Market cap crosses Rs 70-trillion mark

Investors' wealth on the Indian bourses has crossed the Rs 70,00,000-crore milestone for the first time in history, with an average increase of over Rs 40 crore in every minute of trading during 2007.

The total wealth, measured in terms of cumulative market capitalisation (m-cap) of all the listed companies on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), has surged to a record high of Rs 70,38,538 crore ($1.7 trillion), the latest data available with the bourses show.

This marks a ten-fold surge in the total market value in just about four-and-a-half years. It stood at about Rs 7,00,000 crore in May 2003.

Investors' wealth has grown by Rs 34,14,181 crore, or about $970 billion, since the beginning of 2007. Taking into account the 249 days of trading so far this year. 
 

WEALTHY FIVE Top 5 m-cap firms in Rs trillion
Name	M-cap
RIL	4.21
ONGC	2.62
NTPC	1.99
DLF	1.81
Bharti Airtel	1.78

This means an average gain of about Rs 13,711 crore a day or about Rs 41 crore a minute. At the end of 2006, the total market capitalisation stood at Rs 36,24,357 crore ($812 billion).

During this period, the stock market's benchmark Sensex grew 46.6 per cent from 13,786.91 points on December 29, 2006. It settled at 20,206.95 points on Friday last week, while it registered a record intra-day high of 20,498.11 points on December 13.

The surge of 94.2 per cent in the market cap during 2007 is more than double the rise in the Sensex, as close to 100 new companies got listed on the bourses in the year.

The bourses saw as much as 101 IPOs during the year, including those of the country's currently fourth most valued firm DLF. he country's 30 biggest blue chips, which are a part of the Sensex, account for more than 40 per cent of the total, with a market capitalisation of Rs 28,39,703 crore.

Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries is the most valued firm with a market cap of Rs 4,21,318 crore, followed by PSU company ONGC at Rs 2,62,386 crore and NTPC at Rs 1,99,045 crore.

Other companies in the top-five list include DLF (Rs 1,81,345 crore) and Bharti Airtel (Rs 1,78,530 crore).

A total of eight PSUs, including NMDC, MMTC, Bhel, SBI, SAIL and Indian Oil, feature among the top 20 in terms of market value.