Wrong, stupid, and lucky

There are a few things that polarise equity investors more than small-cap stocks. This is completely understandable. On the equity markets, the greatest fortunes, as well as the worst misfortunes, seem to be produced by investing in smaller companies' stocks. Adding to the sorrow is the unfortunate fact that the greatest amount of regret and hand-wringing are also produced by NOT investing in smaller companies' stocks. Just the other day, while doing some background thinking for another newspaper column on the new digital IPOs, my mind went back to the Infosys IPO of 1993. The issue actually failed to find enough investors and had to be rescued by the merchant bankers. What a tsunami of regret that must have eventually produced amongst investors who chose to ignore this tiny Bangalore company which dabbled in some strange new business called so