Billionaires, commoners melt alike in meltdown

The value of his stake in the three companies, Reliance Industries, Reliance Industrial Infrastructure and Reliance Petroleum, was down from Rs 2,14,683.29 crore to Rs 2,09,500.36 crore.

It was not just corporate biggies who saw their wealth eroding. Small investors, who had rushed to trade stocks during the bull run, saw their already-battered portfolio sinking further.

The value of fashion designer Makarand Kulkarni's portfolio came down from Rs 6 lakh to around Rs 4.8 lakh. In January, when stocks were at their peak, his portfolio's value was Rs 20 lakh.

Thirty-one-year-old Kulkarni had started investing directly in the stock market early last year and was trading Rs 15 lakh worth of shares in less than six months.

"The money made from trading was my second source of income," said Kulkarni. He claimed to have made Rs 3,000 a week on an average by just trading HDIL stocks last year. It comprises over 50 per cent of his portfolio.

The five-year bull run in the country's equity market has created many investors like Kulkarni, who lost in the slide this year. Even if an investor had purchased least volatile shares, of the 30 most traded companies on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), his wealth would be down by 39 per cent since January 10.

However, there is little reason why investors like Kulkarni would not be lured by the stock market. In the first year of its upward journey, the Sensex gave returns of 91 per cent. It went up by 2,695.3 points from 2959.79 in April 2003 to 5655.09 a year later.

As Kulkarni kept trading, his risk appetite kept increasing, to a point of recklessness. His favourite stock dipped to Rs 337.95, from its peak of Rs 1,432 (a 52-week high)