Sensex doubles in 20 months

Infosys, RIL, ICICI Bank, ITC, Larsen & Toubro and Bharti lead rally.

The 30-scrip BSE Sensex has doubled in 20 months -- from 4,505.16 on May 17, 2004 to 9,067.28 points on Friday. The Sensex had suffered an intra-day slide of 842.37 points on May 17, 2004 before recovering to some extent to end the day with a loss of 564.71 points.

Earlier, the Sensex doubled in 21 months during the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government regime. After the Pokhran nuclear blast, the Sensex had declined to 3,037.34 on June 23, 1998. It took 21 months for the Sensex to double on February 14, 2000, when it touched 6,150.69 in intra-day trading.

The major drivers of the 4,500-point Sensex rally this time were six heavyweights"" Infosys Technologies, Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank, ITC Ltd, Larsen & Toubro and Bharti Tele-Ventures. With a collective weighting of 44.6 per cent, these stocks have added 2,294 points to the BSE Sensex.

Since May 17, 2004, Rs 14,315,11 crore (Rs 14.3 trillion) have been added to market capitalisation -- Rs 11,350,69 crore through appreciation of stock prices and Rs 296,441 crore through new flotations.

Ninety-seven per cent of traded stocks registered gains from the May 17, 2004 level and 76 per cent appreciated by over 100 per cent. Overall, 136 scrips posted an appreciation of over 1,000 per cent, 1,487 stocks between 100 and 1,000 per cent and 275 between 50 and 100 per cent. Only 75 stocks out of 2,140 lost ground in the last 20 months.

The group-wise price performance shows that market prices of the A-group stocks rose 100.94 per cent in 20 months. The B1 group registered a price appreciation of 202.70 per cent, the B group 261.9 per cent, the S group 312.3 per cent, and the T, TS and Z groups recorded 173.9 per cent gains in the last 20 months.