New Delhi, Jan. 8 -- The Nifty 500 Total Return Index rose 7.2% in 2025. On paper, that appears to be another year of steady wealth creation for Indian equities.

Fund managers will benchmark against it. Retail investors will compare their portfolios to it and wonder where they went wrong. They should stop wondering. In 2025, the index return and the experience of the average stock diverged sharply.

The median stock in the Nifty 500 fell 4.8% for the year. So it did not gain less than the index, it declined outright. The gap between the headline return and the typical stock stretched to nearly 12 percentage points, a chasm wide enough to swallow most portfolios.

How does an index rise 7% when its median constituent falls 5%? Concentrati...