The Indian School of Business (ISB) has done a study mining data from the National Stock Exchange ( NSE) to understand how retail investors think and operate. This exercise was massive in scope with the ISB tracking the trading habits and portfolios of 24.6 lakh retail investors who operated in the secondary market between January 2005 and June 2006. During this period, the Sensex and the Nifty gained 60 per cent. It was the middle of the biggest bull run in Indian history. The bull market continued till January 2008. There was no big correction and the uptrend was broad with advances outnumbering declines across the entire market. The sample tracked by ISB made about 140 crore trades with a total value of about Rs 37,00,000 crore ( Rs 37 lakh crore) on the NSE. This included about 98 per cent of all equity trades. In value- terms, the retail segment accounted for around 36 per cent of the market value of all equity trades. The losses for retail investors over thi...