August 6, 2002	Tuesday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 26,1423

NEW DELHI, Aug 5: July was a cruel month for India’s stock fund investors. Funds’ average net asset values (NAVs) dropped by between 3.5 and 12.9 per cent as stocks fell because of a patchy monsoon and global turmoil due to accounting scandals and feeble earnings prospects in the United States, analysts said.

India’s most widely tracked equity marker, the Bombay Stock Exchange index, dropped 7.9pc in July as equities remained bearish, wiping out $4.3bn in market capitalisation on the 30-issue index. It’s been a disastrous month because of unabated selling from domestic institutions following the drought (in India) and the accounting scandals in the US, which have led to a sharp fall in sentiment, one fund manager told Reuters.