A MEMBERSHIP card for the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), once considered a prized possession, is today going for a fraction of the price it commanded during the dizzy days of the stock market boom.
Brokers and sub-brokers, hard hit by the prolonged dullness in the capital market and the absence of sufficient business from small investors, are offering their cards for a song.
A card, which commanded a huge premium in private deals three years ago, with one fetching a record price of 40 million rupees (about HK$8.25 million) in September 1994, is today going for 8.5 million rupees (about HK$1.75 million).
Last month, Chandulal Chunilal Shah & Co, one of the oldest broking firms on the exchange, sold its card for that price, the lowest recorded in the 1990s. Another broker, V.K. Shah, got 9.5 million rupees for his card in December last year.
At least another 15 brokers are believed to be waiting to sell their cards, and get into another business - as Pawan Dharnidharka did a few months ago. Once a prosperous sub-broker (eight sub-brokers can be attached to a single broker), he is today selling ice-cream.
Another high-profile broker, R.D. Shah, has shut down the broking part of his business, and is concentrating his energies on a travel business.