India bought 137 tonnes of gold in first quarter of 2024

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The year 2020-21 has been a challenging one to say the least for humanity as a whole which dealt with the unprecedented pandemic. However, investors still had some reason to cheer.

As we close the financial year 2021, here’s a quick look at how your investments in equities, debt, gold and even cryptocurrencies have grown year-on-year.

The Indian stock markets have overcome all odds to post the best year ever in absolute terms while in percentage terms, it has been the best financial year in 11 years.

The S&P BSE Sensex has risen by 70% in FY21.

To understand simply, if you had invested Rs 1,00,000 in Sensex  via the index fund, you would have mopped up Rs 1,70,000 in FY21.

As for an investment in fixed deposits in FY21, the interest rates in this financial year have fallen to as low as 5-6%. So, if you had invested Rs 1,00,000  in April 2020, today you would have garnered only Rs 1,06,000.

In comparison, gold would have returned around Rs 4,000 per 10 gm as the price of gold in April 2020 was around Rs 40,989 per 10 gm and Rs 43,950/10 gm on Wednesday.

This is due to the fact that gold prices have been on a declining trend since January 2021 and have cooled off almost Rs 12,000 from the highs of Rs 56,200 seen in August 2020. So, the gold run for the yellow metal was strong in 2020 but fizzled out in the new year.

However, when we compare alternative asset classes like cryptocurrencies, the rally seems to be continuing. In FY21, Bitcoin has given a whopping 803% return to investors. The value of the currency has grown from Rs 4,85,055 (March 31, 2020) for one Bitcoin to Rs 43,80,785 as of March 31, 20221.

If you have been investing your money in Post Office Schemes such as National Savings Monthly Income Account(MIS), Senior Citizens Savings Scheme Account(SCSS) or Sukanya Samriddhi Account(SSA)​ as per the current rates you would have garnered funds attracting interest ranging between 4-7% in FY21.