New Delhi, Aug 11: The upsurge in capital market which hit a 29-month high last week seems to have bypassed the IT sector where top 25 companies including Wipro, Infosys, HCL and NIIT, lost almost Rs 66,500 crore in market value since March 8, 2001. The upward movements in Sensex to 3,884 was mainly due to gain in old economy majors like ONGC with a m-cap of over Rs 75,000 crore and Reliance with over Rs 50,000 crore.

In contrast, the IT, Communication and Entertainment (ICE) companies eroded almost 50 per cent of their market capitalisation from Rs 1,35,740 crore when the Sensex was at its previous high in march first week in 2001, to Rs 69,243 crore in the last week when the BSE Index touched a new high.

Most of the K-10 stocks, which had once been the fancy of tainted broker Ketan Parekh, eroded by 80 per cent in m-cap, CMIE data reveals.

ICE meltdown was reflected from the m-caps of Wipro, Infosys, HCL, NIIT, HFCL, Sterlite Optical, Hughes Software, SSI Ltd, Silverline Technologies and Satyam Computers.
Wipro's m-cap came down by Rs 29,234 crore (57 per cent) to end last week with Rs 22,351 crore in the last 28 months, while Infosys lost Rs 10,268 crore (30.4 per cent) of its value to finish with Rs 23,563 crore.

M-cap of HCL eroded by 62 per cent to Rs 5,146 crore while that of NIIT was down by 88 per cent to Rs 471 crore.

In telecom sector, HFCL witnessed further erosion in market value by 75 per cent to Rs 780 crore while Sterlite Optical shed 86 per cent to Rs 325 crore after 29 months.
Media major Zee Telefilms lost marginally by 11 per cent with a m-cap of Rs 4,752 crore while Soundcraft Industries shed 84 per cent to Rs 127 crore.

Bureau Report