On October 19, 2021, the Nifty50 and Sensex hit lifetime highs of 18604.45 points and 62245.43 points, respectively.
Since then, equities have been on a rollercoaster ride and the indices even tested 52-week lows earlier this year.
On Wednesday, Nifty 50 ended 0.1% higher at 17512.25 points and Sensex at 59107.19 points with a 0.3% gain.
The Nifty50 and Sensex are down more than 5% from their lifetime highs.
During the Jan-Oct period of 2021, both Nifty50 and Sensex notched more than 30% gains, but in the same period in 2022, they barely managed to gain just 1%.
The stellar gains that Indian equities made last year and outperformed peers raised questions about overvaluations as the US then was still grappling with high inflation and risks of aggressive rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve.
Factors such as global macroeconomic concerns, Omicron, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, skyrocketing oil prices, aggressive rate hikes by global central banks, higher US bond yields, and the dollar-hitting multi-year high fizzled out the euphoria in the equity market.
These headwinds triggered record selling by foreign institutional investors in 2022 to the tune of $24 billion.
14 out of the 30 Sensex stocks have given negative returns over the past year. Information technology stocks have been the major laggards.
However, Indian equities managed to navigate the rough waters, showing strong resilience compared to the peers of emerging and developed markets.
Despite the volatile markets, some of the index stocks that have outperformed were
, , , Mahindra & Mahindra, and .
Shares of ITC have given the maximum returns of about 38% in the last year.
At a time when equities in most major emerging and developed markets are poised to end 2022 with negative returns, India is widely anticipated to be an outlier.
(Data inputs from Ritesh Presswala)
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