Reliance Industries shares hit a 52-week low of Rs 1,270.60 on Tuesday, extending a losing streak to nine consecutive sessions and wiping out roughly Rs 1,29,000 crore in market capitalisation along the way.

The stock fell more than 1.5% in intraday trade, marking the latest step in a 7% decline across the nine-day run. For a company of Reliance's size, that kind of sustained selling is notable. It is one of the heaviest-weighted stocks on both the Nifty 50 and the Sensex, so its slide puts visible pressure on broader index levels and on mutual fund portfolios with large-cap exposure.

What Is Driving the Selling

The input does not specify a single trigger, but sustained multi-day declines of this nature in large-cap stocks typically reflect a combination of factors: profit-booking after a period of outperformance, sector-level concerns, or broader foreign institutional selling in Indian equities. What is clear from the price action is that buyers have not stepped in meaningfully at any point across nine sessions, which signals weak near-term demand for the stock.

Reliance Industries operates across a wide range of businesses, including oil refining and petrochemicals, retail through Reliance Retail, and telecom through Jio. A prolonged share price decline affects the group in practical ways: it raises the cost of any equity-linked fundraising, affects the market value of cross-holdings, and can weigh on sentiment around upcoming capital allocation decisions.

Why This Matters for Markets

Reliance Industries carries one of the largest weightings in Indian benchmark indices. When the stock falls sharply over multiple sessions, index-tracking funds are forced to absorb the loss passively, and active fund managers who are overweight the stock face performance pressure. The Rs 1,29,000 crore erosion in market cap is not an abstract number. It represents a direct reduction in the net asset value of funds held by millions of retail investors through systematic investment plans and direct equity holdings.

The 52-week low is also a technical signal that the market watches closely. Once a stock breaks to a fresh yearly low, it removes a prior support level and can invite further algorithmic and momentum-driven selling before stabilisation sets in.

At the current price of around Rs 1,270, Reliance shares are trading well below where they began the year, reversing gains that many long-term holders had accumulated. The scale of the wealth erosion, close to Rs 1.3 lakh crore in under two weeks, puts this among the sharper corrections the stock has seen in recent memory.

What to watch next: whether buying interest returns near the current 52-week low, any official communication from Reliance Industries on business outlook or capital plans, and whether foreign institutional flows into Indian large-caps stabilise. A bounce or a further breakdown from this level will set the near-term tone for both the stock and the indices it anchors.