More and more Indian women are turning to the stock market during the pandemic to boost their savings, according to Mumbai-based BBC correspondent Nidhi Rai.
Sakina Gandhi found a new passion: stock trading.
The 31-year-old is in the PR field and as of this year had invested only in mutual funds, which are generally seen as a safer bet than direct trading in stocks.
But when India went into strict lockdown in March to prevent the spread of Covid-19, Gandhi found herself in a long position in her hands.
I just tracked the market. I compiled a list of stocks and analyzed what kind of volatility was emerging. After consulting a few colleagues, I bought those shares."
It has proven to be a profitable option.
Stock prices dipped amid virus concerns and remained low as the Indian economy was hit by the shutdown. But they quickly rebounded as investor sentiment picked up. Trust stocks faced the storm, and some corporate valuations have grown dramatically since then. Prices are still high, buoyed by declining numbers of COVID-19 cases and the promise of a vaccine.
This is despite massive job losses, negative growth and other macro factors that have left the Indian economy reeling.
A boom in investors
But this is also the reason why working women like Gandhi look to make some extra money. And she is not alone.
"There is a clear increase in the number of new investors," says Nikhil Kamath, co-founder of Zerodha, a stockbroking firm.
Of the more than 1.5 million clients the company has added since the Covid-19 outbreak in India earlier this year, about 235,000 are women. That's about half of their investors, Kamath says, and their average age is 33.
Another brokerage, FYERS Securities, told the BBC that it had seen a threefold increase in the number of active trades.
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This matches the big fashion in India that appears to have occurred with the use of the pandemic - inflating the demat accounts, a digital facility to pass digital stock certificates between investors.
About 6.3 million new DIMAT funds owed in India were opened between April and September this year, according to market regulator SEBI (Securities and Exchange Board of India). This is more than double last year's tally for the same period (2.7 million).
Stock brokers say many of these investors are young women.
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