If you don’t call this monumental, I cannot describe anything that can be cited as being monumental. For years, the Supreme court has subsequently passed on the responsibility of ‘dealing’ with the idea of section 377 onto the legislature. But the legislature has often, and recurrently denied the right to homosexual couples to exercise their right in private. Given the fact, that every individual at some point of time debated about their sexuality, this comes as a respite for not only homosexual couples but the future generations.
Not being a ‘liberal’, at expressing my views, but the scrapping of the Section 377 Act, will improve societal coexistence. Arguments against the bill, were needless to say, very childish. In Justice D.Y. Chandrachud’s words, “all suppression is wrong”. “The cause of sexually transmitted diseases is not sexual intercourse, but unprotected sexual intercourse. A village woman may get the disease from her husband, who is a migrant worker. This way would you now want to make sexual intercourse itself a crime?” Justice Chandrachud asked lawyers supporting Section 377.” Justice Rohinton Nariman, taking a cue from Justice Chandrachud’s observations, said prohibitions have never resolved social issues. “If you licence prostitution, you control it. If you kick it under the carpet owing to some Victorian-era morality, it will only lead to health concerns. All prohibition is wrong,” said Justice Nariman.
Given, the fact that there is now a huge possibility of the law being scrapped, let us check if there is likely to be any significant effect on the stock – Not assuming that the US markets have a similar investor behaviour to that of India, but it doesn’t hurt to see how the US markets reacted to the legalization of same sex marriages.
Human Resource Experts suggested that, acknowledging the sexual orientation of employees only increases the productivity of the said employees. Discrimination can only reduce productivity and therefore it imperative that a verdict by the Indian Supreme Court would only add to investor sentiment.
Taking industry perspective into consideration, the US jewellery, diamond and gold industry was positively affected by the rising purchases of rings by same sex couples. Travelling company stocks and credit card stocks also responded positively given that they were pivotal in selling an experience. Some apparel stocks like Mens Wearhouse also took off.
The Indian Perspective and Stocks –
INDIA people for – 33% people against – 44% people who don’t know- 23%
Source: Online survey of 51,700 web users in 51 countries by ILGA, RIWI Corp
The perspective in India has not been quite favourable for legalization of homosexuality, however, since the market pertaining to the soon-to-be minority surpasses all caste, creed, and religion based barriers, the industries like clothing, jewellery, travel and food industries are likely to boom. However, what cannot be expected, is the likelihood of the sustenance of this boom.
As, someone who closely monitors the markets, I expect the effect to stay for a couple of days, after which the news shall normalize. Hence, my suggestion would be to buy stocks pertaining to these industries while they are low in price and sell such stocks once the prices are high enough. While many would argue that there is no correlation between such news and the stock market, and while they are right in their own way, there are surely enough chances to see such a monumental news affecting the stock markets.
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