Understand Indian stock market indices like the Nifty 50 and Sensex with this easy guide from INDmoney. Learn what an index is, how it works like a "market thermometer," why it's useful for tracking performance, and how different types of indices can help you make sense of stock market movements. This page simplifies it all for you.
Stock market indices (you might also hear "indexes") are like a quick report card for a group of company stocks. Imagine you want to know how well all the players in a cricket team performed in a match, not just one star player. An index does something similar for stocks; it takes a selection of company shares, like the top 50 largest companies or all companies in a specific sector, like banking, and uses their prices to create a single score or "index value."
| Index name | Last traded | Day Change | Day Range |
|---|---|---|---|
| 82500.47 | -0.83% | 82442.25 - 83040.74 | |
| 63599.03 | -0.25% | 63447.5 - 63869 | |
| 83883.69 | -1.07% | 83763.9 - 84828.07 | |
| 26354.28 | -0.85% | 26333.97 - 26547.65 | |
| 11418.53 | -0.85% | 11409.08 - 11504.75 | |
| 46291.2 | -0.65% | 46192.14 - 46647.31 | |
| 54484.76 | -0.7% | 54398.4 - 55001.21 | |
| 36545.58 | -0.8% | 36510.9 - 36818.25 | |
| 52561.78 | -1.72% | 52444.95 - 53451.66 | |
| 12738.41 | -0.58% | 12715.8 - 12821.61 |
This score, for example, when you hear "Nifty is at 22,000 points," tells you if that group of stocks, on average, has gone up (good performance) or down (poor performance). Just as a cricket team's average score gives you a sense of their overall play, an index gives you a snapshot of the market's health or the performance of a particular segment. It acts as a benchmark, or a measuring stick, helping everyone understand market trends and compare how their own investments are doing.
Stock market indices are very useful tools for investors, financial experts, and even the general public for several reasons:
Market Thermometer: Indices act like a thermometer for the stock market. If a major index like the Nifty 50 or Sensex is going up, it generally means investors are feeling positive, and the overall Indian market is doing well. If it's going down, it might signal a more cautious or negative mood.
Performance Benchmark: Indices provide a standard to compare the performance of your own investments. For example, if your stock portfolio grew by 10% in a year, you can compare that to how much the Nifty 50 grew in the same year to see if you did better or worse than the broad market.
Reflecting Economic Health: The performance of broad Indian market indices can often give clues about the overall health of the country's economy, as the companies in the index represent a big part of the business activity.
Facilitating Investment (Index Investing): Indices form the basis for popular investment products like index funds and Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). These allow you to invest in a whole basket of stocks represented by an index in one go.
Most major stock indices, including India's Nifty 50 and Sensex, use a method called "free-float market capitalization weighting."
Market Capitalization: The total value of a company's shares (share price x total number of shares).
Free-Float: This means only considering the shares that are readily available for trading by the public (excluding shares held by promoters, government, etc.).
Weighting: Companies with a larger free-float market capitalization have a bigger "weight" or influence on the index's movement. So, a price change in a very large company will affect the index more than a similar price change in a smaller company within that index.
Think of it like making a mixed fruit chaat. The fruits that you put in larger quantities (like bananas or apples, representing big companies) will influence the overall taste of the chaat more than the fruits you add in smaller quantities (like a few grapes, representing smaller companies in the index).
The index value itself is a number that is compared to a "base value" set on a specific "base date" in the past. For example, the Nifty 50 had a base value of 1000 on November 3, 1995.
While "top" can be subjective and depend on what an investor is looking for (e.g., broad market, specific sector), some of the most widely tracked and significant Indian market indices generally include:
Other important indices include broader ones like Nifty 100, Nifty 500, and various other sectoral and thematic indices. The choice of which ones to follow depends on an investor's specific interest.
Sectoral indices are designed to track the performance of a specific sector or industry within the stock market. Think of the whole stock market as a big school, and sectoral indices are like report cards for different classes or subjects within that school, like the "science class" or the "commerce class."
Purpose: They help investors and analysts understand how a particular industry (e.g., banking, information technology, automobiles, pharmaceuticals, FMCG, metals, realty) is performing overall.
Nifty Bank: Tracks the largest and most liquid Indian banking stocks.
Nifty IT: Tracks major Indian IT companies.
Nifty Auto: Tracks top automobile manufacturers.
Nifty FMCG: Tracks companies in the Fast-Moving Consumer Goods sector.
BSE also has similar sectoral indices like BSE Bankex, BSE IT, etc.
Usefulness: If you want to invest in a specific industry but don't want to pick individual stocks, you might consider an index fund or ETF that tracks a relevant sectoral index. They also help compare the performance of companies within the same sector.
Thematic indices go a step beyond traditional sectors. They aim to capture the performance of companies that are linked by a specific investment theme or trend, which might cut across multiple conventional sectors. It's like creating a special team based on a particular skill or interest, rather than just by class.
Focus on Trends: These themes could be long-term trends like environmental sustainability, technological innovation, demographic shifts, or specific business models.
Nifty ESG Index: Tracks companies that score well on Environmental, Social, and Governance parameters.
Nifty MNC Index: Tracks multinational companies listed in India.
BSE Greenex / BSE Carbonex: Focus on companies with better carbon performance or those in green businesses.
Other themes could include consumption, infrastructure, innovation, etc.
How They Differ from Sectoral Indices: A thematic index, for example, an "Innovation" theme, might include tech companies (IT sector), pharma companies doing R&D (Pharma sector), and manufacturing companies using innovative processes (Manufacturing sector). It's broader than a single sector.
Investor Interest: Thematic indices appeal to investors who want to align their investments with specific long-term trends or values they believe in.
Global stock markets, especially the US, often influence short-term movements in Indian markets. Think of it like a ripple effect; if the US has a strong or weak market day, it can sway investor mood in India too. This is why many investors keep a close watch on global indices for early cues.
Key US indices like the S&P 500, Dow Jones, and Nasdaq are closely watched, especially since many foreign investors actively trade in India. Markets in Europe (like FTSE and DAX) and Asia (like Nikkei and Hang Seng) also impact Indian sentiment.
Because the global investor mood is connected. If foreign investors feel nervous or excited due to events like oil price changes or US interest rate decisions (by the Federal Reserve), they may pull money out of or invest in Indian markets.
So while India has strong fundamentals, global news still causes daily ups and downs.
You can't directly buy an index like the Nifty 50 because it's just a number, a measurement. However, you can invest in financial products that try to copy the performance of an index. The two most common ways are:
Index Mutual Funds: These are mutual funds that aim to hold all (or most of) the stocks in a particular index, in the same proportion as the index. So, a Nifty 50 index fund will invest in the 50 stocks that make up the Nifty 50.
Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs): These are similar to index funds as they also track an index. The main difference is that ETFs are bought and sold on the stock exchange throughout the day, just like individual stocks.
Investing using index funds or ETFs that follow a stock market index (like the Nifty 50) is a popular choice. Here are some important points:
Spreads Your Money (Diversification): An index fund invests in many companies at once (e.g., all 50 in a Nifty 50 fund). This helps lower the risk compared to buying just one or two stocks.
Often Lower Fees: These funds usually have lower costs (expense ratios) because they simply copy an index, rather than having a manager actively pick stocks.
Simple Way to Invest: It's an easy route for beginners to get broad market exposure without researching many individual companies.
Aims to Match the Market: Index funds try to give returns very close to the index they follow. They are not designed to give much higher returns than the overall market.
Follows Market Ups and Downs: If the whole market (shown by the index) goes down, your index fund investment will likely also go down. It shares the market's general risk.
Fixed Stock Holdings: These funds must invest in the stocks included in their target index, without the flexibility to avoid any particular one.
An index in the stock market is like a summary score for a group of selected stocks. It combines their prices to give a single number that shows how that group (representing the overall market or a specific sector) is performing.
While "top" can depend on what you're measuring, the most commonly tracked and significant broad market indices are Nifty 50, Sensex, Nifty Next 50, Nifty Bank (as a key sectoral index), and perhaps Nifty Midcap 100 or Nifty 100.
"Indices" is the more common plural form of "index" in finance, especially in British English and often in India. "Indexes" is also grammatically correct, particularly in American English. Both refer to these statistical measures of market performance.
Sectoral indices track the performance of stocks from a specific industry or sector, like banking (Nifty Bank), IT (Nifty IT), or automobiles (Nifty Auto). They help investors see how a particular industry is doing.
Thematic indices track companies based on a particular investment theme or trend, rather than just a traditional sector. Examples include indices focused on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) criteria, or companies involved in a specific innovation.
India's stock market has dozens of indices across its two main exchanges, NSE and BSE, each tracking different segments of the market.
Major NSE Indices include:
Key BSE Indices include:
Together, they offer a broad view of market trends, sectors, and performance.