Even as the benchmark stock indices in India surged to within striking distance of their peaks of early 2008, one was told that it was foreign institutional investors' (FII) exchange traded funds (ETF) money that was fuelling our markets and that was cause enough to celebrate.
Not surprisingly and soon thereafter, the 'usual suspects' were bandying words like ' structurally solid', 'sound fundamentals' and also that much-abused term, ' India growth story', to justify the same.
As if to prove that Murphy's Law still holds true and in a flashback to the times of the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's earlier tenure as finance minister, a series of scams suddenly erupted and temporarily disrupted the ongoing party at the Indian bourses.
Close on the heels of the Commonwealth Games (CWG) scam came the even more notorious 2G telecom scam. Even as the heat it generated started singing even certain sections of the 'elite' media, the cash-for-loan scam erupted, in which the country's largest insurance provider's housing finance arm was allegedly involved in doling out loans that were out-of- turn.
All of a sudden, there seemed an explanation for the meteoric rise in the fortunes and stock prices of the financial intermediary firm Money Matters whose stock then corrected by over 50 per cent in just about a week.
The promoters of Money Matters, one was enlightened, were allegedly bribing senior officials of state-run banks to facilitate large-scale corporate loans. Companies across sectors benefited from the 'expertise' of the promoters of Money Matters.
The list of companies allegedly under the scanner included HCC with its subsidiary Lavasa Corporation, JP Associates, BGR Energy, Oberoi Realty, Pantaloon Retail, Religare Enterprises, Jaiprakash Power Ventures and Mantri Realty.
Resultantly, their stocks too, received a slam dunk and the markets handed out a hiding to its favourite whipping boys from the real estate sector where the searchlight of the CBI now seems focused.
Curiously, a company named Core Projects, which lays claim to be operating in the IT education space, too witnessed abnormal price swings in the aftermath of the discovery of the scam. Why? Is this pure coincidence or is there more to it than what meets the eye? Frankly, I was not surprised with the shenanigans of all these and other listed corporates whose biggest strength has been the Dhritirashtra-like response of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) to their obviously exaggerated price swings in recent times.
What amused me however was the strident response across the board from self-appointed tele-anchor ' experts', their esteemed studio guests from broking houses ( many tainted) as well as banking and housing sector top honchos who seemed to be crying from the rooftops that the scam was nothing significant and merely a blip on the radar.
Ostrich psychology? Perhaps so, but then, is it a great secret that nobody likes a scam? And certainly not when everyone has pumped in money, is having good fun at the bourses and the indices hold out the promise of yet another new high.
Nobody likes a scam and hence, the odds are that like the many scams before it, this one too, will get a quiet burial in due course.
(Ashok Kumar is promoter, theIPOguru. com and director, Lotus Knowlwealth) Courtesy: Mail Today 
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