Over the last decade (from 2014 Holi to 2024 Holi), India has seen substantial transition, with rapid transformations in its economy, social, and technological landscape. India's economic trajectory has been amazing, rising from being the world's tenth-largest economy in 2014 to the fifth-largest now, with ambitions to become the third-largest in the future.
Despite the problems encountered by major economies across the world, India has proven resilience, expanding at an amazing 8.4% in Q3 FY24, confirming its status as the world's fastest-growing economy. Multinational firms are progressively moving manufacturing activities to India. With its huge size and potential, India appears as an appealing option to China for multinational corporations looking to expand their industrial base.
Against this context, the Indian stock market has grown significantly, matching the country's progress. Starting with a market capitalization of $1.5 trillion in 2014, representing BSE-listed enterprises, it has grown to almost $4 trillion.
This spectacular surge not only drove the Indian stock market forward, but also allowed it to surpass Hong Kong's market capitalization last year, establishing itself as the world's fifth-largest equities market, with a worldwide share of more than 3.5%.
The significant flood of retail investors infusing billions of rupees into Indian equities has boosted market stability and reduced volatility in the face of FPI withdrawals.
The global brokerage company Jefferies has projected that by 2030, the market capitalization of the Indian equities market would have grown to $10 trillion. In addition, Jefferies predicts that India's GDP will rise beyond $5 trillion in the next four years, making it the third-largest economy by 2027—beyond Germany and Japan.
Let's examine the Nifty 50 and Sensex's performance in more detail over the last ten years (from 2014 Holi to 2024 Holi).
Last decade, the Nifty 50 and Sensex increased by almost 200%
Since the Holi holiday in 2014, the Nifty50, which represents the top 50 blue-chip corporations in India across all industries, has increased by 240%, rising from 6,494 points to 22,096 points as of this writing.
When evaluating its performance over the course of a calendar year, the index has, for the last eight years, been in a positive trend. Remarkably, in CY15, there was just one dip recorded in the previous ten years, representing a reduction of 4.06%. Of these years, CY21 is the index's best performer with an incredible gain of 24%, followed closely by CY23's increase of 20%.
The index had a notable year in CY23, exceeding many benchmarks including the 19K, 20K, and 21K levels. Comparably, the S&P BSE Sensex has increased significantly, rising from 22,096 points to 72,831 points at present—a gain of 230%.
BSE has come a long way in its 143-year history, from its modest beginnings under a banyan tree to being the quickest exchange in the world. The market capitalization of BSE-listed businesses crossed the historic ₹100 lakh crore threshold in December 2014.
It just passed ₹333 lakh crore, or $4 trillion, for the first time, on November 29, marking another noteworthy milestone. At the moment, 382 lakh crore is the market capitalization while taking current prices into account.
14 Nifty 50 stocks surge to a 3900% Peak
In this bull market era, the Nifty 50 index has produced multibagger returns in 47 out of 50 equities; 14 of these have performed exceptionally well, returning between 500% and 3900%. Notably, the Bajaj Group's Bajaj Finance and Bajaj Finserv took first place with outstanding returns of 3913% and 2103%, respectively, during the previous ten years.
The third-highest gainer, Titan Company of the Tata Group, came in close second with a healthy return of 1353.9%. Wadia Group firm Britannia Industries placed fourth with a remarkable return of 1029%.
With noteworthy returns of 856% and 737% over the past ten years, Adani Enterprises from the Adani Group and JSW Steel from the JSW Group held the fifth and sixth positions, respectively.
Another company in the Tata Group, Tata Consumer Products, secured the seventh spot with returns that were about 700%. In addition, equities with outstanding returns ranging from 500% to 600% were Apollo Hospitals Enterprises, Adani Ports and SEZ, LTI Mindtree, Eicher Motors, Maruti Suzuki India, Reliance Industries, and BPCL.
Apart from these exceptional performers, over the past ten years, the returns on a number of other stocks have exceeded those of the index. These stocks include Asian Paints, Nestle India, ICICI Bank, UltraTech Cement, Divi's Laboratories, Power Grid Corporation of India, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Hindalco Industries, Bajaj Auto, Larsen & Toubro, State Bank of India, HCL Technologies, Bharti Airtel, Tata Steel, Grasim Industries, HDFC Bank, Hindustan Unilever, Mahindra & Mahindra, UPL, Cipla, Axis Bank, Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, and NTPC. Their returns ranged from 240% to 460%.
