A wide swathe of business houses has enough reason to smile. The current market rally has propelled their stocks to 52-week highs.

At the top of the list is the Tata group, whose 19 companies are at 52-week highs in July.

While Tata Steel retracted after touching an intra-day high of Rs 211.40 on July 29, among others, Tata Engineering -- to be renamed Tata Motors -- peaked at Rs 232.85 on July 28.

Tata Metaliks hit an all-time high at Rs 61.90 and Trent went up to Rs 210, Tata Investment to Rs 143, Tata Infomedia to Rs 166.70, Indian Hotels to Rs 284, and Tata Sponge to Rs 62.

Eight companies of the Murugappa group; seven companies each from the K K Birla, Kalyani and O P Jindal groups; six companies each from the B K Birla, R P Goenka, G P Goenka and the Aditya Vikram Birla group touched 52-week highs on various days in July.

As many as 1,079 stocks touched their new 52-week highs in July 2003, of which 110 were from the A group, 448 from the B1 group, 454 from the B group and 67 from the Z group. Of these 1,079 scrips, 503 were at their 2-year highs while another 161 stocks hit their respective all-time highs.

Going by the industry classifications, 123 companies were from the textiles sector, 89 from pharmaceuticals, 57 were non-banking finance companies, 41 from chemicals, 34 from engineering, 29 from information technology, 27 diversified and 26 were banks.

The stocks that reached their all-time peaks include Automotive Axles, Bhansali Engg, Bharat Forge, City Union Bank, Hindustan Zinc, ING Vysya Bank, Lupin, Motherson Sumi, Pantaloon Retail, State Bank of India, State Bank of Mysore, State Bank of Travancore, Swaraj Mazda, UTI Bank and Wendt.