Investors on Dalal Street have lost over $300 billion (Rs11,85,285 crore) in the last six days with more than half of the loss coming from Monday’s fall of the benchmark index Sensex—its biggest ever.

The Sensex witnessed a fall of 1,400 points, tumbling below the 18,000-point to close at 17,605.35. The huge drop in the index was led by blue chip heavyweights - Reliance Energy, ACC, Bajaj Auto, DLF and Reliance Industries.

The Sensex has lost 3,222.1 points in last six trading sessions, while investors’ wealth — measured in terms of cumulative market capitalisation of all the listed companies — has declined by Rs 11,85,285.46 crore.

The total market capitalisation stood at Rs 59,53,525.87 crore at the end of Monday’s trading against Rs 71,38,810 crore before bourses began business last week on January 14. While, the investors have lost a whopping Rs 6,63,975 crore in just one trading session from market cap of Rs 66,17,501.33 crore on Friday last week. The investors had lost over 5,21,310 crore in the five trading sessions last week.

Major factors

According to market analysts, the major fall has been mainly due to the slowdown concerns in the US economy among other factors. “The major factors behind today’s market meltdown are US recession and margin call, besides panic selling has also crept in,” an analyst said.

Over the past six days the RIL stock lost over Rs 85,110.72 crore, which is among the biggest in the heavyweight stocks.

RIL is followed by state-run ONGC which has lost over Rs 20,000 crore with its market cap falling to Rs 2.38 lakh crore from Rs 2.58 lakh crore on Friday. The 30-blue chip stocks in Sensex  accounted for over Rs 2,19,717.74 crore in the total loss. Their total market cap dropped to Rs 2463,139 crore.