Thanks to the steady rise in its share prices, BHEL's market capitalisation has almost doubled in about two months. The result: BHEL carries a greater weight in the sensex and has reached the number five position in terms of market capitalisation.

Post-budget the rise in BHEL scrip has been phenomenal, moving up from Rs 230.75 on February 26, 1997 (pre-budget) to the current level of Rs 423. The ranking of the company on the basis of market capitalisation has improved from 13 to 5, with the capitalisation jumping from Rs 5,647 crore to Rs 10,353 crore. The public sector giant has pushed ITC to the sixth position. Besides, the scrip's weight in the sensex has gone up from 3.41 to 5.58 per cent. Hindalco's market capitalisation rank has moved up from 14 to 11, though it has a low weight of 3.59 per cent.

The top position, however, is retained by HLL. With its price increasing from Rs 863 on February 26, 1997 to Rs 1064, the market capitalisation of the company has gone up from Rs 17,225 crore to Rs 21,242 crore and correspondingly the scrip's weight in the index has gone up from 10.4 to 11.5 per cent.

Although SBI has retained the third position, its weight in sensex has marginally come down from 7.9 to 7.8 per cent. The major losers have been Bajaj Auto and TISCO.

The former's weight in sensex has dropped from 4.31 to 3.71 per cent while the latter has not only dropped 2 notch from its 10th position its weight has come down from 4.06 to 3.5 per cent. Larsen & Toubro's weight has also fallen from 3.48 to 2.87 per cent.

Another interesting feature of the analysis is that ACC has shed some weight. Besides, the fall in share prices of all the five Tata companies in the sensex (ACC, Tata Chemicals, Tisco, Telco and Tata Power) has pulled down their weight. During the period under study, the sensex has gained 12.4 per cent, moving up from 3,365 to 3,782, while the collective market capitalisation of the index has gone up from Rs 1,65,723 crore to Rs 1,85,450 crore. On March 5, 1997 the day the sensex crossed the 4000-level post budget the market capitalisation had reached Rs 1,94,305.73 crore level.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.