The great monthly chart shows Nifty and Sensex Monthly Returns since, well, since a long long time. December, despite historically being a great month, went down -4.3%.
That means we have had 9 losing months in the year – the only three positive months were March (+9%), June (+1.6%) and October (+7.8%). It has been a hugely volatile year.
2011 was the second worst year since the NSE was started, with -25% on the index. It was second only to 2008 which was twice as worse, with a -52% return.
2011 had the dollar falling nearly 17% so the net return, in dollar terms, is -42%.
The Sensex too has had the second worst year ever:
Annual Nifty Returns
The last 10 years have mostly been positive; before 2008’s debacle, the worst year was 2001 with -16.2%.
(This is part of my "2011InCharts" package which I’m preparing over the next few weeks)