Sense in Sensex

Not a series of mountain peaks to be conquered

Today is 7/7/7

and yesterday the Sensex hit 15,000.

We strongly recommend that

if you are inclined to celebrate numbers,

you focus on the first.

The seventh day of the

seventh month of the seventh year of this

century means nothing.

But, plenty of fun can be had from the number 7.

It's all pretty harmless.

Not so at all with going gaga over the

Sensex every time it hits a multiple of 5.

This, let us hastily clarify,

is not the same as some of our more exuberant

Marxist politicians arguing

the stock market is irrelevant or evil.

The market is very relevant and a rising market is good news.

But everyone should grow up about good news.

It was sort of alright when the Indian economy

started coming out of the socialist purdah

- another clarification,

with a respectful nod towards the UPA's

presidential candidate;

the Mughals had nothing to do with this purdah either.

Those early post-reform days,

the hype and hoopla about the Sensex crossing number

'landmarks'

could be excused as part of India's rediscovery of itself.

The index, no matter what Marxists argued,

was a shorthand for newly acquired economic liberties.

Those were also the days the now almost forgotten

Capital Controller of Issues had been put out to pasture,

the stock market had started functioning like a market,

and rational assaults on desi peculiarities

like the badla system had begun.

So, yes, some over-thetop celebration was condonable.

But not now, surely?

When the Sensex hit 10,000 in February 2006,

the media was awash with images of mountain

peaks and snorting bulls.

It looked odd then - by early 2006 the reforms story

was a decade and half old, stock market concerns

had gone from adolescent excitement to mature

concerns about market depth and finer regulation.

Note should have been taken of the

'event' but it didn't deserve extravagant notices.

That applies even more now, when the Sensex has

travelled from 10,000 to 15,000 in a year and a few months.

Interestingly and instructively,

market participants themselves didn't hyperventilate

quite as much in the run-up to the 15,000 mark.

Maybe those on dealing floors and brokerages

have started reflecting the confidence of the

economy that underlies the market.

With confidence comes the ability to take good news in one's stride,

to look at the capital markets as a work in progress,

not a series of peaks to be conquered.

Non-market participants should take a cue.

And here's hoping that if and when the

Sensex hits 20,000 everyone will be so cool that these columns won't

need to argue for a little sobriety.