Samvat 2078: A year of India's stock market outperformance to global peers

Weakness in global equities was on the back of runaway inflation, disruption in commodity prices due to the Russia-Ukraine war, lockdowns in China, and unspooling of post-pandemic stimulus

In absolute returns, Samvat 2078 was a letdown. The benchmark Sensex and Nifty ended marginally lower — the first year of negative returns since Samvat 2071. However, the highlight of the year was the resilience of domestic markets and their sharp outperformance to global peers.

Sample this: the Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) Emerging Markets Index fell 33 per cent in the past year, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 13 per cent, and the MSCI All Country World Index fell 23 per cent. The Nifty, however, fell less than 2 per cent in local currency terms.

The weakness in