No cheers for new Sensex life-high

At 36,740.07, the S&P BSE Sensex scaled its new life-high on July 13. The 30-stock index took 114 trading days to breach its previous all-time high of 36,443.98 points, touched on January 29 this year.

While the market would want to celebrate the new high point, there are hardly any reasons to cheer for this 0.81% increase. One could still feel happy if one is comfortable with concentration among the stocks, which took the Sensex to its new high.

Yes, concentration. If one were to look at the point-to-point change in market capitalisation of the 30 Sensex stocks from January 29 to July 12, 12 stocks saw a positive change in the market value, ranging from 0.6% to 24.9% in rupee terms. The remaining 18 stocks witnessed a decline in the rupee market capitalisation, which ranged between a negative 2.9% to 38.8%.

A similar comparison in dollar terms throws an even dismal performance. Just nine of the 30 stocks show a dollar market capitalisation growth between 0.75% to 15.7%, while the remaining 22 stocks saw the dollar market capitalisation a decline between negative 2.3% to 43.3%.

However, the noteworthy fact about the new life-high of the Sensex is that Reliance Industries saw its market capitalisation cross the $100 billion mark to close at $99.9 billion on July 12. Tata Consultancy Services, which achieved the $100 billion market capitalisation feat earlier this year, closed the day with a market value of $110 billion.