The market capitalisation of all BSE-listed stocks rose by Rs 81.6 lakh crore to Rs 364 lakh crore. Having crossed the $4 trillion m-cap milestone, India looks poised to take over Hong Kong and become the fourth-largest equity market in the world.
Smallcap Street
The real money was, however, made by those betting on ‘chota’ stocks on Dalal Street where “small stocks give big returns” became the new mantra for the retail army.
Making Nifty’s 20% annual return look like peanuts, at least 238 companies with a market value of at least Rs 1,000 crore (till 28 December) gave multibagger returns going up to 2,961%.
Nifty Midcap 50 advanced 50% while Nifty Smallcap 100 rallied about 55% in the year. While all sectoral indices ended 2023 in the green zone, the Nifty PSE index topped the charts with about 80% return. Realty and auto were the big sectoral themes as Nifty Realty jumped 80% while Nifty Auto 46%.
Within the bluechip Nifty50 pack, only Tata Motors managed to double investor wealth, and that too on the last trading day of the year. Long shunned by both institutional and retail investors, NTPC turned out to be the second-best Nifty performer with about 87% return.
Bajaj Auto, L&T, Coal India, and Hero Moto were the other top gainers. Adani stocks are still struggling to come out of the Hindenburg hangover and remain the biggest wealth destroyers of the year.
Led by MFs, domestic institutional investors (DIIs) poured in Rs 1.8 lakh crore worth of funds on Indian equities while foreign investors were net buyers to the tune of about Rs 1.6 lakh crore.
New-age stocks finally managed to convince investors that the management was willing to sacrifice growth to focus on profitability. Paytm went up 20% in 2023 while Zomato surprised with a mouth-watering 104% rally.
GMP became new IPO index
SME IPOs became the new go-to place for investors who were willing to take that extra risk in search of money-doublers. The BSE SME IPO index has rallied around 97% in the year as four out of every five SME IPOs gave positive returns. Grey market premium or GMP became the unofficial index to decide which IPOs to apply for.
Within mainboard IPOs, Tata Technologies, Cyient DLM, Senco Gold, IREDA, EMS, Utkarsh SFB, Vishnu Prakash Punglia, and Signature Global made investors richer.
2023 is now the eighth consecutive calendar year in which Nifty has given positive returns. The index’s 4% decline in 2015 came on the back of a massive 31.4% upside seen in the previous year.
Will 2024 be different?
2024 would be a new year but it could also be a different year where new investors, especially those who have never seen a bear market, learn some old lessons.
“We foresee a potential 20% decline in the Indian market before the end of CY 2024. Hence, our recommendation is for investors to book profits on every rise,” Amit Goel, Co-Founder and Chief Global Strategist at Pace 360, said.
Kotak Institutional Equities too has warned that it would be best to enter 2024 with low return expectations from the market. All warning signs related to valuations and overbought conditions are, however, not finding any takers for there are no bears left on the Street when everything is “looking just like a wow”.
(Data: Ritesh Presswala)
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(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of Economic Times)
