Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Equity investors' wealth zooms 1,000-times in 60 years

As India turns a senior citizen, so to say, investors in equity markets have made wealth worth crores with average market value of listed companies growing to near Rs 1,000 crore on Wednesday from less than one crore in 1947.

According to media analysis of stock markets' evolution, average market value of listed entities has multiplied more than thousand-times from about Rs 90 lakh at country's independence to a whopping Rs 980 crore at present.

The average market value would rise further to near Rs 1,600 crore if only actively-traded companies are taken into account. While there are close to 4,600 listed entities in the country, regular trading is recorded in less than 3,000 firms.

The overall investor wealth, measured in terms of the cumulative market value of all the listed firms, has expanded exponentially to about Rs 45 lakh crore from just about Rs 1,000 crore in 1947.

This massive growth in total market value is despite the number of companies listed on the bourses increasing just about four times to near 4,600 from about 1,100 at the time of independence.

Today, the stock market heavyweight include Reliance Industries, ONGC, Infosys and Wipro among others. In 1960s, the favoured scrips were Tisco, Century Mills, Bombay Dyeing, Telco, Scindia and Indian Iron.

Interestingly, the history of stock exchanges in India dates back to nearly 200 years ago with East India Company being a dominant institution in those days and business in its loan securities used to be transacted towards the close of the 18th century.

In 1830s, trading in corporate stocks started taking place in bank and cotton presses in Bombay. Though the trading list was broader in 1839, there were only half a dozen brokers recognised by banks and merchants during 1840 and 1850.
The 1850s witnessed a rapid development of commercial enterprise and brokerage business attracted more people. By 1860 the number of brokers increased to 60.

With more people showing interest in trade of cotton, jute, tea and textiles, regional exchanges were launched in cities like Ahmedabad, Calcutta and Madras.

Ahmedabad gained importance next to Bombay with respect to cotton textile industry. What cotton was to Ahmedabad and Bombay, jute was to Calcutta, where tea and coal were also in demand from investors.

In 1935, the stock market activity improved, especially in south India, which saw a rapid increase in the number of textile mills and many plantation companies were floated.

Post independence, most of the other exchanges languished till 1957, when they applied to the Centre for recognition under the Securities Contracts (Regulation) Act, 1956. Only the well established exchanges of Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, Ahmedabad, Delhi, Hyderabad and Indore, were recognised under the Act.

Thus, during early sixties there were eight recognised stock exchanges in India. The number virtually remained unchanged, for nearly the next two decades. Indian stock markets witnessed a remarkable growth after 1985 due to favouring government policies.

Bombay Stock Exchange's Sensex, which was launched in 1986, subsequently became the barometer of the Indian stock market. The index has jumped drastically over the past 3-4 years and crossed 15,000-point milestone on July 6 this year.

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