M A I N   N E W S

Mumbai, October 18
Investors lost over Rs 2,70,000 crore after the stock market continued its downward journey for the second straight day with a total loss of over 1,000 points in the benchmark Sensex, while the country’s 30 largest blue chip firms accounted for nearly half the loss.

On Thursday, Sensex crashed by 717 points to close below the 18,000-point mark on panic selling by funds following rumours of uncertainty on the political front.

The Sensex, which had surged to a new peak at 19,198.66 at noon, tumbled on fag-end selling by funds and closed with a loss of 717.43 points at 17,998.39. It also touched the day’s low of 17,771.16 points.

The total wealth, measured in terms of market capitalisation of all the listed companies, today dropped to 56,01,150 crore, as against 58,71,400 crore before the freefall began on the bourses on Wednesday.

While the loss stood at about Rs 1,01,000 crore yesterday, about Rs 1,70,000 crore was further eroded from the investors’ kitty in Thursday’s plunge when the Sensex recorded its second biggest single-day gain of 717 points.

Earlier Wednesday, the Sensex had dropped by over 300 points, although it recovered a significant part of its intra-day loss of over 1,700 points.

The 30-Sensex companies together have lost close to Rs 1,40,000 crore in past two days, including a loss of about Rs 90,000 crore in today’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, plunging below Rs two trillion mark. It’s market value dropped to Rs 1,93,452 crore from over Rs 2,09,500 crore. — PTI