Britain's millions of private shareholders have had £48 billion wiped off the value of their investments since the credit crunch hit last summer.

Amateur investors who plunged money into familiar brands and those who clung to privatisation and demutualisation stocks were the worst hit, financial advisers say. Shrewder investors who picked less-well-known mining and oil companies prospered.

Ben Yearsley, the investment manager for Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “You've had the popular names and free shares falling, which has added up to a torrid year for private shareholders.”

Research by Capita Registrars indicates that total private shareholdings hit a peak of £209 billion in May last year. By July last year, however, they were down to £196.4 billion and at the end of last month they had shrunk to £161 billion.

Investors sold only £1 billion of shares in the year to July, which means that the decline was due almost entirely to the plunging value of their holdings rather than to their flight from the market. The slump in share prices has added to the souring of consumer confidence. Feeling poorer, asset owners are less inclined to spend. Declines in house prices have wiped a further £400 billion from personal wealth levels in Britain over the past year, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. Retail investors held only 10 per cent of the stock market at the end of last month, the lowest proportion in years.

Roger Lawson, of the UK Shareholders Association, said that it had been a poor year for small investors, particularly those who held on to free shares acquired in demutualisations. Financial stocks have been the worst affected by the credit crunch.

“Private shareholders tend to be buy-and-hold investors, whereas the big institutions have been dumping shares and short-selling, which has driven share prices down further,” Mr Lawson said. “Private investors have been left holding the baby.”

Mr Yearsley said that retail investors' taste for recognisable brands had also cost them dearly. “All the big household names have been hammered,” he said, noting that companies such as BT, Marks & Spencer and British Airways tended to be most popular with private shareholders.

Some investors, however, timed the commodities market to perfection and made a £230 million profit since last July, Capita said. The registrar said that investors bought £1.5 billion of oil, mining and gas stocks between last August and March this year. Oil and gas shares peaked in May, up 23 per cent compared with the previous July, while mining stocks soared by 57 per cent. Private shareholders dumped £1.2 billion of natural resources stocks in May, at the top of the market, and then sold a further £350 million in June.

John Roundhill, director of Capita Registrars, said that by the end of July retail investors' holdings of commodities stocks were flat on the previous July, at slightly less than £50 billion. He said: “Far too often private investors are derided for simply following market trends. Time and again our research shows this isn't true.”

Retail investors began to get nervous about an economic downturn two years ago and started selling cyclical stocks, such as banks, industrials and consumer services, according to Capita.

Times Recommends

• Toyota recalls 437,000 cars including Lexus
• Myners says bonuses are bleeding pension funds
• Japanese company faked safety reports on seats