Top 30 largest Indian companies & how they performed over last year !

Let me draw you back to March 9, 2009 – From this day, the Indian stock markets started its secular up-move after witnessing a sharp correction triggered by the US sub-prime crisis followed by the global recession. During this time, the Sensex was quoting at 8160.

At this point, it would make an interesting read as to how the constituents of 30-share index have performed from a period of year and half ago to till date. Here is the list of Companies by market capitalisation as on March 9, 2009 and October 8, 2010.

Top 30 Companies by Market Capitalization

Rank	Company	Mcap (Rs Cr) (09/03/2009)	Company	Mcap (RS Cr) (08/10/2010)
1	Reliance Industries	90796	Reliance Indsutries	159247
2	Infosys	58251	Infosys	117542
3	ITC	41782	L&T	96980
4	Bharti Airtel	39049	ICICI ank	95245
5	HDFC	30362	HDFC	68775
6	L&T	29579	ITC	66083
7	ICICI Bank	29271	HDFC Bank	62425
8	HDFC Bank	28880	SBI	59124
9	ONGC	28479	Bharti Airtel	41284
10	SBI	25621	ONGC	39802
11	Hind. Unilever	23917	BHEL	35245
12	BHEL	22281	TCS	32908
13	NTPC	21830	Tata Steel	31936
14	TCS	11313	Hind. Unilever	28926
15	Tata Power	9651	Sterlite Inds.	27734
16	Grasim	9595	Tata Power	21567
17	Reliance Comm.	9554	Maruti Suzuki	21286
18	Maruti Suzuki	9400	Tata Motors	20585
19	Sun Pharma	8009	M&M	20412
20	Tata Steel	7791	Wipro	19860
21	Sterlite Ind.	6928	NTPC	18013
22	Reliance Infra.	6761	Hindalco	17809
23	M&M	6159	Jaiprakash Asso.	17529
24	Wipro	6022	Grasim	16623
25	ACC	5364	Hero Honda	15299
26	Hindalco	4319	Reliance Infra.	14945
27	Jaiprakash Asso.	4287	DLF	13865
28	Tata Motors	3867	Reliance Comm.	12255
29	DLF	3547	Sun Pharma	11124
30	Ranbaxy Labs.	2020	ACC	8242

What does the above period of comparison from March 9, 2009 to October 8, 2010 reveal? The data captured during the sharp recovery for the period under consideration indicates the changed sentiment and increased optimism among the investor community.

The March 2009 period was characterised by the highly pessimistic environment as the global economy had just started to recover from the rot. On the other hand, the latter part of the current data represents extreme optimism out of the India Growth story.

Key Highlights:

1. A closer look at market capitalisation levels reveal that the Top 2 positions have remained unchanged with Reliance Industries and Infosys Technologies still holding their positions comprehensively.
2. Tobacco-major ITC held strong at the 3^rd position during the recessionary phase. However, with the recovery in the markets, the stock has descended to a 6^th position now – as a typical underperforming defensive stock.
3. The 3^rd spot is now grabbed by ICICI Bank. The bank took conscious measures over the last year, to correct its past mistakes of over-aggressiveness, by deliberately going slow on credit growth to improve its credit quality, cost control and customer service. The bank is also concentrating on gaining higher CASA ratio and improving its pricing power.
4. Telecom major Bharti Airtel which was at the 4^th position during the recession slumped to 11^th spot on account of intense price-war among the telecom operators. The stock has emerged as one of the biggest under-performers on the bourses.
5. Engineering major L&T has advanced from 6^th position to 4^th position on account of robust order book and future earnings prospects.
6. The 5^th spot has been held tightly by the mortgage-giant HDFC over the period under consideration.
7. ADAG-company Reliance Communications has underperformed big time along with Bharti Airtel. The stock has slumped from the 17^th spot earlier to 29^th position now.
8. Tata Motors which was lagging at 28^th spot a year and half ago has now advanced to 14^th position propelled by a significant turnaround in its overseas divisions of JLR.
9. Outsourcing major TCS which stood at 14^th position during the recession just about managed to make its mark in the top 10 companies by market capitalisation.
10. Pharmaceutical major Ranbaxy Laboratories which was in the 30^th position in the Sensex list of stocks does not find itself in the Top 30 stocks by market capitalisation now.

What do you feel about the list of Top-30 Sensex companies? What kind of changes could be seen from here over next few years?