Information Madness

More than five hundred billion dollars have been wiped off the stock market wealth so far this year with the share prices hitting a new low on every piece of bad news about the global economic conditions and various financial concerns.

The situation is even worse for investors abroad while the losses are being incurred by investors across the board. An average investor abroad has been reported to have lost about Rs.35 on an investment of Rs.100 made at the beginning of this year as against a loss of Rs.24 on a similar investment by domestic investors.

The market suggests that the losses have become severe for the foreign investors in India because of the falling Rupee as well as the sinking share prices.
Together, all classes of investors have seen the value of their share holdings in Indian companies go down by about USD 555 billion since the beginning of 2011.The total investor wealth, measured in terms of the value of all listed shares on the leading bourse BSE, has sunk by about thirty five per cent from close to USD 1.6 trillion at the start of 2011 to just over USD one trillion or at USD 1.05 trillion as of now. In rupee terms, the loss has been about 24 per cent or close to Rs 17 lakh Crore.

However, the losses have been over ten percentage points higher for foreign investors and have fallen by over thirty five per cent in the same period.