A simple correction?

Yesterday, "India's benchmark indices have shed over 4% from their record highs in just two sessions. Sensex, which hit an all-time high of 82,129 on August 1, has lost 3370 points or 4.10% since then. Similarly, Nifty has crashed 1,023 points or 4.07% from the record high of 25,078 hit on August 1." The market capitalization has fallen from Rs 461.62 trillion to Rs 441.82 trillion and investors have lost Rs 19.80 trillion. BT. India's market capitalization crossed $5.5 trillion for the first time on 31 July. "The combined market capitalization reached $1 trillion on 28 May 2007, and it took another 10 years to reach $2 trillion." "It took roughly four years to reach $3 trillion, less than two years to reach $4 trillion, and just six months to hit $5 trillion." BS. "if you look from March quarter onwards, there has been roughly around a 5% cut in earnings on the Nifty..,across both the broader indices and the narrow indices," said Dinshaw Irani. "If you take away, say, the financials, it is negative earnings growth, margin compression, everything." "So, the fundamentals do not seem to be supporting this kind of a rally." "So, the valuations can be unreasonable for a very long period of time. It needs a negative trigger and that could come anyways, I mean in some form or the other." Not just in the share markets, young people are gambling on the futures and options market in hopes of making a quick buck. Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) chief Madhabi Puri Buch "pointed out that young investors have been venturing into the segment and making substantial losses." "The turnover in index options in terms of premiums has risen to Rs 140 trillion so far this year, from Rs 4.5 trillion in 2018. The overall turnover in the derivative segment is above Rs 500 trillion, up from Rs 210 trillion in 2018." ET. "Basically, the sharp rise in India stock prices is currently the strongest attraction for new retail investors." "So, the market is going up because the market is going up. And, like in a Ponzi scheme, as long as more money keeps coming in than gets taken out, stock prices can keep going up." What Nobel Prize winning economist Robert Shiller calls a "naturally occurring" Ponzi scheme, wrote Vivek Kaul. According to data from Prime Database "in the first six months of 2024, promoters or owners of businesses have sold stocks worth Rs 620 billion." "Promoters are the ultimate insiders." "And when so many of them sell at the same time, what it basically tells us is that they feel their share prices are overvalued," and "there is money to be taken off the table," wrote Kaul. SEBI has found that derivative trading has caused a loss of Rs 520 billion to retail traders in FY24. However, attempts at controlling this market may result in "impact on hedging costs, liquidity and spillover risk for preference to other products or even dabba trading." ET. "'Dabba trading' is an illegal and unregulated form of trading in securities," in which "traders place deals in securities without the trades being executed on any official SEBI recognized stock exchange." SEBI.  When markets drop more than 10% but less than 20% it is called a correction. schwab.com. Is this just a correction in Indian markets? Or, will there be a collapse? Who knows.