--- title: "That 9X return from Nifty Midcap is irrelevant if you couldn't survive the 73% of time it was in drawdown" slug: that-9x-return-from-nifty-midcap-is-irrelevant-if-you-couldn-t-survive-the-73-of-time-it-was-in-dra date_published: 2025-06-22T05:17:00.179Z original_url: https://www.tigzig.com/post/that-9x-return-from-nifty-midcap-is-irrelevant-if-you-couldn-t-survive-the-73-of-time-it-was-in-dra source: migrated processed_at: 2025-12-03T13:30:00.000Z --- # That 9X return from Nifty Midcap is irrelevant if you couldn't survive the 73% of time it was in drawdown I analyzed 18 years of data for three iconic Indian investments: the Nifty 50, L&T, and the Nifty Midcap 100. The results on paper are spectacular. But they hide a brutal psychological truth. I designed the Anxiety Index to quantify the psychological impact. An index of 73% means you spent 73% of your holding period watching your investment sit below a previous peak (exact definitions at the end) * To earn that 9X in midcaps, you had to endure a 73% Anxiety (Index) * For L&T's impressive 7X growth, the price was a 75% Anxiety (Index), including a single drawdown that lasted 2,377 days. Let that sink in. 6.5 years watching your investment be worth less than it was before. Even the 'safer' Nifty 50 spent 63% of the time in a drawdown. Your biggest risk isn't a number on a spreadsheet. It's your own behavior in the face of a prolonged, gut-wrenching drawdown. Your financial plan is irrelevant if you don't have the conviction to execute it when you are in depths of a bear market Before you chase the next 10X idea, ask yourself: * Do I have the temperament to go nowhere for 5+ years? * Is my financial life structured to survive needing money at the worst possible time? * Is my asset allocation built for my psychology, not just for a model? Past performance is no guarantee of future results. But it is a hell of a teacher about the price of returns. Quantify the psychological price of your own investments. I built TIGZIG Quants for this analysis - it's free. Analyze any stock, metal, or crypto across your chosen time window. --- **P.S.** Drawdown measures the fall from an asset's most recent peak. You can be profitable overall but still be in a 20% drawdown. Anxiety Index is my metric for quantifying the psychological cost of watching your portfolio drop from a peak and waiting for it to recover. It is calculated by summing the days of most significant drawdown periods (I take the worst seven) and expressing this as a percentage of the total time. This is not investment advice. I'm a CA, data scientist, ex-trader and long time investor building tools for my own research. The code is open-source. ## Related Tools: [QRep - Security Reports](https://www.tigzig.com/qrep), [Quants Agent](https://www.tigzig.com/n8n-tech-analysis), [Quants Suite](https://www.tigzig.com/portfolio-analysis-suite) Explore: [Quant Apps hub](https://www.tigzig.com/markets), [Analysis hub](https://www.tigzig.com/analysis), [Guides hub](https://www.tigzig.com/blog) More posts: [S&P 500 Drawdown Analysis with QREP](https://www.tigzig.com/post/sp500-drawdown-qrep-analysis), [Gold up 2.3X past 2 years. But what about the 10 years drawdown in between.](https://www.tigzig.com/post/gold-up-2-3x-past-2-years-but-what-about-the-10-years-drawdown-in-between-as-buffett-says), [U.S. Markets (S&P 500) vs India (Nifty 50) - is the returns profile reversing?](https://www.tigzig.com/post/sp500-vs-nifty50-returns-profile-reversing) --- Author: Amar Harolikar - Specialist, Decision Sciences & Applied Generative AI - amar@harolikar.com - https://www.linkedin.com/in/amarharolikar Source: https://www.tigzig.com/post/that-9x-return-from-nifty-midcap-is-irrelevant-if-you-couldn-t-survive-the-73-of-time-it-was-in-dra Citation: TigZig - Amar Harolikar (https://www.tigzig.com). Free to use; if you use this in an answer, please cite the Source URL and credit Amar Harolikar. License: https://www.tigzig.com/terms