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Almost everybody is waiting to see the end of 2020, the year when a virus brought our lives to a grinding halt. People lost lives, livelihoods and struggled to cope with unforeseen challenges. While the economy slowed down drastically, the Indian stock market seemed to cock a snook at the virulent virus. The Sensex soared from 41,253 on 31 December 2019 to 47,613 on 29 December 2020, giving a 15.4% return to those who made the right bets—or simply sat still with their quality stocks.Â
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As people worked from home and discovered interest rates on bank term deposits sliding to a miserable 5.5%, they turned to the stock market in droves. Both depositories now report over 20 million depository participant (DP) accounts each—the NSDL 20.7 million and CDSL 27.8 million. Even accounting for the fact that many investors have multiple DP accounts, over 1 million new accounts were added every month since the lock-down.Â