Defensive bets

Surging equity markets have drawn out new kinds of people to the trading floor, housewives and young professionals the most prominent among them. The latest to join the party are defence personnel, some of them retired officers and some on their three-year sabbaticals. They are, said one market participant, "willing to dip their toes in the rising current of equity market returns". But with ticket-sizes running to a few crores, these sorties into the equity markets are turning out to be more in the nature of all-out attacks.