BSE Market Cap Drops Below Rs 400 Lakh Crore

New Delhi, Feb 18 (PTI) The market capitalisation of BSE-listed firms slipped below the Rs 400 lakh crore-mark on Tuesday as relentless foreign fund outflows and lower-than-expected corporate earnings continued to dent investors' sentiment.

After a day's breather, the 30-share BSE benchmark Sensex ended 29.47 points or 0.04 per cent lower at 75,967.39. Intra-day, the Sensex dropped 465.85 points or 0.61 per cent to 75,531.01.

On Tuesday, the market capitalisation of BSE-listed firms eroded by Rs 2,01,032.5 crore to Rs 3,98,31,067.30 crore (USD 4.58 trillion).

The market cap of BSE-listed companies had gone past the coveted Rs 400 lakh crore mark in April last year.

From its all-time high level of 85,978.25 hit on September 27, last year, the BSE benchmark has tanked 10,010.86 points or 11.64 per cent.

"Markets ended a tad lower in a sluggish trading session as caution prevailed amongst the investors amid rising foreign fund outflows and falling rupee. Gains in IT, power, oil & gas, and metal stocks helped the market almost erase all its losses. However, expensive valuation concerns and dismal earnings season continued to plunder smallcap stocks," Prashanth Tapse, Senior VP (Research), Mehta Equities Ltd, said.

From the Sensex pack on Tuesday, IndusInd Bank, Mahindra & Mahindra, Hindustan Unilever, UltraTech Cement, Tata Consultancy Services, ITC, Tata Motors and Sun Pharma were among the biggest laggards.

NTPC, Tech Mahindra, Zomato, Power Grid, Kotak Mahindra Bank and HCL Tech were among the gainers.

"On Tuesday, the Indian blue-chip equity indices, Sensex and Nifty-50, closed with a slight decline, primarily due to a slowdown in earnings and concerns over ongoing foreign selling, which affected market sentiment," Ameya Ranadive, Chartered Market Technician, CFTe, Sr Technical Analyst, StoxBox, said.

The BSE smallcap gauge dropped 1.71 per cent and midcap index declined 0.19 per cent.

Among BSE sectoral indices, industrials dropped 1.51 per cent, consumer durables (1.19 per cent), telecommunication (1.06 per cent), capital goods (0.91 per cent), auto (0.65 per cent) and consumer discretionary (0.55 per cent).

BSE utilities climbed 1.03 per cent, BSE Focused IT (0.86 per cent), oil & gas (0.70 per cent), power (0.59 per cent), IT (0.55 per cent) and energy (0.38 per cent).

As many as 2,918 stocks declined while 1,032 advanced and 114 remained unchanged on the BSE.