The herd run is over and reality is beckoning investors. The market had a short bull burst in the last quarter of financial 1999-2000, ending March, followed by a mayhem in the next two months. During this period, the Sensex touched a high of 5,933 points before falling to current levels. The euphoria has vanished and pessimism has set in. It is time to look at the winners—if there are any—and the losers in the last six months of high adrenaline stock market activities.

The highs and lows

We analyzed data on IT stocks—43 in all—for the last six months to remove daily fluctuations and get a better picture. The Sensex lost about 5% since the beginning of December 1999 till the end of April 2000. Barring a few, majority of the highly favored IT stocks met with a similar fate. Again, if one considers the stock prices during February and March, the percentage losses would be far greater for almost all IT stocks. In group A, market leaders Wipro and Infosys returned positive figures. Both these companies had split their shares to bring in more liquidity in their shares and managed to create more wealth for shareholders.

The other three companies that had plus scores were SSI, Satyam and Aptech. All the other companies in this group, including NIIT and HCL Infosystems, would have given negative returns if investors had bought the stocks in December 1999 and held on to them. In group B1, DSQ software and Hughes Software came tops while SQL Star and KLG Systel were bottom of the heap.