A decade of Nifty 50 returns, in one chart
Ten years, three crashes, one pandemic — and an index that still compounded near 12% a year. The long view on Indian equities.
Arjun Nair
6 min read
Zoom out far enough and every equity market chart looks calm. The Nifty’s past decade included a taper scare, a pandemic crash of nearly 40% and two election-night whipsaws — none of which are visible in the year-end series.
The long compounding of the Nifty 50
Nifty 50 index level, year-end close
The distribution behind the average
The annual returns are where the honest story lives. “About 12% a year” is an average almost never delivered in any single year; the actual sequence lurches between near-zero and near-30.
The same decade, year by year
Nifty 50 annual return, %
The average return is a destination. No single year is obliged to take you there directly.
The structural change beneath the index is domestic ownership. Monthly SIP flows now provide a bid that did not exist a decade ago, which has visibly dampened the drawdowns that foreign outflows used to cause.
Written by
Arjun Nair
Arjun writes on markets and corporate finance. Before journalism, he spent five years as a sell-side equity analyst.
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