With 13% returns in 2024 so far, gold bulls leave Sensex behind by miles

In the race of returns, gold appears to have left the S&P BSE Sensex behind by miles in 2024. The yellow metal has approximately given 13% returns on a year-to-date (YTD) basis as against a 4% gain delivered by India's heartbeat index.

In the 30-stock index, 10 have given returns superior to gold in 2024. Tata Motors tops the chart with 29% returns as on April 9, 2024. It is followed by Sun Pharmaceuticals and Maruti Suzuki India (MSIL) that have yielded 27.21% and 25.16%, respectively in the same period.

Others with higher returns are Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M, 21.13%), State Bank of India (SBI, 19%), Tata Steel (19%), Power Grid Corporation (18.44%), NTPC (17%), Bharti Airtel (16%) and Reliance Industries (RIL, 13.24%).

Private lender ICICI Bank has given over 11% returns. Six stocks viz. Larsen & Toubro (L&T), HCL Technologies, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Bajaj Finserv, Wipro and Titan Company have given positive returns between 7.30% and 0.10%.

Meanwhile, 13 stocks have given negative returns between 0.65% and 16.01%. The worst performers are Asian Paints, Hindustan Unilever (HUL), HDFC Bank and ITC.

MCX gold has risen by over Rs 8,100 per 10 grams on a YTD basis, hitting the Rs 70,000 mark for the first time. Sensex has scaled a fresh lifetime peak of 75,124.28, gaining 2,884 points in the same period.

Gold, considered a haven among different asset classes, has been a beneficiary of geo-political tensions -- first the Russia-Ukraine war and now the ongoing Israel-Palestine crisis -- and hopes of early rate cuts by US Federal Reserves.

Rahul Ghose, CEO of Hedged.in remains upbeat on the prospects of gold for FY2025 even as he sounds not so optimistic on the outlook of domestic equities. He rules out significant movement in the equity markets barring a few sectors like auto, capital goods and select PSU notwithstanding a stellar run in PSU stocks in the financial year ended March 31, 2024.

Ghose expects a small correction in the next 45 days before the election results kick in arguing that historically 5-week series are volatile in nature, and May is a 5-week series amid election voting.

Anuj Gupta, Head Commodity & Currency, HDFC Securities also remains bullish on gold and expects it to test levels of Rs 73,500.

(Inputs from Ritesh Presswala)

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of Economic Times)