MUMBAI (TIP): Thanks to the weakness of the rupee and the slide in the stock market for six consecutive sessions, India is on the brink of losing the elite tag of a trillion-dollar stock market. As the Indian rupee traded near its all-time low of 61.20 and the sensex was down over 150 points, BSE’s market capitalization was almost close to breaking below the $1-trillion mark.

At close, however, as the rupee recovered sharply and the sensex too rebounded from its intra-day low to close at 19,346, down just 3 points, the country’s market value ended the session at $1.03 trillion — just managing to keep its membership of the trillion-dollar market cap club intact. One of the main reasons for this slide is the sharp depreciation of the rupee in recent months. From about 54.5 to a dollar at the start of the year, the Indian currency has depreciated about 12.7% to its current level.

And since the stock market has remained almost stagnant during this period, India’s market value in dollar terms has eroded substantially, market analysts said. Led by a $20-trillion plus market value, US leads the pack of 11 countries which are currently in this elite group, Bloomberg data showed. Along with the US, Japan and UK complete the top three slots. The table, however, considers Hong Kong ($3.2 trillion) and China ($3 trillion) as separate markets. In case the two are combined, they would replace Japan from its second slot with a combined market value of $6.2 trillion.

At number 11, India is behind Australia, which has a market cap of $1.3 trillion. From the BRICS bloc, only China and India are the two countries present in this 11-nation league. The last time India’s marketcap was below the 12-figure mark was exactly four years ago, in mid-July of 2009. Since then, although the rupee has depreciated, a steady gain in the stock market ensured that India remained in the elite group.