Having lost $5.8 billion in net worth on Monday as Reliance Industries share price crashed on the stock exchanges, Mukesh Ambani has lost the title of Asia’s richest man to Alibaba Founder Jack Ma. Reliance Industries’ share price took a beating after oil prices dipped below $30 a barrel.

According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Jack Ma’s networth is at $44.8 billion while Ambani’s continues to be India’s richest man with a fortune of $41.8 billion. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos continues to be the world’s richest man even though he lost $5.6 billion on Monday.

Global stock markets on Monday got a glimpse of the much feared ‘black swan event,’ a rarely seen extreme situation. In India, it was the biggest intraday fall for Sensex in absolute terms as it plunged 2,326.35 points in the afternoon.

Nifty, too, slipped below the 10,500-mark for the first time since December 2018. In just 36 trading days, Sensex has gone from a 52-week high of 42,273.87 on January 20 to hit a 52-week low of 35,109.18 as on March 9 — a fall of 17 per cent.

Bourses in Asia and Europe were down 5 per cent while the stock markets in the US were put on freeze for 15 minutes as the Dow Jones index crashed by 2,000 points at open. Tech-heavy Nasdaq index hit a 7 per cent lower circuit. The situation on Wall Street was reminiscent of the aftermath of 9/11 terror attacks.

Key factors for the fall

A 30 per cent crash in the global crude oil prices overnight and the continuous bad news on the coronavirus front were the two factors behind the world stock market rout, wiping off $5.8 billion from Ambani’s net worth on Monday. Ma reclaimed the top spot in Asia after losing it in mid-2018. He is back on top with a $44.5-billion fortune, about $2.6 billion more than Ambani.

Reliance Industries was the worst hit by the crude oil crash. The stock fell 13 per cent in a single trading session, the steepest fall in nearly a decade, to close at ₹1,014.

RIL’s market-cap is down from ₹10-lakh crore to ₹7-lakh crore.

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