Performance of Nifty heavyweights versus Nifty in the year 2021

New Year is around the corner and if you analyse the year 2021, you will realise that it has not been less than a roller-coaster ride for Nifty.  

Nifty surged over 6 per cent in February to hit a record high of 15,500. Then came the second wave of Coronavirus in India, which saw Nifty falling to the low of 14,000 in the month of April. What we saw after that was a splendid rally as Nifty shot up by another 17 per cent and hit its fresh all-time high of 18,600 in the month of October. Following that, there were a series of events like the Omicron variant of Coronavirus, Fed tapering news, FII selling, etc., which led to a fall of over 10 per cent in Nifty.   

Now heading into the last week of December, Nifty has surged about 21.22 per cent since January 1. A lot of stocks participated in this rally while some stocks did the opposite. Today, we shall analyse the performance of the top 20 index heavyweights and their behaviours in 2021.  

The top 10 companies of Nifty by market capitalisation include Reliance Industries, HDFC Bank, Infosys, ICICI Bank, HDFC, TCS, Kotak Mahindra Bank, L&T, and Hindustan Unilever Limited. Out of these, Infosys has been the best performer and supported Nifty throughout 2021. The stock has surged over 48 per cent in 2021. Infosys is followed by L&T, ICICI Bank, and TCS, which shot up by around 44 per cent, 35 per cent & 28 per cent, respectively.   

Surprisingly, some stocks showed a dismal performance and remained under par with the index. Kotak Mahindra Bank, Hindustan Unilever, HDFC Bank, and HDFC delivered negative returns on a year-to-date basis with Kotak Mahindra Bank plunging over 13 per cent.  

The next 10 companies of Nifty (10-20), however, show a different picture. Nine out of 10 stocks have performed exceptionally well this year. Bajaj Finserv and Tech Mahindra emerged as the highest gainers for the index and have delivered massive returns of 76 per cent each. State Bank of India comes next with 65 per cent returns in 2021. The only stock that remained negative from this segment is Maruti, which posted negative returns of 4 per cent YTD.  

We observe that the top 10-20 stocks of Nifty outperformed the index heavyweights in 2021 and made a major contribution to Nifty’s rally from 14,000 to 18,600 this year.