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India joins $400B m-cap
By siliconindia
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Thursday, 10 March 2005, 20:30 IST
MUMBAI: As Indian stock markets wait for a tryst with destiny to reach the magical 7000 mark, India became the fourth country in Asia to have a market capitalization of over $400 billion.
Only Hong Kong with a market cap of $839 billion, Taiwan $ 498 billion and China with $448 billion are ahead of India.
By the end of 2004, Indias market cap was about $300 billion and in just four months the market capitalization reached $400 billion. The Indian markets have been on roll for the last two weeks after Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram presented the budget and the Bombay Stock Exchange has been on a dream run with hectic buying activities.
In the last four months, the market cap of Sensex stocks had gained around 20%, compared to a 42% rise in the market-cap of mid-cap index stocks. In the last 18 months, Indian companies have contributed $220 billion to the investors wealth, more than Korean or Taiwanese companies did.
The increase is being attributed to the increased inflow by the foreign institutional investors (FIIs). Since September 1, 2003, FIIs have invested over $15.7 billion in the market. Though India's $2.6 billion inflow can be compared to the $2.2 billion and $2.1 billion invested in Korea and Thailand respectively, however Taiwan is ahead with $4.7 billion invested