When your Uber driver starts discussing stocks

On Friday, market expert Ambareesh Baliga, a regular on business television, tweeted: "My Uber cabby recognised me & started discussing stocks. Signs of extended bull run due 2 wider participation or that of an impending crack?"

The tweet generated extraordinary interest, with some ruling party bhakts also getting into action, trying comically to allay fears of a crack. Let us get to those tweets in a bit.

Baliga's taxi driver analogy, along with housewives buying stocks, is often seen as a sign of overheated markets and irrational exuberance. The previous such instance when cabbies got hooked to local stocks was much before Travis Kalanick conceived Uber - when Reliance Power's initial public offer (IPO) of equity was on the way.

Yet, nearly nine years on, the Sensex is only 34 per cent higher than the high of January 2008. A simple return rate of about four per cent every year. In the past year, the index has gained about 750 points or a princely 2.75 per cent. For the calendar year, the gains are a bit less humiliating, at 7.65 per cent. Even from the post-Budget low of 23,000, the gain is only about 22 per cent. Respectable but nothing to lose one's marbles over.

Which brings us to the question of wider participation, the other possibility referred to by Baliga's tweet. BSE (formerly Bombay Stock Exchange) has been putting out a new metric of registered investors, based on unique client codes. The number of registered investors stood at 32.29 million. The change over the previous year was 1.62 million, up five per cent. Among states with an investor population of 100,000 or more, Bihar topped with a growth rate of 6.6 per cent, followed by Gujarat at 6.4 per cent and Assam at 6.2 per cent). Newly formed Telangana clocked 27 per cent growth on a low base. Maharashtra, which includes Mumbai, where Baliga lives and probably tweeted from, clocked a growth rate of 4.8 per cent, trailing Himachal (6.15), Rajasthan (5.7), Orissa (5.6), West Bengal (5.5), UP and even Chhattisgarh (both about five per cent).

Of course, Maharashtra is growing on a huge base of seven million investors. At 332,781 investors added over the past year, it is the fastest growing in absolute terms.

Is it possible to conclude these two pieces of data point to signs of an extended bull run, rather than a crack?

A couple of parallel events, not captured there, is adding to the market mirth. Bankers say issuers are anxious about the outcome of the US elections and rushing to close their IPOs before the first week of November. This bunching and a few good listings have lifted sentiment, though there were some pain points such as ICICI Prudential Life.

The second is a minor statistic that could have a disproportionate sentimental impact. The number of retail (small) shareholders in Reliance Industries fell marginally. Some 68,713 fewer shareholders holding 0.28 per cent or about nine million fewer RIL shares as of September 30. That could be that many happy RIL shareholders who booked profits as the Jio-powered stock crossed the Rs 1,100-mark. It also means the 2.49 million that still hold RIL aren't an unhappy lot, either.

Baliga's tweet elicited myriad responses that recalled analogies of shoeshine boys and paanwalas. Some said the end is near, some saw Uber as the symbol of a young, confident India; others saw rising unemployment. The last word should go to one Kunal Gogri, who tweeted: "Uber drivers make more money than dealers and RM (relationship managers) in brokerage firms."