The tense situation between india and pakistan, following the collapse in the Pakistani stock markets, has created a situation where it is necessary to compare the strength of the stock markets of the two countries. On Thursday, May 8, trading was temporarily suspended due to a sharp fall in the pakistan stock market. In terms of total market capitalization and the size of the largest listed companies, india is far ahead of Pakistan. While India's total market capitalization is around $4.24 trillion, Pakistan's market capitalization is just $44.06 billion. This huge difference clearly shows the difference in the economic strength of the two countries. And it is clear that even the largest companies of pakistan do not reach the level of the top 250 companies of India.
The market capitalization of Pakistan’s largest listed company, oil & Gas Development Company Limited, is just $2.74 billion, according to Bloomberg data. In india, this valuable company would rank around 280th. What’s surprising is that there are only nine companies in pakistan with a market capitalization of more than $1 billion. In contrast, the number of companies with a market capitalization of more than $1 billion in india exceeds 550. Moreover, the top five largest listed companies in india, reliance Industries, hdfc bank, Tata Consultancy services (TCS), Bharti Airtel, and ICICI bank, each have a market capitalization of more than $100 billion. Even the smallest company on the Sensex list, IndusInd bank, has a market capitalization of around $7.5 billion. In pakistan, when it comes to the 15th largest company, its valuations start to decrease to around $500 million.
 
Billion-dollar profits of indian companies: According to Bloomberg data, nearly 20 indian companies have posted net profits of more than $1 billion each in the last 12 months. Moreover, companies like bank of india-Latest Updates, Photos, Videos are a click away, CLICK NOW'>state bank of india, hdfc bank, and reliance Industries have posted net profits of $8 to $10 billion each during the same period. In contrast, the oil and Gas Development Corporation has posted a net profit of only about $740 million in the latest fiscal. The average net profit of Pakistan's top 20 largest listed companies is only about $200 million, a tiny fraction of the average net profit of $3.4 billion for the top 20 indian companies.

Market performance and stability: In terms of stock market movements, the indian market is seen as more stable than Pakistan's. On Wednesday, the first trading day after india launched Operation Sindoor, Pakistan's main index, the KSE-100, plunged by over 6 per cent at one point. However, it recovered some of the losses and ended down three per cent. But on Thursday, trading was briefly halted as the index plunged over 7 per cent or over 7,300 points on the pakistan Stock Exchange. On the other hand, the Sensex ended with a loss of around 100 points on Wednesday, although the index fell over 400 points after a volatile trading session on Thursday. While the past two years have been good for pakistan in terms of historical returns, a long-term comparison clearly shows that india is a fundamentally and structurally better investment option. The Sensex has gained 3.40 per cent so far this year. At the same time, the KSE-100 has gained a little less than six per cent. 2024 was a great year for the KSE-100, with the Sensex gaining only 8.17 percent, while the KSE-100 rose more than 84 percent.

The same trend continued in 2023. However, the situation was reversed in previous years. The indian stock market outperformed the Pakistani stock market every year from 2017 to 2022. 

India vs China: The Chinese stock market is much larger than India's. China's market capitalization is $10.25 trillion; however, the size of its largest companies remains comparable to indian companies. It is worth noting that only four Chinese companies - Industrial and Commercial bank of china, Guizhou Moutai, Agricultural bank of china, and china Mobile - are larger than India's largest company, reliance Industries. This comparison is based on economic strength and stock market valuations.
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Sowmiya Sriram

11/05/2025 08:58 PM