The joke doing the rounds in broking circle is: What was the New Year gift Saif Ali Khan gave Kareena Kapoor?

If you are a trader, punter or an investor with a flapping ear for Bollywood gossip, you would have guessed it. However, Bollywood-illiterates like me would have been flummoxed. The answer apparently is: “A pack of mid- and small-cap stocks!”

Why? Because these stocks seem obsessed reaching size zero, virtually a Kareena patent While a few of the stocks have nearly succeeded in achieving size zero, many are hard at it to reach this ‘prized figure’.

Kareena, or Bebo as she is known, was the first Bollywood celebrity to import the size-zero fad into the country. When the film Tashan was released in 2008, she surprised everyone by dropping 10 kg to turn the scale a mere 48 kg. After a ‘healthy’ correction of 18 per cent, she regained about 5 kg post marriage.

So while one goes wow!! seeing Kareena, one tends to let out an anguished howl just thinking of the small/mid-cap stocks.

The BSE mid- and small-cap indices, which hit their 52-week peak around the first week of January, crashed 11 per cent and 18 per cent respectively year to date. The Sensex has slipped only marginally so far in 2013.

Reasons such as pledging of promoters holding, corporate governance, weak financial performance and market operation are trotted out for the plunge of Glodyne Tech, Dhanus Tech, Tulip Telecom, Spanco and Aanjaneya Lifecare that have slimmed over 80 per cent.

Now the investors ardent hope would be if the stocks will put on some weight. Anyway, Indians prefer the well-filled to size zero!

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