Reliance Industries (RIL) is not just India’s most valuable company, but also the most important from the stock market’s point of view. With its price more than doubling since its March lows, the stock has cemented its position on the benchmark Sensex and Nifty, holding the biggest weight. It accounts for nearly 15 per cent of the Sensex’s weight and 13 per cent of the Nifty. In early March, it’s weight in the Sensex and the Nifty was just 9.2 per cent and 8.1 per cent, respectively.
Though RIL has been India’s most valuable for some time now, it didn’t have the biggest weighting. This is because both the Sensex and Nifty calculate a stock’s weight based on free-float market capitalisation (m-cap) — it excludes shares owned by promoters or those under lock-in.
