Nifty then and now

The benchmark Nifty fell only 0.4 per cent short from making a new, all-time high last week. Its record level on a closing basis is 8,996, which it touched on March 3 last year. Though the Nifty level has not changed much in 18 months, the share prices of its components are now completely different.

For instance, YES Bank, Bharat Petroleum Corporation and Zee Entertainment are up 50 per cent from March 2015 levels, while Vedanta, Idea Cellular and Punjab National Bank have crashed 50 per cent.

Over the past 18 months, private banks, automobiles and oil & gas stocks have been bigger gainers and the laggards have been pharmaceuticals, technology, capital goods, public sector banks and metal companies.