The two days of sustained beating of the Sensex has seen investors lose nearly Rs 2.93 lakh crore. On Wednesday, when the Sensex had to be halted for an hour after it crossed the 10% circuit threshold, the loss in market capitalisation was around Rs 1.14 lakh crore.
Collectively, Sensex companies have lost close to Rs 1.40 lakh crore in the past two days, including a loss of about Rs 90,000 crore in Thursday’s fall.The ten most valued companies together, lost close to Rs 84,000 crore of market value on Thursday, led by the country’s most valued firm RIL’s loss of over Rs 32,000 crore.
Thursday’s plunge also saw the market cap of Bharti Airtel, the country’s most valued telecom firm, plummet below the two trillion mark. It’s market value dropped to Rs 1,93,452 crore from over Rs 2,09,500 crore on Wednesday. Public sector companies, MMTC and NMDC were the only two companies, in the top ten list in terms of market capitalisation, that gained a market value of close to Rs 6,000 crore each on Thursday.
Ironically, stocks scaling their life-time high, outnumbered those dropping to record lows by a wide margin. There were just five stocks on the BSE that dropped to their all-time low share prices, while as many as 89 stocks rose to their record highs. Besides, the number of stocks rising to their upper circuits limit also outnumbered those hitting the lower circuits.
A total of 238 BSE stocks hit their upper circuit limit on Thusrady, while 210 shares touched their respective lower circuits. Earlier on Wednesday as well, as many as 228 stocks had hit their upper circuit and just 132 their lower circuits.
Sebi’s proposal to restrict the participation of participatory notes (PNs) has hit the banking stocks lesser than the front-running stocks in the last two days. According to the data available with Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), the BSE Bankex has shed 940 points or 9.4% on the last two consecutive days – October 17 and 18 – to close at 9,034 points.
According to a banking analyst from a domestic brokerage firm, investors being apprehensive of banks which had a high percentage of PNs, could witness unwinding lead to the sell off. Also, the fact that the apex bank may further tighten the monetary regime to contain liquidity, stirred up matters.