Coronavirus outbreak has drastically slowed down the economies of the affected nations. The BSE Sensex and Nifty cracked over 9% each to fresh 52-week lows as index heavy-weights witnessed selling pressure. The Indian equity markets have slipped down causing severe losses to Indian billionaires.
Mukesh Ambani, the richest Indian has become poorer by approximately 8% in just one day. On Wednesday, his net worth as per Forbes was $42 billion. And today, as of 2:50 pm his net worth dropped down to $38.64 billion causing him a loss of nearly $3.4 billion or Rs 24,000 crore.
Similarly, Radhakishan Damani, the founder of Avenue Supermart, which runs DMart retail chain, and the second-richest Indian, saw his net worth dropping by nearly 6% to $ 14.5 billion. In a single day, he suffered a loss of Rs 6,400 crore.
Shiv Nadar, the founder of HCL Tech lost nearly $800 million of net worth as the shares of HCL Tech dropped by 7.71%. Uday Kotak, the chairman of Kotak group, witnessed nearly $900 million or 7% fall in his net worth to $12.5 billion.
Gaurav Dua, head of capital market strategy at Sharekhan told a news agency, “The very fact that the WHO (World Health Organization) has called the outbreak a pandemic is a cause for worry for investors, especially since this comes against a backdrop of a slowing Indian economy.”
Indian investors have lost nearly Rs 7 lakh crore of wealth on Thursday. The market condition nowadays reminds us of the recession in 2008 that slowed down the world economy.