Brexit knocks off Rs 1.8 trillion from Indian stock market wealth

Mumbai: Investors' wealth in stock market took a hit of nearly Rs 1.8 lakh crore today as Dalal Street felt the heat of Brexit with the benchmark Sensex plunging over 600 points -- its worst performance in over four months.

The total investor wealth, measured in terms of cumulative value of all listed stocks including that of promoters, slipped below Rs 100 lakh crore mark and ended the day with with a decline of Rs 1,77,928.15 crore at Rs 99,60,513 crore.

It stood at Rs 1,01,38,441.15 crore at the end of yesterday's trade. The dip was much higher at about Rs 4 lakh crore during the intra-day trade when the benchmark Sensex had also fallen by nearly 1,100 points before recouping some loss.

Fall in the stock market was so widespread that 23 Sensex stocks closed in the red, including Tata Motors, Tata Steel, L&T and ICICI Bank crashing by up to 7.99 per cent. At one point of time, all 30 Sensex stocks were in the red.

Among BSE sectoral indices, realty suffered the most by 3.74 percent followed by metal (3.59 percent), capital goods (3.30 percent), banking (2.69 percent), auto (2.63 percent) and IT (2.13 percent).

At the BSE, 1,868 stocks declined, while only 655 advanced and 156 remained unchanged.

"While a fall in the Indian markets was warranted and they may continue to face these headwinds, we expect them to perform better than most other emerging markets and also developed markets," said Dipen Shah, Senior Vice President and Head Private Client Group Research at Kotak Securities.

Domestic stocks recovered some losses on value-buying in pre-close session and talking-up by influential policymakers, including Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan.

After opening lower at 26,367.48, the BSE Sensex continued to slide, hit by plunging global markets, forcing the index to crack below the 26,000-mark and touch a low of 25,911.33.

However, bargain buying in key bluechips helped the index recover part of the lost ground to close the session 604.51 points or 2.24 per cent down at 26,397.71. This was still the index's weakest closing since February 11.

"Overall we feel investors need to take a measured approach and not get carried away by doomsday scenario in so far impact on Indian economy & markets are concerned. Once the dust settles down, India will be seen to be a net gainer and inflows would continue to gravitate towards Indian shores," said Ajay Bodke, CEO and Chief Portfolio Manager - PMS, Prabhudas Lilladher.