The queues may not be serpentine, issues apart from IT companies sparse and volume of business thin, but the feel good factor is hard to miss. There are frequent enquiries at banks, passer-bys glance at the IPO forms on pavements and the investment culture is beginning to roll. From office-goers to housewifes, the stock talk is back. No wonder that, dealers and brokers, hitherto operating on squeezed margins, are heaving a sigh of relief.

Investors, who, preferred to stay away from the vagaries of the market are once again looking at the equity option. Money is now being channelled into the stock market from other investment avenues like bonds and FDs. Says a broker, ``Everybody and his aunt are make a killing on the bourses, so the general perception is `why not me'. The demonstration effect is definitely bringing in more and more investors into the bourses. Nobody wants to miss the bus. However, there seems to be a perceptible difference now - investors have become more selective.'' Adds another, ``The lure is without doubt for the software sector - even in the secondary market.''

According to a few Delhi-based brokers, property builders and real estate agents are also making a beeline for the market. ``We have heard of cases where people have taken loan from banks to invest in shares or even sold their houses at a loss. People has started reading financial news and look eagerly towards any hot tip,'' said an official of a leading issue marketer.``It is like a huge birthday party where everyone gets to take back a return gift,'' is how a DSE office-bearer puts it.

In corridors, at lunch-time, people are trading information, repenting over what they didn't buy and, of course, revelling in the profits they have made. Stories and rumours are flying thick and fast. Not to be outdone, mutual funds are aggressively selling their equity funds.

The feel-good-factor owns its genesis to a culmination of developments over the past ten months. First, the mood of despondency and pessimism coupled with the fact that stock prices had reached such depths in the beginning of 1999 that they had nowhere but to go up. ``Everybody had been driven up the wall - from the economy to stock prices to investors.

What was required were some positive numbers that were enough for the bulls to snort and run amuck on the bourses,'' says a seasoned broker. It is not surprising, therefore, that investors latched on to faint signals of recovery and cyclical stocks started moving up. That the economy was on the road to recovery was further strengthened by the first-quarter results which showed an improvement in the topline of cyclical companies. Whether the growth in topline will percolate to the bottomline will be known shortly when the Q2 results from core sector majors start coming in.

The sense of deja-vu can be gauged from the fact that FIIs continued to pour money even in the midst of the Kargil war and political uncertainty at the Centre. ``There could be only two possibilities at the Centre - either a BJP-led coalition or a Congress-led alliance. The bi-polarisation has also given a fair degree of stability to the country's polity with both parties being considered pro-reforms,'' says an analyst. With the installation of a stable government at the Centre, expectations are that the government will kickstart the economy and clear some pending bills. That means a growing demand for cement, steel and the other core sector products. Add to it, the Moody's upgrade of the country's outlook and the impressive first-half results of IT companies, which have logged in impressive growth numbers. To top it, the fantastic returns in the public offerings like Sonata Software, Polaris and Shri MM Softek. The days of the retail investor seem to gathering momentum. The point is whether they cancontrol their aspirations (read greed!) this time around.