Stocks in FY11: Investors gain Re 1 per minute

An average of one rupee was added to the stock market wealth of each retail investor in every minute of trade during the last fiscal -- a period that saw the total market wealth grow by over Rs 6.73 lakh crore.

However, the gains during the fiscal ended March 31 were just about one-fifth of the same during the previous fiscal -- both for the overall market and retail investors.

The total market wealth, measured in terms of the cumulative value of all listed stocks in the country, grew to Rs 68,39,082.89 crore at the end of fiscal ended March 31, 2011.

The figure stood at Rs 61,65,620.14 crore at the end of the previous fiscal, taking the total gain for the fiscal 2010-11 to Rs 6,73,462.75 crore.

However, the share of public shareholders was only about Rs 1,00,000 crore out of this gain, given an average public holding of less than 15% in listed companies. The remainder of about Rs 5,73,000 crore was shared by other shareholder classes, such as promoters.

The fiscal, beginning April 1, 2010, and ending on March 31, 2011, had a total of 255 trading days, during which trading was conducted in the stock market for a total of 99,450 minutes, given an average of 6.5 hours of trade a day.

This translates into an average gain of Re 1 for every minute of trade for public shareholders during the entire fiscal.

For the overall market, every minute of trade added Rs 6.77 crore to the value of stocks held by all classes of investors.

In percentage terms, the gains were not much for the stock market, as its benchmark indices, the Sensex and Nifty, grew by about 10% and 12%, respectively.

The gain in total market wealth, at Rs 6,73,462.75 crore, also stood at a little below 11%.

This is sharply lower in comparison to the previous fiscal ended March 31, 2010, when the market wealth had nearly doubled, with a surge of about 99%.

In value terms, the gain in market wealth during 2009-10 stood at about Rs 30,80,000 crore -- nearly five times the gain in the financial year ended yesterday.

Growth was higher than the latest fiscal in the financial years 2007-08, 2006-07, 2005-06, 2004-05, 2003-04 and 1999-2000 as well. On the other hand, losses were recorded during fiscal years 2008-09, 2002-03 and 2000-01.

The major gainers for the last fiscal included Tata Motors, TCS, Bajaj Auto, ITC, SBI, M&M, HCL Tech, HDFC and Infosys.

Furthermore, HDFC Bank, HUL, ICICI Bank, Cairn Energy, Bharti Airtel, BPCL, GAIL, PNB, Wipro and ONGC also moved higher.

On the other hand, JP Associates, Sesa Goa, RCom, SAIL, Reliance Infra, Reliance Capital, Sterlite Industries, Hero Honda, DLF, BHEL, Grasim, Reliance Power, Maruti, NTPC, Reliance Industries and Tata Steel lost value.