The Hindu Business Line : He makes big bucks from small margins

JASBINDER Sachdev is a Mumbai jobber who was featured in the Life section of Business Line a year ago, on August 6, 2004, when the market was quite taken aback by the prospect of the securities transaction tax.

Jobbers and abritragers, who give volume and liquidity to the market, survive by high volume transactions, and jobbers, in particular, log phenomenal turnovers in a day.

At many leading Mumbai brokerages you can see jobbers punching in trades on their terminals every minute. By playing for a profit of 50 paise or one rupee, they end up doing thousands of transactions every day.

As the owner of a brokerage in suburban Dadar explained, "They sit before the trading screen at 9-50 a.m. and leave it only after 3-30 p.m. and most of them do not even get up for lunch. This is a high-pressure job and the life of a jobber is rarely more than 10 years in this profession."

But Mr Sachdev has already clocked 10 years in this profession. The last time this correspondent spoke to him, he was upset that the transaction tax would kill his profession. Later, of course, the Finance Minister reduced the turnover tax.

The current boom in the equity market appeared to be the right time to catch up with the man who had then said that come rain or shine, he walked the one-hour distance to his office to keep himself "fresh and fit" for the job on hand.

But this time around, Mr Sachdev's woes were long gone and he wore a broad smile as he sat before his terminal punching in the numbers. When asked how he was doing, he beamed, "Oh, I'm doing very well."

Remind him how exactly a year ago he was bitter about the transaction tax, and he brushes aside that memory with a confident, "Yes, it is true, I was worried then, but the volumes have picked up wonderfully since then and as long as the volume stays at Rs 22,000-25,000 crore on a daily basis, we can make good money. The market signals are nowhere near the panic level they were at last year." Does he continue to walk to work?

Mr Sachdev's face breaks into a grin. The ferocious bull market has brought in windfalls and he does not need the morning walk to keep fit. Instead he walks and jogs on the treadmill that he has bought for his exclusive use. And he has upgraded from Hyundai Accent to a Chevrolet Optra.

And when you let out a `wow', he says coolly, "It's not that `wow' a car. I'd love to buy a BMW! My broker has graduated to a Toyota Corolla so I thought I should buy a better car, too."

On the bullish trend in the market continuing, Mr Sachdevsays, "The uptrend will continue but the market will be volatile. I would say the equity market is getting a little dangerous now." He agrees that this will not affect a day trader or a jobber like him who buys and sells not even on the same day but in a few minutes. "But, then, you've got to be very alert in this market," he adds.

For his part, he has no complaints about the current state of the market; on a good day he can make a profits of Rs 1 lakh or more. "I'm very happy with the returns, but I keep a very low profile."

But to get that kind of return, jobbers like Mr Sachdev clock a mind-boggling turnover. Pointing to his trading screen he says, "It's only 10-30 a.m. now and I've already done Rs 6-7 crore; by the end of today my total turnover should touch Rs 60-70 crore," he says without a trace of excitement in his voice!

Of course, there are bad days, "but then on such days we have to ensure that we minimise the losses. This is an art... you have to minimise losses and maximise profits."

But to do that one has "to be absolutely dedicated and do a lot of home work. Every day, after trading hours, I write the rates down, make a study of the graphs and analyse my mistakes for the day.

Today's mistake is that I've not bought TCS (the day its results were due in the evening and it made a good recovery from the pounding it had received the previous day). Instead I bought Infosys; it has done well but TCS would have given me spectacular returns." He believes in squaring up all his positions the same day so that "the next day you're fresh."

Asked if he trains youngsters for the job, he says, "These days youngsters are not as dedicated and passionate about trading. You need a lot of focus and passion for this job; if you have that, and above all discipline, too, I can assure you there will be even better times in the equity market."

Response may be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in

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