TCS overtakes RIL as country's most valued firm

As the share price of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) fell by 2.81% to a multi-year low of Rs 692.90 today, the company's market valuation slipped to Rs 2,26,886 crore -- a shade below Tata Consultancy Services' Rs 2,27,282 crore.

Consequently, RIL lost its long-held position (except for a brief period in August this year) of the country's largest company in terms of market valuation. In comparison to RIL's performance, TCS shares today ended with a modest loss of 0.35% at Rs 1161.25 and were earlier seen trading with a modest gain for most part of the trading session -- incidentally the last for 2011.

The performance of TCS stock was also a shade better than the barometer index Sensex, which fell by 0.57%. Earlier this month, RIL had also lost its position of the most influential stock in the Indian market to another IT giant Infosys.

RIL had been briefly dethroned from its position of the country's most valued company twice in August -- first to Coal India Ltd and then to another state-run firm ONGC. RIL's market value slipped below that of TCS for the first time at around 2 pm this afternoon and the country's biggest software exporter managed to retain the lead at the end of the trading session.

RIL has been among the best stocks to own in India for many years, but it continued to under-perform the overall market for most part of 2011, which has as such turned out to be a bad year for the stocks.