The top 10 most valued firms in India had a rough holiday-shortened week. Eight of them together lost ₹1,55,671.9 crore in market value over the four sessions to Friday, October 23, 2026, according to a PTI tally carried by The Economic Times. HDFC Bank and Bajaj Finance did most of the damage. Only TCS and Larsen & Toubro ended the week richer.
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Why the top 10 most valued firms lost ground
This was not a stock-specific story so much as a market-wide one. The 30-share BSE Sensex fell 1,605.44 points, or 2.15%, over the week, and the Nifty 50 dropped 546.15 points, or 2.36%. Those percentages are the weekly falls in each index, not single-day moves.
The wider damage was bigger still. The total market capitalisation of BSE-listed companies shrank by ₹20,78,774.28 crore across the four sessions, to ₹4,51,83,393.14 crore, from ₹4,72,62,167.42 crore on October 16. Put simply, the top 10’s combined loss was a small slice of a much larger sell-off.
The losers, one by one
HDFC Bank took the heaviest hit. Its market value fell ₹55,506.95 crore to ₹10,67,121.12 crore, and the stock itself slipped 5% during the week. Bajaj Finance was next, shedding ₹34,180.51 crore to ₹5,77,146.21 crore.
Here is how the full list of decliners looked, using the figures in the PTI report:
- HDFC Bank: down ₹55,506.95 crore to ₹10,67,121.12 crore
- Bajaj Finance: down ₹34,180.51 crore to ₹5,77,146.21 crore
- Reliance Industries: down ₹27,065.08 crore to ₹16,10,372.11 crore
- LIC: down ₹21,062.24 crore to ₹4,81,142.58 crore
- Bharti Airtel: down ₹9,360.75 crore to ₹11,79,454.70 crore
- State Bank of India: down ₹4,338.46 crore to ₹8,83,384.38 crore
- Infosys: down ₹2,881.38 crore to ₹4,68,528.03 crore
- ICICI Bank: down ₹1,276.53 crore to ₹10,01,594.91 crore
We added up those eight numbers ourselves and they come to exactly ₹1,55,671.9 crore, which matches the headline total.
Notice how small the Infosys and ICICI Bank dents were. For Infosys, the week also brought its September-quarter numbers, which we covered in our Infosys Q2 results report.
TCS and L&T swim against the tide
Two names went the other way. TCS added ₹23,517.56 crore to take its value to ₹9,14,652.52 crore, while L&T gained ₹1,788.66 crore to ₹5,01,513.72 crore. In a week when the Sensex lost more than 1,600 points, that is a decent showing for both.
The pecking order hasn’t changed at the top
Reliance Industries stays India’s most valued company. Bharti Airtel is second, followed by HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, TCS, SBI, Bajaj Finance, L&T, LIC and Infosys, according to the same report, which BusinessLine also published with identical figures.
What it means for this week
Weekly market-cap tables are a scoreboard, not a forecast. Still, they show where the selling was concentrated. Last week it was in large private lenders and NBFCs, with HDFC Bank and Bajaj Finance alone accounting for a little under ₹90,000 crore of the eight-company fall. With a heavy line-up of Q2 results this week, we would watch whether banks steady first. Our week-ahead preview lays out the main events, and the Q2 results calendar lists who reports when.
Disclaimer: This article is for information and education only and is not investment advice. Please do your own research or consult a SEBI-registered adviser before making any investment decision.
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