357 companies listed on the exchanges have attained a market capitalisation of over $1 billion owing to strong gains in midcap and smallcap stocks over the past three months, reports the Economic Times.

The big picture: India added 22 such companies to its tally since February this year. That month, India stood fourth on the list of countries with the highest number of companies with a market capitalization of more than $1 billion, just behind the UK's 351 companies.

  • Companies with market capitalization of over $25 billion rose to 22 as of May 31, touching an all-time high. However, there was no change in those with a $100 billion market cap - which include Reliance Industries, Tata Consultancy Services and HDFC Bank.
  • The Nifty Smallcap 100 and Nifty Midcap 100 index have risen 13% and 9% in the three months ended May, while benchmark indices remained mostly unchanged.
  • Money Control cited experts to observe that the expectations of a return to normalcy along with better-than-expected Q4 results are driving this rally, which is expected to continue.
  • The upper limit for qualifying as a mid-cap stock recently hit an all-time high of $5.4 billion, rising from $1 billion in 2013, as per Business Standard.

Of note: According to Sebi's definition, the top 100 companies by market cap are large-caps, the next 150 stocks are mid-caps, and the rest are small-caps. The increase in upper limit for mid caps indicates that the size of the 101st listed company has jumped five times in eight years, while the benchmark Sensex has risen 2.7 times.