Dalal Street loses Rs 1.7 trillion in market cras

Stock market investors on Thursday saw a whopping Rs 1,70,000 crore being wiped off their portfolios, taking the total loss since the US subprime crisis first hit domestic bourses late last month to nearly Rs 3,30,000 crore.

The Bombay Stock Exchange's 30-share benchmark index Sensex plunged by 642.70 points, its second biggest one-day fall in absolute value terms.

The crash saw the cumulative market capitalisation of all the listed companies dropping to around Rs 42,77,000 crore, as against Rs 44,44,000 crore after the market close on August 14.

The total invested wealth in the stock market has seen a sharp erosion since July 27, when the crisis in the US subprime credit segment first reached the Indian market. Since then, the total market capitalisation on the Indian bourses has gone down by close to Rs 3,30,000 crore from more than Rs 46,00,000 crore on July 26.

The combined market value of the 30 blue chip firms on the benchmark BSE Sensex has fallen close to Rs 2,25,000 crore since July 27, including about Rs 90,000 crore on Thursday itself.

Among the Sensex blue chips, the country's most-valued firm Reliance Industries lost Rs 12,910 crore on Thursday, while the second-biggest firm in terms of market cap, ONGC, saw an erosion of Rs 7,518 crore. Both RIL and ONGC have lost close to Rs 28,000 crore each since July 27.

However, the biggest market cap loss in absolute value terms has been registered by state-run power equipments major BHEL, which has seen an erosion of more than Rs 37,000 crore since July 27.

Among other major losers, ICICI Bank and Reliance Communications have lost more than Rs 15,000 crore each, while Bharti Airtel has seen a loss of close to Rs 24,000 crore since July 27.

Infosys, TCS, Wipro, L&T, HDFC, HDFC Bank and Tata Steel have lost between Rs 5,000-10,000 crore, while NTPC and Ambuja Cement are the only two Sensex stocks that have actually registered an increase in their market value after July 26.

Besides, DLF, which is not present on the Sensex, but figures among the top ten most valued firms, has lost more than Rs 8,000 crore in the recent crash.