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On Wall Street, shares came well off their lows by late afternoon. But another burst of selling in the final hour of trading pulled them lower again. Technology stocks were the biggest drag on the market.

“One does not really want to catch a falling knife in an environment where the market is still fairly bearish and expectations are still tightening and of course we do have the Fed FOMC meeting on Wednesday. That will give us further indications.”

Stocks such as HDFC Bank, HUL, HDFC, Bharti Airtel, Kotak Bank, Maruti, ONGC, Nestle, among others, have underperformed the Nifty in the past two years. ITC, Axis Bank, Coal India, BPCL, ICICI Lombard, Colgate, Petronet, Indraprastha Gas and Federal Bank among others are trading below their prices two years ago.

There are reports that Amazon, Google or Microsoft could be a potential investor.

​"It will certainly open the tap for big money to flow into the distressed asset space in India,” said Srini Sriniwasan, managing director, Kotak Investment Advisors, the alternative investment arm of the Kotak Mahindra Group that also manages a $1-billion special situations fund.

Every bubble attracts small investors in hordes and leaves them much poorer. The bubble has a tendency to grow fast, making people richer at a rapid pace during the growth phase.

Brent crude futures were down 15 cents, or 0.2%, at $88.05 a barrel at 0105 GMT, having jumped 2.2% in the previous session.

Traders and investors typically move to safer digital assets such as stable coins (like Tether, which is pegged to the US dollar) during times of price crash and high volatility. "We have seen investors selling assets and converting them to USDT as the rate is around the $82.5-83 mark, which is currently very favourable," said Shekhar of ZebPay.

This is the first market holiday of the year, and will likely give breathing space to traders amid heightened volatility in the market.

Warburg Pincus, the single largest shareholder with around 36% stake, will divest shares worth Rs 700-800 crore in the Boat IPO, likely to be an equal mix of fresh stock and an offer for sale.