200 billion dollar firms of India

According to an article in Economic Times, the number of firms having market capitalization of more than 1 billion dollar have crossed the two hundred mark in November 2007. Last year in April 2006 India had 100 firms with billion dollar plus market capitalization. The significant increase in the number of billion dollar firms is due to the bull run in the Indian stock market. The Sensex, 30 stock index, of Bombay Stock Exchange(BSE) of India has grown by more than 50% in a period of last one year. FII's contribution in this bull run is dominant like any other emerging markets. With a high growth rate of 9% the India Inc. is attracting lot of investment esp. in the stock markets.

Reliance Industries Ltd., India's largest listed company, has market capitalization of 3804 billion INR ($96.3 billion) as of 22 Nov, 2007. There is still a long way to go to catchup with the global giants.

Read more on this at Economic Times.

Sensex crosses 20k and Ambani crosses Gates

Mukesh Ambani, of Reliance Industries Ltd, became the world's richest man on 29 October, overtaking Microsoft's Bill Gates and Mexican Carlos Slim Helu. The feat was achieved because of the strong rally which the stocks of Ambani's Reliance Industries has been witnessing since last month. The Reliance Industries Ltd stock has risen more than 60% in past few months and has helped Bombay Stock Exchange's 50-stock index Sensex to cross 20,000 points and take Mukesh Ambani's net worth to $63.2billion just piping Helu and Gates who are a little behind at around $62.29bn each. Ambani holds more than 50% shares of Reliance Industries.

Estimates of the wealth of the top five richest person of the world are:

Mukesh Ambani - $63.2 billion
Carlos Slim Helu - $62.3 billion
Bill Gates - $62.3 billion
Warren Buffett - $55.9 billion
Lakshmi Mittal - $50.9 billion