The fall has been swift and brutal.

From January 8, the day the benchmark 30-stock BSE Sensex topped the all-time high of 21,078 points in intra-day trade (it finally closed at 20,873 points), the market has slipped by a frightening 23 per cent, wiping out thousands of billions of rupees of notional investor wealth.

However, there is some good news -- at least, if you believe some stock market experts. According to them the current valuations are compelling, and investors should start buying quality stocks at every fall.

Says S P Tulsian, an investment advisor and close market watcher: "At the current levels there is value in the whole market." Ambareesh Baliga, vice president, Karvy Stock Broking and Deven Coksey of K R Choksey, too has similar views.

"There is a lot of value in this market," feels Baliga. "The only problem is that of confidence and sentiment. Even those who are seeing value in the recent carnage are afraid to come forward and start buying."

Choksey, on his part, is quite pithy and sums up the predicament facing Indian equity inestors thus: "Everybody says 'I want to be 'me-too,' but 'I-don't-want-to-be-one-off'' kind of thing. Nobody wants to take the leadership in a falling market."

However, the current valuations are indeed compelling, reckons Choksey.

So what has prompted investors to stay away from Indian equities that just two months back were the cynosure of global investors' eyes? A quick look at the sectoral indices tells the story.

While the BSE Realty index -- the worst hit in the recent bloodbath -- lost a huge 42 per cent since January 8, BSE Power, BSE Consumer Durables, BSE Smallcap, BSE Midcap and BSE bankex each lost a shade close to 30 per cent denting investor confidence completely.

Index	As on Jan 8	As on Mar 7	Fall (%)
BSE HC	4297.11	3825.95	-10.96
BSE FMCG	2505.11	2207.71	-11.87
BSE IT	4244.75	3638.44	-14.28
BSE Auto	5594.26	4634.7	-17.15
BSE Teck	3905.16	3052.17	-21.84
Sensex	20,873.33	15,975.22	-23.47
BSE 500	8799.86	6354.94	-27.78
BSE Oil & Gas	14051.27	10022.91	-28.67
BSE PSU	10801.5	7578.5	-29.84
BSE Bankex	12086.57	8477.46	-29.86
BSE CG	20214.92	14025.12	-30.62
BSE Midcap	9817.07	6804.39	-30.69
BSE Power	4807.22	3155.16	-34.37
BSE CD	6569.64	4263.71	-35.10
BSE Smallcap	13516.13	8409.18	-37.78
BSE Realty	13483.9	7782.38	-42.28
Source: BSE Web site

That does not mean that there have been no cases where harried investors could have taken some rest. The BSE Healthcare index, FMCG, IT and BSE Auto index did provide some solace to investors -- even though their returns too were negative -- as they outperformed the Sensex.

So, where is this value that experts talk about? According to Baliga there is lot of value in capital goods, IT, pharma, FMCG sectors. The fact that they did not experience a sharp cut during the recent bear hug is proof that they are defensive sectors now.

Tulsian puts figures to define what exactly value means. For him BSE Sensex is currently trading at 15-15.5 times its fiscal year 2009 earnings. He expects the 30 companies comprising the Sensex to report combined earnings per share of Rs 1,000 in the year 2009.

While Choksey finds value throughout the market, the worst-hit sector too finds mention in his value buys.

"We see a lot of value in this space," he adds. He feels that value buyers may not ignore the realty sector for long. He says that the industry leader DLF is quoting at 11-12 times FY09 earnings and the next-in-line Unitech is quoting at 15-16 FY09 earnings.

Tulsian has a different take on why the realty sector has been the worst victim of the market crash. He argues that most of the realty stocks are a part of midcap stocks, which itself was down by more than 30 per cent.

While he is negative on sectors like textiles, paper and sugar, Baliga is not in favour of power, telecom and realty stocks either.

"Realty was too overvalued," says he. Although the sector is fairly valued at this point in time, looking at what is happening in the property market we are looking at some more downside, he reckons.

While these experts may differ in the priority of sectors that they find attractive, nobody is willing to stick his neck out as to when the pain in the system will subside. They think that investors are waiting for positive triggers.

And this trigger could be an aggressive rate cut by the US Federal Reserve sometime in the middle of March.