A day before Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced one of the strictest lockdowns to curb the spread of Covid-19, on March 24, 2020, the NSE Nifty 50 index fell the most in a day on record.
Hours before the prime minister's address that day, the index fell to 7,511 before recovering by around 300 points.
A year later, the index hasn't only recovered all of its losses it sustained last year but has nearly doubled since then. That came on the back of a gradual opening up of the economy, pent-up demand, a rebound in corporate earnings and a gush of inflows from foreign investors.
Over the last 12 months, the Nifty 50 has gained 95% and is at present 4% off its all-time high of 15,431—when all the index's constituents have returned positive gains to investors. Gains were led by Tata Motors Ltd. and Hindalco Industries Ltd., while Coal India Ltd., Indian Oil Corp. and Hindustan Unilever Ltd. generated the least returns during the same period.
