The year 2025 has so far been a turbulent one for Indian stock markets. YTD, the BSE Sensex improved just 7.88 per cent while the NSE Nifty 50 saw a modest 9.26 per cent rise. These sub-ten increases barely balanced off inflation, despite the benchmarks hitting new all-time highs.
The record $18 billion foreign fund outflows did not help matters. But domestic investors came to the rescue.
Despite all of this, the last Monday of 2025 saw the Indian bourses ending in red. Nifty shed 100 points to settle at 25,942.10 on December 29, while the 30-pack Sensex lost almost 346 points to record an 84,695.54 close. The worst Sensex performers were Adani Ports, HCL Tech, Powergrid, Trent, and BEL.
The rupee also depreciated 5 paise to 89.95 versus the dollar. As of December 19, 2025, India's forex reserves stood at $693.318 billion, as per Reserve Bank data.
Foreign portfolio investors continued to offload Indian equities.
"FPIs flow into Indian equities, a sustained return of foreign buying would be supportive for the rupee in the coming year, which has been the worst-performing currency in the emerging market and Asian markets," Anil Kumar Bhansali, Head of Treasury and Executive Director at Finrex Treasury Advisors LLP, told PTI.
Last week ended with foreign institutional investors offloading Rs 317.56 crore worth of equities on Friday alone. Once again, domestic investors led the charge, buying Rs 1,772.56 crore worth of equities on the day.