Starting new year on an upbeat note, billionaire Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries today regained its position of the country's most-valued company and pushed Tata group firm TCS to the second slot.
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) had dethroned RIL from the pole position in market-valuation charts on December 30, the last trading session of 2011, but its leadership position proved to be short-lived and it slipped to the second position in today's trading session— the first of 2012.
At the end of today's trade, RIL commanded a market value of Rs 2,31,487 crore, higher than TCS' Rs 2,30,609 crore.
TCS shares today gained 1.5% to close at Rs 1,178.25, but the RIL stock registered a smarter gain of 2.03% to close at Rs 706.95. Both the stock outperformed the market barometer Sensex, which gained 0.4% today.
RIL has been the country's most valued firm for a long time, but it slipped to the second position thrice in 2011, allthough briefly on all the three occasions.
Last month, RIL also lost out to another IT major Infosys as the country's most influential stock, measured in terms of weightage on the barometer Sensex.
Although RIL has managed to regain this position on a few occasions, it remained the second most influential stock after Infosys at the end of today's trade.
The figures for both the market valuation and the Sensex weightage change on a daily basis in the stock market, as per the changes in the share prices.
While market valuation of a company is determined on the basis of cumulative value of all its listed shares, the Sensex weigthage is derived from the value of free-float shares or the shares owned by non-promoter stakeholders that are freely available for trade in the market.
At the end of today's trade, Infosys carried a Sensex weightage of 10.76%, as against RIL's 10.01%. A higher weightage means a larger impact on the movement of Sensex, whose value changes as per the change in share prices of its 30 constituent stocks.
Infosys shares today rose 1.44% to Rs 2804.85. In terms of full market value, Infosys is ranked fifth after RIL, TCS, ONGC and Coal India.
Earlier on August 17, 2011 Coal India had toppled RIL as the country's most valued company, while the polyster-to-energy-retail conglomerate had slipped to third position below ONGC two days later on August 19, 2011.
About a week later, RIL regained its top slot on August 23, while CIL slipped to third position. But, ONGC rose to the top slot on August 26, 2011, pushing RIL to second position.
A few days later, RIL again rose to the pole position on August 29, 2011 and had mostly remained there, till it lost out to TCS, part of salt-to-software conglomerate Tata group.