Over half a trillion dollars have been wiped off from the wealth of investors in Indian stocks since the beginning of 2008 as an unending turbulence on Thursday sent the market to its lowest level in about six-and-a-half months.

The total loss of about Rs 20,50,000 crore ($506 billion) include over $300 billion of promoters of the listed companies here, while public shareholders have lost close to $200 billion.

According to the latest data available with stock exchanges, the total market capitalisation of all the listed companies in India stood at about Rs 51,22,000 crore (about $1,270 billion) after the benchmark Sensex recorded its seventh-biggest loss of 771 points.

The total loss since the beginning of this year accounts for more than one-quarter of the investors wealth. During this period, more than 2,500 companies have seen their market values erode, while less than 100 have managed to register some gains. Besides, the ten most valued companies, including Reliance Industries and ONGC, alone have lost about Rs five trillion (over $125 billion) so far in 2008.

Market value

The total market value of these ten companies stood at Rs 14,94,500 crore at the end of Thursday’s trading, as against Rs 20,21,700 crore as of December 31, 2007.

Among these companies, Reliance Industries alone has lost close to Rs 93,000 crore, while DLF has seen its market value plunge by close to Rs 80,000 crore. Besides, ONGC, NTPC, MMTC and Reliance Communications have lost more than Rs 50,000 crore each.

Companies such as Bharti Airtel, NMDC and ICICI Bank also lost close to Rs 40,000 each, while SBI has seen about Rs 18,000 crore being wiped off from its market capitalisation in this period.