Interestingly, the country’s 30 blue-chip companies, which constitute the market’s benchmark Sensex, account for nearly the entire loss.

According to the latest data available with the Bombay Stock Exchange, the total market capitalisation of all the companies listed there currently stands at Rs 57,53,230 crore. This represents a loss of Rs 4,16,755 crore from Rs 71,69,985 crore, the level it stood at as of December 31, 2007.

In the US currency, the loss amounts to about $110 billion, bringing the total market cap to close to $1.7 trillion.
While the market traded on a relatively stronger note during the first few days of the year, the latter half of January saw the stocks plummeting, tracking the weak worldwide cues. The Sensex rose by close to 1,000 points in the first 10 days to reach a life-time high of 21,206.77 points on January 10, but battering on an almost daily basis since then has pushed it to below the 18,000-level.

As against a closing of 20,286.99 points on December 31, the Sensex settled at 17,464.89 points on Friday.
The total market capitalisation of 30 Sensex companies currently stands at Rs 24,45,249 crore, according to BSE data, down from Rs 28,61,341 crore as of December 31. This represents a loss of Rs 4,16,092 crore for the Sensex companies so far in 2008 — representing about 99.8 per cent of the across-market loss.

Among the 30 constituents of the Sensex, only the public sector lending giant State Bank of India has managed to register an increase (about Rs 13,500 crore) in its market value.

The largest loss of about Rs 66,800 crore has been seen by the country’s most valued firm Reliance Industries, whose market value dipped to Rs 3,52,000 crore from close to Rs 4,19,000 crore at the end of 2007.

Major losers

Other major losers in absolute value terms are ONGC (close to Rs 51,200 crore), NTPC (Rs 38,500 crore), DLF (Rs 44,000 crore), while Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, BHEL, TCS, Wipro, Infosys and Tata Steel each have also lost between Rs 12,000 crore to Rs 22,000 crore.

Outside the Sensex pack, two prominent losers are state-run companies MMTC Ltd and NMDC Ltd, which have lost about Rs 35,600 crore and Rs 39,500 crore respectively so far.

The Sensex has suffered a loss of over 2,200 points since the beginning of this year, representing a decline of about 14 per cent during the period.