December Scorecard: IndiGo To Thomas Cook — Stocks That Clocked Best & Worst Five-Year Returns

As 2025 draws to a close, the Indian stock market appears to be moving in a consolidation phase with upward bias in its final few trading sessions of the year. Market participants usually associate December with Santa's rally as the sentiment is positive on festive cheer and year-end momentum of select blue-chip stocks. The benchmark Nifty 50 is up 1.41% in a week.

The domestic equity benchmark is also on track for closing with positive returns this month. Amid the current momentum, let's take a look at the best and worst-performing stocks in December over the last five years. According to stock exchange data, the top five gainers have clocked the highest returns in December during the last five years, while the five weakest stocks delivered the worst five-year returns during the month.

Historically, December has shown mixed trends over the past decade. The Nifty 50 closed in the green about six times with an average return of 1.6%, recording strong gains of over 7% in 2020 and 2023, but a decline of more than 3% in 2022.

Nifty Midcap 100 scored better, closing higher seven times with an average return of 2.1%, and outperformed Nifty in six instances. The Nifty Smallcap 100 was even stronger, closing positive eight times with an average return of 2.8%, and delivering significant gains in 2020, 2021, and 2023.

Interglobe Aviation, the parent company of leading private airline IndiGo is among the best-performing stocks with highest five-year returns during the month. The stock delivered 4% return in 2024, 10% in 2023, 4% in 2022, 6% in 2021, and 14% in 2020. Along with IndiGo, Jindal Steel, Zydus Lifesciences, Llyod Metals, and Jindal Stainless are the among the top-performing December stocks in the last five years.

Kirloskar Brothers is among the worst-performing stocks with the weakest five-year returns during the month. The stock gave -5% return in 2024, -9% in 2023, -10% in 2022, -15% in 2021, and -7% in 2020. Along with Kirloskar Brothers, Thomas Cook, Shilpa Medicare, SIS, and MPS are the among the worst-performing December stocks in the last five years.

Going forward, D-Street analysts believe the strong domestic macros and the supportive earnings growth expectations in Q3 and Q4 of FY26 and for FY27 will provide the fundamental support to the market. "The backdrop for earnings has improved compared to last year, engineered by a series of stimulative fiscal and monetary measures," said brokerage Motilal Oswal.

"This has contributed to improved earnings revision outcomes over the past two quarters, culminating in an aggregate earnings upgrade in the past few months. Looking ahead, we forecast FY26/FY27 earnings growth of 10%/15% YoY and 15%/16% YoY for Nifty, which appears reasonably well poised, and revisions in either direction should not be too sharp from here, barring possibly for Nifty-50 FY26 PAT," said the domestic brokerage.