Indian shares trading on American bourses witnessed their valuation plummet by 1.5 billion dollars in just one week, as recessionary fears and data on mounting employment losses played spoil-sport.
The 16 stocks listed on New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq collectively lost 1.49 billion dollars for the week to December 5.
However, the value of erosion of the 16 Indian stocks listed as American Depository Receipts (ADRs) were partially offset, as a handful of the companies including private sector lender ICICI Bank managed to add to their market capitalisation.
Information technology stocks, whose collective loss stood at little more than two billion dollars led the rout, with leading software exporter Wipro losing as much as 1.3 billion dollars.
Highly volatile trading sessions greeted global markets last week as heightened fear of a prolonged recession coupled with soaring job losses weighed on investor sentiment. The
gloom even overshadowed the optimism over the rate cuts by various central banks in Europe.
Moreover, the uncertainty over the fate of ailing auto majors -- General Motors, Ford Motor and Chrysler -- added to the woes.
Further, IT bellwether Infosys saw its valuation tumble by 796 million dollars, while Satyam Computer Services shed 165 million dollars and Patni Computer lost 17 million dollars.
On the other hand, banking stocks -- ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank -- together gained about 830 million dollars. While ICICI Bank added 612 million dollars to its market capitalisation, HDFC witnessed the valuation rise by 218 million dollars.