With the share prices hitting a new bottom on every bad news about the global economic health and various domestic matters, more than $500 billion have been wiped off the stock market wealth so far in 2011.
While the losses are being incurred by investors across the board, the situation is even worse for overseas investors -- who have lost an average of Rs 35 on an investment of Rs 100 made at the beginning of this year, as against a loss of Rs 24 on a similar investment by domestic investors.
It is the double-whammy of a falling rupee and the plummeting share prices has made the losses much more severe for the foreign investors in India, the data suggests.
Together, all classes of investors have seen the value of their shareholdings in Indian companies drown by about $555 billion since the beginning of 2011.
The total investor wealth, measured in terms of the value of all listed shares on the leading bourse BSE, has plummeted by about 35% from close to $1.6 trillion at the start of 2011 to just over $one trillion or at $1.05 trillion as of now.
In rupee terms, the loss has been about 24% or close to Rs 17 lakh crore -- from close to Rs 73 lakh crore at the beginning of 2011 to about Rs 55.7 lakh crore currently.
Measured in terms of the movement in the stock market benchmark Sensex, the 30-share sensitive index of the BSE, the market has fallen by about 24% so far in 2011.
However, the losses have been over 10 percentage points higher for foreign investors, as the BSE's Dollex index, which tracks the movement in the benchmark Sensex in the US dollar terms, has fallen by over 35% in the same period.
