New year consolidates India’s $ 1 trillion market cap status

The new year seems to have begun on a good note for India Inc in the stock market, as just 10 days of trading in 2012 has helped them recover one-fifth of the total loss suffered in its valuation during entire 2011. India is once again a $ 1 trillion market cap country.

According to stock exchange data, the cumulative market value of all listed firms in the country stands at Rs 57,40,194 crore currently, as against Rs 53,48,645 crore at the end of 2011.

The appreciation in the rupee and rally in mid-cap shares has helped India stay comfortably over $ 1 trillion market cap status. 

The rupee has appreciated to 51.52 against the US dollar from well below 54. 

Mid-cap and small-cap shares have surged over the past two weeks. While benchmark BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty gained about 5 per cent, BSE Mid-cap index rose 8.7 per cent while BSE small cap index gained 11 per cent.

FII inflows in the first two weeks of 2012 are higher than the whole of 2011 at $ 476m. They pulled out $ 358 m from equities in 2011.

It is the large corporate houses like Ambanis and financial conglomerates like ICICI and HDFC groups that are leading gains in stock markets, after taking a huge beating in the previous year.

All the listed companies together lost nearly Rs 19.5 lakh crore worth valuation in 2011, when the stock market tanked by nearly 25 per cent amid global headwinds.

While markets have appreciated by only about 5 per cent in the 10 days of trading so far in 2012, the total gain in valuation for this period stands at about Rs 4 lakh crore.

Out of this, 10 leading business houses together account for nearly one-fourth or over Rs one lakh crore of the gain.

The market benchmark Sensex has gained nearly 700 points or about 5 per cent so far in 2012, after falling by more than 5,000 points during 2011.

The stock market data shows that market valuations have improved significantly for almost all the large corporate houses so far in 2012, barring a few like Bharti group, Infosys and HUL, and the experts are optimistic about a rebound on these counters as well.

Among the large business houses, Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries group has gained over Rs 13,000 crore in its valuation, while Anil Ambani-led Reliance Group has seen
its market value surging by about Rs 12,500 crore.

The net gain for Tatas is comparatively lower at about Rs 8,000 crore, largely due to a sharp plunge of about Rs 15,000 crore in the value of IT giant TCS.

Otherwise, only four Tata group firms -- Tata Motors, Tata Steel, Tata Power and Titan -- have registered a gain of close to Rs 20,000 crore in their cumulative valuation.

Financial services conglomerate HDFC group has gained Rs 15,000 crore of valuation so far in 2012, while ICICI group has also added over Rs 12,000 crore to its market value.

Aditya Birla group has gained about Rs 5,000 crore, Adanis have added over Rs 9,000 crore, L&T about Rs 12,000 crore, ITC about Rs 4,000 crore and Mahindras about Rs 2,000 crore.

Vijay Mallya-led UB group, whose shares were heavily battered in 2011 mostly because of debt troubles at Kingfisher Airlines, has also gained about Rs 3,400 crore of value, which
accounts for about 20 per cent of gain.

In percentage terms, the gain is the highest for Anil Ambani Reliance group at about 25 per cent among these business houses, while groups like ICICI, L&T and Adani have
also gained over 10 per cent each.

Anil Agarwal-led Vedanta group has also gained about 10 per cent, while Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance group has added about 6 per cent to its valuation, HDFC group has gained about 8 per cent, Mahindras about 3 per cent, Birlas about five per cent and Tatas about 2 per cent.

Tatas are the country's most valued group with a total valuation of close to Rs 4,00,000 crore, while other leading corporate houses include Reliance Industries group (Rs 2,40,000 crore), HDFC Group (Rs 2,10,000 crore), Vedanta (Rs 1,70,000 crore) and ITC (Rs 1,60,000 crore).

Most of these groups had lost heavily during 2011 and the continuing weak cues from global markets and on domestic economic front, marketmen are wary of some short-term headwinds across the market.

However, experts are generally optimistic about the longer-term gains across the market, including in the shares of those groups also that have already registered smart gains in the first two weeks of 2012.