India emerges fourth largest stock market
Edges Hong Kong with $4.4 tn market capitalisation
Mumbai: India became the fourth largest stock market in the world after the US, Japan and China. On Jan. 22, the Indian stock market’s capitalisation surged ahead of Hong Kong market as the latter witnessed a steep fall and off late it seen fewer new listings.
As per reports Hong Kong’s market capitalization dropped to $4.29 trillion on Monday, while India's market cap stood at $4.33 trillion. India’s market cap had crossed $4.5 trillion recently but has been falling since then on profit taking.
Meanwhile, the market fell on Tuesday for the fifth consecutive session as it opened after the long weekend. Sensex and nifty-50 fell close to 1.5 per cent on profit booking after a mixed set of earnings so far and rating agency Fitch’s caution for Indian and South Asian economies of prolonged disruptions in 2024.
BSE’s market capitalisation on Tuesday fell to over Rs 365.97 lakh cr ($4.4 trillion) as investors suffered notional loss of over '8.43 lakh crore, as BSE’s market cap fell from over Rs 374.40 lakh cr. Equity inv-estors became poorer by Rs 8.50 lakh cr on Tuesday.
Foreign portfolio invest-ors were net sellers by Rs 3,115.39 cr while domestic institutions were net buyers by Rs 214.40 cr only.
The Sensex closed 1,053.1 points or 1.47 per cent lower at 70,370.55 while Nifty-50 fell 333 points or 1.54 per cent to 21,238.8.
“Domestic equities open-ed positive but soon drifted into red witnessing huge sell-off amid profit booking. Pharma was the only sector which gained. Rest all sectors witnessed selling pressure with med-ia being biggest loser on the back of Zee-Sony deal being called off,” said Siddhartha Khemka, head - Retail Research, Motilal Oswal Financial Services.
“Despite positive mome-ntum in the global market, selling pressure continued in the domestic markets mainly on back of reports of worrying FPIs, as some unconfirmed reports said that Sebi has drafted regulations to tighten ultimate beneficial ownership nor-ms for overseas inve-stors,” said an analyst.