Wkly review: Investors lose over Rs 2,50,000 crore

Investors lost over Rs 250,000 crore in the last five trading days after the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) benchmark index plunged on concerns of the deepening financial crisis in Greece.

The Sensex declined by 4.5% from 17,559 levels to 16,769 points at close of trade on Friday, taking the combined market capitalisation (m-cap) of the actively traded stocks on the BSE to Rs 6,016,990 crore on 7 May as against Rs 6,282,899 crore on 30 April. The S&P CNX Nifty skidded 5% or 260 points from 5,278 to 5,018 levels during the same period.

Out of 2,920 actively traded stocks, as many as 79% or 2,298 companies have seen a fall in their market price, while 18% or 531 stocks have risen during the last five sessions. The remaining 91 firms’ market price, however, remained unchanged.

Among individual scrips, Sterlite Industries was the largest loser in absolute terms, with a m-cap erosion of Rs 9,600 crore in last five trading days. The stock fell 14% from Rs 828 levels to Rs 714 during the week.

Jindal Steel and Power (Rs 8,895 crore), ICICI Bank (Rs 8,256 crore), Hindustan Zinc (Rs 6,784 crore), Infosys Technologies (Rs 6,685 crore), HDFC Bank (Rs 6,612 crore), MMTC (Rs 6,458 crore) and Tata Motors (Rs 6,299 crore) were the other stocks that saw deep cuts in their m-cap.

ADAG pack tumbles

The combined m-cap of seven Anil Dhirubhai Ambani (ADAG) group companies declined Rs 15,803 crore to Rs 115, 648 crore after unfavorable Supreme Court verdict on the RIL-RNRL gas price row. Reliance Industries Limited, on the other hand, gained Rs 442 crore in m-cap gain after the Supreme Court ruled ruled in its favour.

All three public sector oil refining and marketing companies - Indian Oil Corporation, BPCL and HPCL have seen combined m-cap gain of Rs 5,213 crore, after the Union finance ministry decided to compensate in cash an extra Rs 14,000 crore of the Rs 19,620 crore of under-recoveries due to subsidizing auto fuels and LPG.

Engineers India, Lupin, Idea Cellular and Bajaj Finserv were among the few that bucked the overall trend and recorded m-cap gain of more than Rs 500 crore each.

Realty cracks

Among sectoral indices, BSE Metal and BSE Realty indices were the largest losers that declined 10% each, followed by the Bankex, BSE Power and BSE Capital goods indices (5% each). Small-cap and mid-cap also indices also lost 5% each during the week.

However, healthcare index outperformed the Sensex by declining just 1%, while oil and gas, fast moving consumer goods, consumer durables, auto and IT indices dipped 1% - 4% each, as compared to 4.5% decline in the Sensex.