Loss of 100 crore in every five minutes

After an enormous loss of over Rs 40 Lakh crore in 2008, the stock market has continued its free-fall and investors have lost an average of Rs 100 crore in every five minutes of trade in first two months of 2009.

Cumulatively, the total investors’ wealth has got eroded by about Rs 2.82 Lakh crore so far this year.

However, the meltdown has been less severe so far this year, as compared to 2008 when an average of Rs 100 crore was wiped off in just two minutes of trade.

During 2008, the total investors’ wealth, measured in terms of cumulative market capitalization of all the listed companies, plummeted from nearly Rs 72 Lakh crore to about Rs 31 Lakh crore.

So far in 2009, the investors’ wealth on Indian bourses has gone further down to about Rs 28.60 Lakh crore, as per the current market value of the listed companies.

There were a total of 246 trading sessions in 2008, while so far in 2009 trades have been conducted on 39 days.

In terms of Sensex movement, the benchmark index has lost more than 750 points in first two months of 2009. During the entire 2008, the Sensex plummeted by more than 10,000 points.