A stock broker reacts after watching the rise in sensex by more than 1000 points in Mumbai on Wednesday. (AP)

Mumbai, Jan. 23: Ticket collector K. Nagesh — thrown off track by this week’s selling storm — wants to heal wounds by buying potential stock winners going cheap, but can’t.

“We lost an opportunity to recover losses as brokers aren’t taking buy orders. They want the entire amount of the shares to be paid upfront. That may not be a problem for big and rich investors but pushes out small investors at a time when liquidity (cash) is a problem,” he grumbles.

Nagesh and many others swept away by the tidal wave of selling had their hopes pinned on margin trading, which allows them to buy shares by paying a small percentage of the price — margin money — to their brokers. The rest of the sum must be paid within 48 hours.

“As far as I know, there were little or almost no margin calls today,” says Ambareesh Baliga, head of research at Karvy Stock Broking.

Margin call is a broker’s intimation to an investor who has paid only a part of the stock price to deposit the rest and square up the deal.

The gloom hangs heavy over Lugairam’s samosa kiosk on Dalal Street. The music on his FM radio is tuned to the mood. “Dhanda hai par ganda hai yeh,” it blares out. But the Company chart-buster doesn’t amuse a man across the road. “Shut that thing (the radio) up,” he screams.

The music is turned off, but not Lugairam’s gripe. “Every dhanda is ganda. No one knows what is going to happen tomorrow. The market crashed and my business has taken a beating,” he grumbles, waving a rag over his plate of unsold samosas to keep the flies away.

At the other end of the street, Nagesh almost lunges at an investor who taunts him by saying that the blow was well deserved. “It serves you guys right. Small investors like you are nothing but speculators,” says Subodh Patwardhan, 38, who reaped the benefits — a unit that manufactures AC components — of investing long in shares.

But Subodh’s friend Arihant Gosain isn’t in a mood for lessons. After his last sip of tea, he flings the plastic cup at his immediate target of anger: the bronze bull statue outside the BSE. “That is the devil himself,” he says.