Investors become poorer by ₹4.12 lakh crore during morning trade as markets slump

Investors' wealth plummeted by ₹4.12 lakh crore during the morning trade on Friday as markets faced a massive correction tracking a weak trend in global peers and fresh foreign fund outflows.

Falling for the third day running, the 30-share BSE Sensex tanked 896.7 points or 1.09% to 81,304.46 during the morning trade.

The BSE benchmark had hit its all-time high of 82,725.28 on Monday.

Following the weak trend in equities, the market capitalisation of BSE-listed firms slumped ₹4,12,152.83 crore to ₹4,61,56,748.42 crore (USD 5.50 trillion) during the morning trade.

Among the 30 Sensex firms, State Bank of India, HCL Technologies, Reliance Industries, Adani Ports, Larsen & Toubro and Mahindra & Mahindra were the biggest laggards.

Bajaj Finance, Asian Paints and Hindustan Unilever were the gainers.

In Asian markets, Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai and Hong Kong were trading lower.

The US markets ended mostly in the negative territory on Thursday.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) offloaded equities worth ₹688.69 crore on Thursday after days of remaining buyers, according to exchange data.

Meanwhile, global oil benchmark Brent crude traded 0.15% higher to USD 72.81 a barrel.

"The near-term trend in the market will be influenced by the US jobs data to be published tonight," said V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Financial Services.

The BSE benchmark on Thursday failed to hold on to initial gains and declined 151.48 points or 0.18% to settle at 82,201.16.