Business Today 28-Nov-21

India’s equity markets have been on a roll over the past year. New investors have been entering the market in droves, driven by the soaring indices and the hope that despite all the Covid-19 disruptions, the economy will be able to bounce back, leading to an improvement in corporate fortunes. Between October 1, 2020, and September 30, 2021, the S&P BSE Sensex gained 21,058 points, or 55.32 per cent, indicating the kind of up-move the markets have been witnessing. Business Today’s much-awaited annual compendium of India’s most valuable companies, the BT500 ranking, comes to you against this background. And the results are in line with the rally at the bourses—the aggregate rise in market wealth of the BT500 in 2021 has been to the tune of 43.4 per cent, as…

THE LARGEST COMPANIES AT HOME AND THE WORLD OVER The top three names in the BT500 list have remained constant over the past couple of years. But how do India’s largest corporations—ranked according to their daily average market capitalisation (mcap) between the 12 months ended October 2020 and the 12 months ended September 2021—compare with the biggest, most valuable companies of the world? The 10 Largest Indian Companies by Mcap… …And the 10 Biggest Companies in the World COUNTRY CHAMPS The biggest companies by market capitalisation in a few countries OIL ON THE BOIL, GOLD SLIPS The government reduced the excise duty on petrol and diesel on the eve of Diwali, providing Indians with much-needed relief. However, crude oil prices have remained north. The price of the Indian basket of…

Over the past three decades, India has watched with envy as its powerful neighbour and bête noire China pulled further and further away on the economic front, leaving it to wistfully bemoan what could have been had it played its cards better. While the more jingoistic among us would spiritedly point out how we still had our democracy versus their oppressive autocracy, no one seriously believed there could be any comparison between how the two countries had fared relatively. China was simply way, way ahead. And while it continues to be, the events of the past few months point to a potential unravelling of the Chinese success story, the portent of which has been received at home with an expected sense of schadenfreude. Were this an isolated Chinese blunder, it would…

HE HAS SEEN IT all. Sunil Bharti Mittal is among the earliest pioneers in connecting hundreds of millions of Indians and laying the foundation for a massive digital backbone across the country. In a rare interview, the Founder and Chairman of Bharti Enterprises opens up to Business Today’s Global Business Editor Udayan Mukherjee about overcoming challenge after business challenge in his journey to emerging as one of the most successful entrepreneurs of this generation. Welcoming the recent measures to support Indian telecom service providers, the telecom czar says the next frontier for him is OneWeb—a company that aims to deliver broadband satellite internet services worldwide. Edited excerpts: UM: I often think that if you were not in telecom, you would be a boxer or a wrestler. That fighting spirit……

“INVESTING SHOULD BE more like watching paint dry or watching grass grow. If you want excitement, take $800 and go to Las Vegas” —Paul Samuelson, Nobel Prize-winning economist This widely-quoted line of the 1970 economics Nobel Laureate has been used in various market cycles, and every time it would seem the best line to describe the then market situation. Today, as we publish the much-awaited BT500—the annual ranking of India’s 500 biggest listed companies in terms of market capitalisation (average market cap from October 1, 2020, to September 30, 2021)—the backdrop would seem to challenge Samuelson’s edict. India’s stock markets have merrily hopped on to a runaway train in recent months. So much so that on an aggregate basis, the market value of the biggest 500 listed companies of India grew…

INDIA INC. and, indeed, the economy in general weathered the second wave of the pandemic much better than the first. This is reflected in the superlative returns on the domestic equity market in the 12 months ended September 30, 2021. While the benchmark BSE Sensex jumped 55 per cent during this period, the broader BSE MidCap and BSE Small-Cap indices soared 72 per cent and 89 per cent, respectively. The market sentiment, market watchers say, was boosted by hopes of a faster return to business normalcy, sustained foreign institutional investor inflows, better-than-expected financial results, the central bank’s liquidity measures such as maintaining low interest rates, as well as a series of government reforms such as the ₹100-lakh crore ‘Gati Shakti’ infrastructure spending plan. As a result, more than 91 per…