per cent in May 2001 to Rs 83,982 crore and by 371 per cent in June 2001 to Rs 82,329 crore.

In the first six months of 2001-02, the turnover on the WDM segment crossed the aggregate turnover of Rs 4,28,582 crore recorded in the previous year. Between July 2001 and November 2001, the WDM turnover increased further by almost 200 per cent each month. It crossed the Rs 1,00,000-crore mark in January 2002 to Rs 1,11,736 crore. In February 2002, it stood at Rs 1,01,313 crore.

In contrast, the turnover on the four major exchanges fell by over 50 per cent at Rs 61,249 crore in April 2001 on account of the Securities and Exchange Board of India's decision to put all A-group stocks on a T+5 rolling settlement mode from July 2, 2001.

The turnover continued to fall at a clip of over 50 per cent in subsequent months on a year-on-year basis, with a fall of 79 per cent in the first month of the rolling settlement regime.

The turnover fell 80 per cent in August as well as in September 2001, compared to the corresponding months of the previous year.

In October and November 2001, the fall was 70 per cent in each month. The turnover declined by 66 per cent in December 2001, by around 62 per cent in January 2002 and 70 per cent in February 2002.