Top 5 Nifty heavyweights make investors poorer by Rs 1 lakh crore

The top five Nifty50 index constituents—Reliance Industries, Infosys, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and HDFC—eclipsed Rs 94,000 crore worth of investor wealth as they fell up to 3 per cent intraday.

Telecom-to-oil major Reliance Industries, which has the biggest sway in Nifty, was down about 2 per cent. It also hurt investors the most as the fall clipped Rs 33,000 crore from its market cap.

Infosys also dropped over 2 per cent and eroded Rs 19,000 crore, while HDFC Bank fell nearly 2 per cent to hurt investors by an equal amount. ICICI Bank’s market cap was down Rs 10,000 crore and HDFC’s Rs 13,000 crore.

Overall, the market fall made equity investors poorer by Rs 2.54 lakh crore as their wealth reflected by the total market cap of BSE-listed firms dropped to Rs 270 lakh crore intraday.

Dalal Street’s mood turned bearish after minutes of the US Fed’s December 14-15 policy meeting were released. The document suggested earlier than expected rate hikes by the US central bank—a more hawkish commentary than expected.

Monetary policymakers in the US said they not only felt that the job market was nearly at levels healthy enough that the Fed’s low rate regime was no longer required, they were also concerned over rising inflation. In fact, futures on the federal funds rate priced in a roughly 80 per cent chance of a quarter-percentage-point rate hike in the March policy review now.

The commentary gave enough ammunition to bears to hammer Indian stocks. IT stocks were down the most and Nifty IT dropped 2.12 per cent. Nifty Realty also fell 2.21 per cent, dragged by Brigade Enterprises, Phoenix Mills and DLF that dropped up to 4 per cent.