09 Jan 2024 - Lonavla - India: Participants attend the Stock Market Mentorship program by Avadhut Sathe at Hotel Fariyas at Lonavla India. - Retail traders are losing billions in India's booming option market. Retailers are the biggest losers in the Indian stock market trading boom. In 2023, Indian investors traded 85 billion options contracts, more than anywhere else in the world. Regulators are alarmed that they are bypassing the tried-and-true way to build wealth. Despite rules against it, promoters and influencers have found a grey area to push the dream of stock market riches to the country's fast-growing cadre of small investors. Avadhut Sathe, 53, is a celebrity of the stock market boom. He heads the ÔAvadhut Sathe Trading AcademyÕ, which boasts of branches in 17 cities across India. In online seminars with as many as 10,000 participants, Sathe lectures on the rising heft of India's economy and the benefits of trading for a second income. In a January session, more than 120 people attend his five-day trading seminar at a luxury resort in the mountains of Lonavala, 50 miles from Mumbai. "Become a pro," banners read. "& the Money will flow.Ó The crowd includes doctors, software developers, consultants, homemakers and a cricket coach. The students sit in lines, laptops before them, while a huge screen shows live prices of stocks and derivatives. The program begins with a prayer. Sathe asks his followers to place their hands on their hearts and feel the energy in the room. "Surrender to the market god, embrace your successes and failures with a smile," he says. A prayer in the local Marathi language flashes on the screen: "God bless us with knowledge, wisdom and acumen.Ó Sathe tells his acolytes they can exploit trading patterns. Afterward, he poses for photos with his fans, striking what he calls "market warrior pose," a capitalist twist on the powerful yoga stance. Music fills the hall as students hum along, their arms swaying to the rhythm concert-style dancing to the beat with Adhut Sathe enacting the best of Bollywood dance moves. (Subhash Sharma/POLARIS)