Shankar Sharma’s ‘Metaverse’, 'mental asylum' jab at stock market investors

Veteran stock picker Shankar Sharma made a ‘Metaverse’ reference to poke fun at investors who expect the stock market to always perform well. Sharma's comment comes as the Indian benchmark indices opened in the red for the fourth session in a row, weighed down by geopolitical tensions and rate hike fears.

In a tweet on Monday, Sharma wrote: “Indian investors have created a Metaverse, in which markets only go up, and never come down. In the real world, it's called a mental asylum.”

Bears have been reigning on the Indian stock market for the past few sessions, similar to downward trends from peers across the world. Investors turned cautious due to tensions flaring up at the Russia-Ukraine border. Concerns over a rate hike and aggressive policy stance by the U.S. Federal Reserve have also hampered investor sentiments.

Both BSE Sensex and Nifty 50 opened the week on a weak note, but managed to shake the losses in early trade. BSE Sensex opened at 57,551.65, against the previous close of 57,832.97. By noon, the benchmark index was at 57,946.16, up 113.19 points or 0.20%. Nifty 50 also picked up after opening at 17,192.25, compared to the previous close of 17,276.30. Around mid-day, it was trading at 17,293.95, up 17.65 points or 0.10%.

Wall Street logged weekly losses last week too, as fear of hawkish policy stance from the U.S. Federal Reserve and escalating geopolitical tensions between Russia and Ukraine continued to drag the market lower. All three major U.S. indices closed lower on Friday, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite ending 1.2% lower, led by high-growth stocks such as Apple, Amazon and Microsoft. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.68%, while the S&P 500 shed 0.72%. The U.S. markets will be closed on Monday on account of a public holiday.

Meanwhile, markets in the Asia-Pacific region started the week on a bearish note, with most of the regional markets trading in red. Apart from the rate hike and geopolitical tensions, weak cues from U.S. and European markets also weighed on market sentiment.

The Japanese stock market opened lower, with the benchmark Nikkei 225 trading 0.78% lower around mid-day. South Korea’s KOSPI was trailing 0.027%, while the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong was down 0.76%. The Straits Times Index in Singapore opened lower, but managed to climb up 0.14% later in session.

In mainland China, the Shenzhen Component and the Shanghai Composite dropped in early deals. While the former somewhat recovered, rising 0.048%, the latter remained in red, trading 0.012% lower.