The Indian stock market has been on a turbulent ride, with investors seeing major shifts in asset performance. While equities have struggled, alternative investments like Bitcoin, gold, and real estate have fared better. Wisdom Hatch founder Akshat Shrivastava weighed in on the recent market correction, highlighting a sobering reality: “From Oct 21 to Feb 25: overall, the NIFTY has given 19%. INR during this time has eroded by 18%. So effective net real gain in the last 4 years on NIFTY now seems to be 1%. That's 0.23% CAGR (approx).”
Shrivastava, who benefited from real estate and Bitcoin investments, reinforced a crucial investing principle: “All investments are cyclical. While the entire market tries to convince you that Asset Class X is always the best. It is not. Anything that is gaining interest is worth selling. Anything where there is panic is worth buying.”
February was brutal for Indian equities, with the Sensex plummeting 4,300 points—wiping out ₹40.6 lakh crore in market value. The Nifty suffered its longest monthly losing streak since 1996, falling five straight months. Since September, Nifty and Sensex have tumbled 15–16%, while midcaps and small caps have dropped up to 26%.
Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) have pulled out $12.2 billion in 2025 so far, after selling $12.3 billion in Q4 2024.
“The spate of tariff announcements by Trump has been impacting markets... The latest announcement of additional 10% tariff on China is a confirmation... that Trump will use the initial months of his presidency to threaten countries with tariffs and then negotiate for a settlement favourable to the US,” said Dr. V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.
Jefferies’ Global Equity Strategist Chris Wood views the correction as technical rather than macro-driven. Merisis notes that selling has shifted to frontline stocks, signaling possible capitulation. Alok Agarwal of Alchemy Capital Management sees improved corporate earnings—“much-much better than the last two quarters... close to 12%”—as a silver lining. Still, Mirae Asset Capital Markets’ Manish Jain warns, “Timewise correction till Nov/Dec, if data-set is bad then a leg of price wise correction is expected.”