The fall came across sectors — cement (ACC, Ultratech Cement, Mangalam Cement), metals (Steel Authority of India, National Aluminium Co), banking (Union Bank of India, IDBI, Bank of Baroda, Kotak Mahindra Bank), fertilisers (Chambal, Nagarjuna), infrastructure (GVK, GMR, Simplex), finance (IFCI, Indiainfoline, IDFC, Geojit, Indiabulls), construction (IVRCL, Jaiprakash Associates, Nagarjuna). The list is pretty and long.

Additionally, if you take a longer view, say a year, the numbers remain attractive. The prices of more than a third of the sample (829 or 36 per cent) are quoting below their prices a year ago. Within this sample, there are 643 companies, or 28 per cent, that have fallen by more than 10 per cent, 470 below 20 per cent, and 263 companies whose prices have fallen by more than 30 per cent.

This juicy list includes companies like Raymond, Indian Oil, Shopper’s Stop, Procter & Gamble, PVR, ITI, Cipla, Novartis and Trent. The point is not that these are companies you can go and buy tomorrow but that companies that are or have been stars on the exchanges, are available at prices that should make correction-seeking investors drool. These are fair to good companies that have long-term performance track records and sound managements. In the list are also many IPOs that had been oversubscribed and are now quoting below their offer prices.

This worst-ever fall in the market benchmark has seen bundles of opportunity flying. Sometimes leaning on Left-induced uncertainty, sometimes on the uncertainty created by policy changes, but always irrationally so, for in the short term, the market cannot behave rationally. And because of this misbehaviour, the long-term investor stands to gain. The cost is borne by day traders and institutional players, offering benefits to investors with a vision some 10 to 20 years away.

... contd.