Bears erase Rs 3.58 lakh crore investor wealth in less than an hour; stock market crash continues

Bears were seen taking control of Sensex and Nifty 50 yet again on Tuesday morning as stock markets plunged after opening flat with a positive bias on Tuesday morning. With this, investors were left poorer by Rs 3.58 lakh crore in less than an hour of trading. Sensex opened at 38,200 after having closed 38,034 in the previous trading session. Soon Sensex was below the 38,000 mark. Equity markets are witnessing a sharp sell-off prompted by global cues as Europe stares at another wave of coronavirus cases which could lead to renewed lockdowns.

The market capitalization of all BSE-listed firms was at Rs 154.76 lakh crore when stock markets closed on Monday morning after tanking over 800 points. The same was down to 151.18 lakh crore, erasing Rs 3.58 lakh crore of investor wealth. This is over and above the Rs 4.23 lakh crore that investors lost in the bloodbath that the equity market saw on Monday. From the 30 constituents of the S&P BSE Sensex, only three were trading with gains that too were marginal. HDFC Bank was up 0.36% as the top Sensex gainer, along with TCS and ICICI Bank. 

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Domestic stock markets, analysts say, are reacting to news from across the globe as cases of coronavirus increase in Europe which has renewed fear of revised lockdowns that could hit the economic recovery that economies have begun to witness. Apart from that the valuations of stocks that have gained significantly now from March lows could also be a factor, analysts say. Analysts had been advising some level of profit booking at current levels. 

With equity markets plunging, the feat gauge of domestic stocks, the India VIX is now sitting above 22 levels after having slipped to below 20 a few trading sessions ago. The rising volatility hints at fear among investors of markets getting more volatile. Small and Midcap indices were even worse then the benchmarks, after having outperformed them for weeks. Nifty Smallcap 50 was down 3.83% while Nifty Midcap 100 was seen slipping 2.72%. Among sectoral Indices, Nifty Media and Nifty Realty were the worst performers.