Mehta, meanwhile, can be seen dining at Bombay's five-star hotels. A little deterrent would therefore be welcome. People are supposed to lose money when they speculate too much. What is negative is that the authorities have completely clamped down on normal trading. On March 7, SEBI banned all short selling in an attempt to halt the market slide.
Brokers call the move a knee-jerk reaction that in fact exacerbated the downdraft.
The ban remains in place. With banks more leery than ever about lending to brokers, the climate is likely to stay subdued for at least the next few months. It's not all bad news. Arora says his firm is overweight on India, and this scandal does nothing to shake its belief in the potential of the country's best-run companies. But try telling that to the gloomy faces in Bombay's stockmarket district.