Retail investors bet heavily on some of the market’s worst-performing stocks during the September quarter, including Sterling & Wilson Renewable Energy and Tejas Networks .

Over the past 12 months, shares of Sterling & Wilson Renewable Energy have lost nearly 60% of their value, while Tejas Networks has suffered a similar decline. These two counters rank among the weakest performers in the BSE 500 index over the last year. Praj Industries , whose stock has fallen about 52% during the same period, also saw retail shareholding rise by 5.3 percentage points to 28.6%.

In comparison, the BSE 500 index — which represents nearly 94% of India’s total market capitalisation — has gained about 5% during the same period, while the Nifty50 has returned 7%.

Despite this sharp underperformance,

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