The Madras Rubber Factory (MRF) turned out to be the most expensive Indian stock on Wednesday touching the Rs 1.5-lakh mark in afternoon trade.
Shares of MRF extended gains for the sixth trading session in a row on the bourses. Soon after reaching the landmark, the counter, however, pared gains, and by 2 pm, the stock was trading at Rs 1,37,711, up 0.8% from the previous close on the NSE. Last year, the stock had climbed over 53%, or Rs 48,000, against a 20% gain in the Nifty.
On Tuesday, the open price of MRF was Rs 1,34,800 and the closing price was Rs 1,34,284.3.
The stock had a high of Rs 1,36,386.9 and a low of Rs 1,33,801.05. The market capitalisation of MRF was Rs 57,668.92 crore.
The company posted a five-fold surge in its Q2 net profit to Rs 572 crore on-year, while it stood at Rs 124 crore in the base quarter.
Notably, despite subdued revenue growth, the stark rise in net profit can be attributed to the sharp improvement in the company’s operational performance during the quarter under review.
MRF’s revenue also grew 6.5% on-year to Rs 6,088 crore as against Rs 5,719 crore in the same quarter of the previous fiscal.
However, a high price tag doesn’t make MRF the most expensive stock in India as investors value securities on metrics like price to earnings (PE) or price to book value (PE).
In another significant development at the stock market, the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) reclaimed its position as the most-valued listed public sector undertaking, surpassing the market capitalisation of the State Bank of India.
The SBI boasts of a market value of Rs 5.63 lakh crore, while the LIC topped it with a market capitalisation (MCap) of Rs 5.64 lakh crore.