Apocalypse Now

As I'm writing this the BSE Sensex is about 700 points down, or almost 6 percent down. The bloodbath does not seem to stop, with the market losing anything between 4 to 6 percent every single day! And no one knows when or where it'll stop. The markets have already breached the two-year low in India, with the US markets touching a five year low! And the turmoil has already claimed a life, with an NRI shooting his family and then committing suicide, with the stock market crash turning him from a millionaire to a virtual pauper almost overnight. In an earlier post, I'd written about the fall of some of the biggest investment banks. But what is unfolding now is surpassing everything. It's a 'once in a lifetime' event, and may be a life-changing event for some.
The turmoil has left the small investor in a fix. The prices look very attractive, but everyday a new low is touched, surpassing the previous day's low by as much as 10 percent. Does he go out and buy, or does he sit tight? Well, I'm buying in small amounts, reasoning that nibbling at the stocks is the right way to go. That's the only bright side to this whole scenario, if you were to call it that. That it's a right time to buy if you have the cash to spare. But how far down will it go? Well, it's always darkest before the dawn, as they say...