These three companies alone have contributed to a capital loss of about Rs 163.2 crore.

Shree Rama Multi-tech, which was offered at premiun of Rs 115, was initially oversubscribed 120 times. The scrip could manage to touch high of Rs 122 before falling to a low of Rs 48. Currently, it is trading around Rs 65, at a loss of over 45 per cent. The high-profile PNB Gilts' scrip was offered at a premium of Rs 20. It has not been able to offer an exit opportunity to the investors till now, since it could manage a peak price of only Rs 26.

Hughes Tele.com is another disaster story. The `hugh' issue of over Rs 749 crore, offered at Rs 12 per share could never cross the offer price since it was listed on the stock exchange.

Other big losers included Dynacons Systems, SoftSol India, Omni Ax's Software, Padmalaya Telefilms and Telesys Software. All these scrips lost between Rs 4 to 8.7 crore in market capitalisation, since their listing on the BSE. Dynacons Systems, which witnessed over Rs 8.7 crores wipe out from its market capitalisation, was issued at a premium of Rs 20. As on November 9 the scrip was reeling at around Rs 17.9, showing a net loss of about 40 per cent.

Omni Ax's Software topped the list of losers in terms of difference between current market price and the offer price. The scrip, offered at a premium of Rs 5, is currently trading at a discount of 63.3 per cent. Omni Ax's stock is closely followed by Kirloskar Multimedia and PNB Gilts. The top losers in this list lost between 35 to 63 per cent.

The top gainers during the same period included names like TV-18 India, Aksh Optifibres, Mukta Arts, Cinevista Communications and MRO Tek. TV-18 alone contributed about Rs 76.59 crore appreciation in market capitalisation. The three toppers sum up to about Rs 155 crores of capital gain.

The losers out numbered the gainers both in term of number and capital loss. The total difference between total capital loss and gain worked out to over Rs 16 crore. The gainers were largely concentrated with top three net for a large part of gains. The investors, thus suffered in a large number of the scrips.

Thanks to these disasterous issues, the retail investors are shying away from the markets. This is evident from the recent issues which have struggled to get full subscription in the fixed price portion, even as they received good response in the fixed price portion. In fact, IT&T's initial public offering recently devolved on the underwriters, since the issue could manage only 50 per cent subscription. Looking at the trends, many companies have been forced to postpone their IPO plans, which include many public sector banks.