Should you switch to gold or FD? Bad year for Sensex and Nifty 50 as Indian investors get zero returns

The number of Indians investing money in the stock market has soared multi-fold ever since the pandemic began. But many of them are now feeling the pinch as the Nifty 50, a benchmark index of top 50 stocks, has given zero returns in the past 52 weeks.

When the market closed on Friday (August 8, 2025), Nifty 50 settled at 24363.30. This was around the same as exactly a year ago when the Nifty closed at 24,117 on August 8, 2024, giving zero returns year-on-year. Compared to this, the 30-stock Sensex ended lower at 79,857.79 on Friday while a year ago on the same day, the index settled at 78,886.22.

Should you stop investing in Sensex or Nifty 50?

With bleak returns on the stock market, several retail investors are mulling going back to safer investment vehicles like gold, fixed deposit or even liquid funds.

On August 8, 2024, 24-carat gold was priced at around ₹6,927 per gram and 22 karat at 6,350 per gram. In a year, 24 karat gold surged around 44.8 per cent YoY to ₹10,033 per gram and 22 karat gold soared 49.1 per cent to ₹9,470 per gram.

On the other hand, investing in fixed deposits in August 2024 would have given you a returns of around 7.2 per cent to 7.4 per cent in most banks, making it more attractive than Sensex and Nifty 50 in the YoY period.

Liquid funds too gave around 6-7 per cent returns in the past one year. If you had invested in Motilal Oswal Liquid Fund (Direct Plan - Growth), you would got a return of 6.64 per cent YoY while Franklin India Liquid Fund (Super Institutional - Direct - Growth) would have earned you 7.17 per cent returns YoY, according to data obtained from Moneycontrol.

While investing in Nifty 50 or Sensex may have given you zero returns in the past one year, playing the long game can get you sorted. While your investments in the benchmark indices may have failed to beat the inflation in the past 12 months, a little patience can see your money grow by itself in no time.

It should be noted that Nifty 50 has soared 4.2 per cent year to date since January 1, 2025 while Sensex rose 3.29 per cent in the past six months. Also, both Nifty 50 and Sensex have historically delivered annual returns of around 12 per cent in the past 20 years.

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