Can Nifty50 value go to zero?
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No, it can’t.
Nifty 50 keeps changing its companies.
If one company goes broke, it gets removed and a better one takes its place.
So the index can never go to zero unless all 50 top companies in India go bankrupt which is nearly impossible.
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Theoretically yes. But 0 isn’t the absolute lowest. It can, theoretically, even go negative. Take crude oil for example, which disproved the assumption that 0 is the lowest 5 years back. Practically highly unlikely, in your lifetime at least.
Most stupidest thing I heard recently. Comparing nifty and crude oil. Lol
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Negative pricing is a thing, that can happen in any commodity or share or in anything. It’s just basic supply and demand. Before 2020, negative crude oil is unheard of and is laughed at(just like you’re doing), but it did happen. If you don’t like crude oil, take historical interest rates in Japan.
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Shares can’t take negative value.
Liability of the shareholder is limited to the extent of his contribution.
Crude went negative for different reasons. Let’s not get into details.
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Unless explicitly forbidden by law, I really think it is possible, regardless of liability of shareholders or anything else. It just needs political environment for market forces to act in such a way, that holding a share would be more costly than selling it. Note that I’m talking theoretically. For example, say, a special wealth tax of 110% p.a on individuals holding shares over a year, calculated on Apr 1 of a financial year. If a company’s estimated results won’t beat 110%, most investors may rather sell at a negative price before the end of FY rather than pay a tax of 110% of the company’s April 1 price. Tax is one way of increasing the “cost of holding”. There are probably many ways, even if this isn’t accurate.
While this is fiction and economically stupid on part of governments, truth is often stranger than fiction and governments all around the world have done way worse and way stupider things, historically. You just need to increase the “cost of holding” above the “last traded price” one way or an another, for the majority of participants, as is done with crude oil.
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Yes, if the NIFTY50 index is shut down or NSE is shut down.
Though in that situation probably NIFTY50 still wouldn’t go to zero at last price but just stop existing.
If you are thinking that the top 50 companies in India value goes to zero, that might probably happen if the entire financial system crashes ( globally ).
Then probably the price of NIFTY 50 won’t be our concern.
But still I imagine most companies will be holding a ton of physical assets like Land, commodity - scrap etc.
So even then I believe the companies will not go to zero in value.
But do we have an exchange still active tracking the index ?
Interesting to consider what happens to companies that hold a lot of gold.
Eg - Mannapuram Finance supposedly holds 56 tonnes of gold on it’s book.
Has Gold lost value in this ( imaginary ) situation ?
Or with the collapse of financial system Gold has touched astronomical prices.
Good thought exercise.
In this ( imaginary ) scenario I would probably buy a ton of weapons and go live in the mountains.
Trading NIFTY50 would be least of my concerns.
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Of the examples given, I think the onion one could be replicated in stock market. Gather up some whales, buy majority stock in company, short the companies’ future, watch for some bad news(or create one), sell majority shares below 0. Need to bypass some regulations and need exchange trading support for negative pricing, but probably the easiest way a stock can go below 0, without any regulations.
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What a difference does this make, assume it can go to zero what are u going to abt it wait until it happens to buy pointless question
Crude went negative because of physical delivery plus no storage left.
No — shares of a publicly traded company cannot go negative.
Worst case, the stock goes to zero and becomes worthless. You do not get paid to take shares.
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@neha1101 I don’t get it. If hold 80% majority stock in say SUZLON and government makes a law that I have to pay wealth tax and according to them, it comes to around 100 per share on it, if I don’t sell and I don’t have a lot of buyers, what’s stopping me from selling at -10 per share? If I don’t, I’ll have pay -30 per share to the government.
I believe Nifty50 started with a base value of 1000. So can it go to 0? probably NO.
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Lots of good points by everyone here 
I will now make the case for why equities 
are better in a collapse-like situation than the other two most popular assets - debt 
and gold 
-
Debt goes to zero, specifically sovereign debt and even corporate debt denominated in a now worthless currency post hyperinflation, currency debasement and government collapse like what happened in the Weimar Republic.
-
Gold - a good hedge against the scenarios outlined in 1, but that’s exactly why a desperate government would likely seize it during crisis. Case in point, the US during the Great Depression.
-
Equities, specifically index tracking large cap - valuable when times are good, not so valuable when times are bad. If you can hold onto it during the bad times it will eventually recover.
- Collapse of Weimar Republic - 10 years to recover.
- Great Depression - 20 years to recover.
Unlike gold which just sits there, doing nothing and hoping for someone else down the road who might pay you more than you paid in the first place, equities represent fractional ownership of hard assets, businesses that produce goods, provide services, employ people and generate income.
Both equity collapse examples wiped out over 90% of value, but eventually recovered. As an added benefit, no one in power wants your “worthless” equities in a collapse 
Let’s assume the authorities impose an 80% wealth tax on stocks. Wealth tax applies only when there is wealth. If the stock is already at zero, then 80% of zero is still zero — so there’s nothing to pay.
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