Every market correction births the same chorus: "I'll wait for the bottom." The data, spanning seven decades and three continents, tells a different story. An investor who stayed fully invested in the S&P 500 for any rolling 20-year period since 1950 has never — not once — experienced a negative real return. The worst 20-year stretch delivered 2.4% annualised. The best: 17.9%.
The Indian markets tell a strikingly similar tale. Since NIFTY's inception in 1996, every rolling 15-year period has been positive. The median rolling 10-year CAGR sits at approximately 12.2%, comfortably ahead of inflation, fixed deposits, and gold. Yet the average Indian equity investor holds for fewer than 18 months.
The disconnect between what markets deliver and what investors capture is not a knowledge gap. It is a behaviour gap. And this newspaper exists to close it — one edition at a time.
Full analysis — see MARKETS, Page 2 →