Nifty 50 in 2025: How accurate were brokerage targets made a year ago?

Experts had set a varied range of targets for the Nifty 50 index in 2024.

As brokerages begin to publish their Nifty 50 targets for 2026, it is worth looking back at what the Street had forecast just a year ago. In 2024, both global and domestic brokerages had estimated a wide range of targets for the Nifty 50 for 2025, with some hits and some misses.

Among the more cautious outlooks, Kotak Institutional Equities and Axis Securities had pegged the Nifty 50 at 26,100 by December 2025, while Citi had set a target of 25,000. On the bullish end, Goldman Sachs had projected the index at 27,000, with ICICI Direct at 28,800 by the end of December 2025.

Kotak Institutional Equities had set a base-case target of 26,100 for the Nifty 50 by December 2025, valuing the index at 19x FY27 earnings per share of Rs 1,372. In Kotak's bull-case scenario, the brokerage had seen the Nifty climbing to 28,800 on a 21x multiple, while its bear-case target issued in 2024 stood at 23,300, which would have implied a downside of over 5 percent from 2024 levels.

Axis Securities had also projected the Nifty to reach 26,100 by December 2025, implying an upside of around 8 percent from 2024 levels. The brokerage was confident in India’s long-term growth outlook. It cited rising capex and improving credit growth as key drivers that could help Indian equities post roughly double-digit returns over the next 2-3 years, which would also be backed by double-digit earnings growth.

Bank of America Securities (BofA Securities) believed that the Nifty would hover around 26,500 in CY25, which would effectively translate into returns of less than 9 percent from 2024 levels. The brokerage had also expected that broader markets would post relatively muted returns, as a result of their elevated valuations.

Jefferies had pegged the Nifty 50 index at 26,600 for 2025, which at the time, had indicated a potential upside of about 10 percent from 2024 levels. The brokerage noted that the index’s one-year forward price-to-earnings multiple was trading above its five-year average, therefore returns were expected to broadly track earnings growth.

In 2024, Goldman Sachs remained tactically neutral on Indian equities within its Asia and emerging market 2025 allocations, while maintaining a strategic preference for select domestic and export-oriented sectors. The international brokerage had forecasted a back-ended recovery, suggesting that gains were likely in the second half of 2025, and set a 12-month target of 27,000 for December 2025.

Following a volatile second half of calendar year 2024, ICICI Direct said its traditional and statistical analysis suggests the index is positioned for the next leg higher towards 28,800 in CY25, while identifying 22,000 as a key support level.

So far in 2025, the heartbeart index has seen sharp swings, briefly broaching the 22,000 mark, but rallied to a fresh all-time high of 26,325.80. Despite the volatility, the index is higher by roughly 9 percent this year, thus proving some of last year's estimates correct, while some have missed the mark.

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