Two years ago, the Sensex fired to an impressive 85,000 for the first time, but since then the market has been in a steep and prolonged decline. What seemed like a roaring bull market around September 2024 soon lost the momentum and plunged around 16 percent to hit a low of 71,425 in April 2025 as Donald Trump’s trade flip-flops and other factors dampened sentiment. But again, the Sensex soared 20 percent in eight months to hit a new all time high of 86,159 in December 2025. While the optimism remained high, little did investors know what 2026 had in store for them.

Just a few months into the new year, new AI innovations sparked a sharp sell-off in India’s IT stocks. Thereafter, multiple headwinds have kept the market struggling to recover from the lows it has been hovering around since April 2026.

The current market grind with high volatility and little or no gains is a painful experience for most investors. The question that bothers many is, when India’s economy is growing at an enviable 7 percent rate despite several headwinds like global energy shocks, tariff uncertainties and high interest rates, why the world’s fastest growing major economy has one of the weakest performing major equity markets this year.

Maybe the answer lies in the fact that GDP is all about what happened in the past, while the market tends to price in the current scenario and what comes next. The correction that the equity market has been going through has continued for two years now. Call it a ‘time correction’ more than price correction, recently the benchmark indices posted losses for eight........

© Free Press Journal