Written by Udit MisraNew Delhi | Updated: December 26, 2025 05:48 PM IST 3 min readAccording to Crisil Intelligence, the number of mutual fund investor accounts went from 98 million at the end of March 2021 to 235 million at the end of March 2025. (Pixabay)The end of the year is a good time to look back at how different investments performed throughout the year. In India, people are increasingly investing in the stock markets, not just to shield themselves from inflation eating away their money’s worth but also as a way to become wealthy or, at the very least, create a corpus for retirement.In the past few years, especially since the start of 2021, the stock markets have given an excellent return on investments. This encouraged Indians to dutifully adopt Systematic Investment Plans (SIPs) and invest in mutual funds.According to Crisil Intelligence, the number of mutual fund investor accounts went from 98 million at the end of March 2021 to 235 million at the end of March 2025.However, 2025 by itself has been a rather underwhelming year for equity investors. An important reason was US President Donald Trump’s tariffs, which upended the global trading order and, with it, the fortunes of many companies globally. Of course, there are many other reasons at play, too, but here’s a check on which investments paid off in 2025.The CHART alongside maps the returns (in percentage) of a group of indices between December 2024 and December 19, 2025 — as close to a full year as possible. The indices provide a good sense of which category of companies were a good bet in 2025. Index returns for 2025.The Indian stock market is most often categorised by market capitalisation, which is nothing but the share price multiplied by the number of total outstanding shares of a company. The market cap, as it is often called, provides a sense of the size of a company. As with economies, larger companies tend to grow slower in percentage terms, and thus provide more modest returns, while smaller companies can grow at a fast clip and provide higher returns (in percentage terms).But as the data shows, in 2025 it paid to invest in the bigger companies.Story continues below this adExplained | Sensex and Nifty are touching record highs. Why is your MF portfolio not mirroring that rise?The Nifty 50, which is an index of the top 50 companies by market cap, grew by 10.1%. But as one moved down the order and considered smaller companies, the index returns became more moderate progressively. As such, the Nifty 100, which maps the top 100 companies returned only 8.3% while Nifty 200 just 7.9% and Nifty 500 collectively returned only 6.1%What if you invested only in the mid-cap companies? This is a bunch of 150 companies ranked from 101 to 250 on the scale of market capitalisation. The returns were even lower, at 5.2%.The worst fate, however, was reserved for those who invested only in small-caps. The Nifty Smallcap 250 index, which is a collection of companies ranked 251 to 500 in the market cap scale, gave negative returns. In other words, the index value at the end of December 19 this year is more than 7% less than what it was on December 20 last year.Udit Misra is Senior Associate Editor at The Indian Express. Misra has reported on the Indian economy and policy landscape for the past two decades. He holds a Master’s degree in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics and is a Chevening South Asia Journalism Fellow from the University of Westminster. Misra is known for explanatory journalism and is a trusted voice among readers not just for simplifying complex economic concepts but also making sense of economic news both in India and abroad. Professional Focus He writes three regular columns for the publication. ExplainSpeaking: A weekly explanatory column that answers the most important questions surrounding the economic and policy developments. GDP (Graphs, Data, Perspectives): Another weekly column that uses interesting charts and data to provide perspective on an issue dominating the news during the week. Book, Line & Thinker: A fortnightly column that for reviewing books, both new and old. Recent Notable Articles (Late 2025) His recent work focuses heavily on the weakening Indian Rupee, the global impact of U.S. economic policy under Donald Trump, and long-term domestic growth projections: Currency and Macroeconomics: "GDP: Anatomy of rupee weakness against the dollar" (Dec 19, 2025) — Investigating why the Rupee remains weak despite India's status as a fast-growing economy. "GDP: Amid the rupee's fall, how investors are shunning the Indian economy" (Dec 5, 2025). "Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences 2025: How the winners explained economic growth" (Oct 13, 2025). Global Geopolitics and Trade: "Has the US already lost to China? Trump's policies and the shifting global order" (Dec 8, 2025). "The Great Sanctions Hack: Why economic sanctions don't work the way we expect" (Nov 23, 2025) — Based on former RBI Governor Urjit Patel's new book. "ExplainSpeaking: How Trump's tariffs have run into an affordability crisis" (Nov 20, 2025). Domestic Policy and Data: "GDP: New labour codes and opportunity for India's weakest states" (Nov 28, 2025). "ExplainSpeaking | Piyush Goyal says India will be a $30 trillion economy in 25 years: Decoding the projections" (Oct 30, 2025) — A critical look at the feasibility of high-growth targets. "GDP: Examining latest GST collections, and where different states stand" (Nov 7, 2025). International Economic Comparisons: "GDP: What ails Germany, world's third-largest economy, and how it could grow" (Nov 14, 2025). "On the loss of Europe's competitive edge" (Oct 17, 2025). Signature Style Udit Misra is known his calm, data-driven, explanation-first economics journalism. He avoids ideological posturing, and writes with the aim of raising the standard of public discourse by providing readers with clarity and understanding of the ground realities. You can follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @ieuditmisra ... Read More © The Indian Express Pvt Ltd