Infosys loses most-influential stock status to RIL

Infosys lost the country's most influential stock status to Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), as the shares of the IT giant fell sharply by about 13 per cent.

Based on its weightage on the Indian stock market's barometer index, Sensex, Infosys today slipped to third position after RIL and ITC.

Both RIL and ITC ended the session with around 1 per cent gains. At the end of today's trade, RIL regained the top slot in terms of Sensex weightage, which is measured by the value of a company's free-float or non-promoter shares that can be freely traded in the market, after about a month.

At present, RIL has a weightage of 9.44 per cent, followed by ITC which has a weight of 9.02 per cent. Infosys has slipped to third place and commands 8.18 per cent weight in Sensex.

At the NSE's Nifty index also, RIL surpassed Infosys with the Mukesh Ambani-led company having 7.9 per cent weight while the software bellwether had 7.22 per cent weightage.

A weak revenue guidance dealt heavy blow to Infosys stock as it ended 12.61 per cent lower at Rs 2,403.30

on the BSE. During the day, the stock dived 13 per cent to a low of Rs 2,390.10.

The fall wiped-off about Rs 19,912 crore (Rs 199.12 billion) from the company's market value.

Measured in terms of its weightage on the key indices of Indian stock market (Sensex as well as Nifty), Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) had been consistently enjoying its position as the most influential stock for many years till early December 2011.

RIL's influence slipped below Infosys on many occasions for brief periods during December 2011. The weightage of a stock changes daily as per the change in the market value of their shares.

RIL also remains bigger in terms of the overall market value, including the value of promoter shares.

The total market value of RIL stood at Rs 2,46,000 crore (Rs 2,460 billion) as on today, while Infosys commanded an m-cap of Rs 1,38,004 crore (Rs 1380.04 billion).

RIL is the country's most valued firm, followed by ONGC, Coal India, TCS and ITC in the top-five club.