Gold or stock market?
Year Ender 2025: The year 2025 has been an extraordinary year for Indian investors, but this year has not been the same for everyone in the world of investment. While gold and especially silver gave excellent returns to investors, the Indian stock market went through many disappointments. This story of 2025 is an interesting dichotomy between traditional investing and the modern equity market that is reshaping the beliefs and strategies of Indian investors.
The price of silver in India at the beginning of 2025 was around Rs 86,000 to Rs 87,000 per kg. By the beginning of December, this price had gone above Rs 1,80,000. This means that silver investors have earned bumper returns of up to 107 percent this year, which is much higher than any other traditional investment. Such a huge increase has not been seen in the last several decades. Many reasons are responsible for this unprecedented jump of silver. First, there has been a tremendous increase in industrial demand for silver in the manufacturing process of solar panels. The green energy sector is expanding rapidly and the increasing demand for electric vehicles is also increasing the consumption of silver. India imported a record 4,172 metric tons of silver in the first four months of 2025 alone, surpassing imports for the entire year of 2023.
Gold gave so much return
The story of gold in India is also great, but a little weak in comparison to silver. While at the beginning of the year, gold was around Rs 73,000-75,000 per 10 grams, by December it reached the level of Rs 1,30,000 per 10 grams. In this way, gold investors have got a return of about 68 percent in 2025. This is considered to be the strongest year for gold since 1979. Gold has also performed brilliantly in the global market and an increase of up to 57 percent has been seen in spot gold. However, this rise in gold prices in India has also been supported by the weak Indian rupee. The rupee has declined by more than 5 percent against the dollar in 2025, due to which the domestic market has seen a higher rise than the foreign prices.
Indian stock market returns
The story of 2025 of the Indian stock market is a balance between disappointment and expectations. BSE Sensex has given a return of only 5.30 percent in a year, while NSE Nifty 50 has given a return of 6.38 percent. This return is not only far behind gold and silver, but India’s performance has also been the worst compared to global stock markets. India’s Sensex is at the bottom among the 17 major stock indices of the world. There are many reasons responsible for this modest performance. The first and most important reason is that foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) are withdrawing money from India in large numbers. So far in 2025, foreign investors have made a record withdrawal of more than Rs 1.43 lakh crore from the Indian stock market.