The seven-day selling spree in the Indian equity market has eroded investors wealth to the tune of Rs 6.2 lakh crore. With Thursday’s fall, the Sensex has lost 1,508.42 points or about 4% in the last seven sessions, marking its longest losing streak in nearly three months.
On Thursday, the Sensex slid another 230.22 points, or 0.61%, to close at 37,558.91 as investors remained cautious ahead of trade talks between the US and China this week. The fall was led by Reliance Industries.
The broader Nifty ended the day lower at 11,301.80 points, down 57.65 points, or 0.51%. Both indices closed at their lowest levels since March 12.
The investor sentiment was also dented by the weak results reported by some corporate heavyweights.
The Street chose to stay cautious ahead of results from other bluechips given the trend so far has been somewhat mixed.
Motilal Oswal Securities observed in an interim earnings note for Q4FY19 that corporate banks demonstrated a decent improvement in asset quality, while the auto slowdown continues and management commentary from manufacturers of consumer staples was somewhat subdued. “The trend in earnings revision remains in favour of downgrades,” the brokerage said.
Thursday’s fall in the Sensex was largely led by Reliance Industries (RIL) after Morgan Stanley downgraded the country’s most profitable company to equal-weight from overweight. RIL contributed 140.65 points to the Sensex fall of 230.22 points. The stock, which has been on a downward trend in the last four days, has lost 10.8% of its value, translating a market cap erosion of Rs 96,265 crore.
Nevertheless, the benchmark indices are trading in the green so far in 2019 with a gain of about 4%. That is thanks to the gains posted by a handful of stocks, including HDFC Bank, Reliance Industries (RIL), Tata Consultancy Services, Axis Bank and Infosys.
These stocks have contributed about 1,730 points to the Sensex rally of 1,490.58 points with the remaining constituents giving either negative or marginal returns.
