Investors lost over Rs 2,70,000 crore after the stock market continued its downward journey for the second straight day with a total loss of over 1,000 points in the benchmark Sensex, while the country’s 30 largest blue chip firms accounted for nearly half the loss.

The total wealth, measured in terms of market capitalisation of all the listed companies, on Thursday, dropped to 56,01,150 crore, as against 58,71,400 crore before the freefall began on the bourses on Wednesday.

While the loss stood at about Rs 1,01,000 crore on Wednesday, about Rs 1,70,000 crore was further eroded from the investors’ kitty in Thursday’s plunge when the Sensex recorded its second biggest single-day loss of 717 points.

Partial recovery

Earlier, on Wednesday, the Sensex had dropped by over 300 points, although it recovered a significant part of its intra-day loss of over 1,700 points.

The 30-Sensex companies together have lost close to Rs 1,40,000 crore in past two days, including a loss of about Rs 90,000 crore in Thursday’s fall.

The ten most valued companies together lost close to Rs 84,000 crore of market value, led by RIL’s loss of over Rs 32,000 crore.

Thursday’s plunge also saw the market cap of Bharti Airtel plunging below Rs two trillion mark. It’s market value dropped to Rs 1,93,452 crore from over Rs 2,09,500 crore on Wednesday. State-owned MMTC and National Mineral Development Corp were the only two companies in the top ten list in terms of market capitalisation that gained market value of close to Rs 6,000 crore each on Thursday.

Huge losses

ONGC lost about Rs 7,800 crore, Bharti Airtel lost over Rs 16,000 crore, NTPC shed over Rs 10,000 crore, DLF about Rs 9,000 crore, while Reliance Communications and BHEL saw a drop of about Rs 5,000 crore each.