How was the year 2013 for the equity and commodity markets? Indian stocks seemed to have done well, certainly - the Sensex ended the year on a high note, as Table 1 shows. However, mid-cap and small-cap shares did not do quite as well, although they recovered some of their losses towards the end of the year. Within the market, the fate of sectors differed greatly, as Table 2 points out. Realty and power continued to lose value, while information technology and healthcare prospered. As Table 3 shows, the price-earnings (P-E) ratios of various sectors also varied widely. Capital goods increased their P-E but consumer durables decreased the ratio. Unsurprisingly, the biggest gainers in the Sensex, as Table 4 lays out, were IT firms like TCS, Wipro and Infosys; the biggest losers, NTPC and Tata Power. Worldwide, developed economy stocks did much better than emerging market stocks, as Table 5 makes clear. The Sensex did better over the year than most peers in developing economies.
One big story of the year was the consistent slide in gold prices, shown in Table 6. This helped reduce the pressure on India's current account deficit. It is worth noting, though, that agricultural commodities moved in the opposite direction in India. For example, the price of wheat - shown in Table 7 - increased in India. This happened even though there was a decline in the global price.
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