A variety of things influence the equity, bond and the money market. The political and economic environment, international trade, globlisation, trade wars, interest rate fluctuations, job market, consumer consumption all affect the equity and the money market. The graph below shows the number of international and domestic events that affected the S&P BSE Sensex levels in 2018 (Source: Reuters, Morgan Stanley, Washington Post, Internal Research Data of ICICI Prudential Asset Management as of Dec 31, 2018)

2018 has been a volatile year for global indices across the world. The graphic below shows the performance of various global indices across the world:

In 2018 while the equity markets across the world performed poorly, gold outperformed the S&P BSE Sensex. Gold prices increased by approximately 10.48% while S&P BSE Sensex increased by approximately 5.90%.

Gold was one of the top performing assets in 2018 across various asset class as shown in the graph below

The table below shows the performance of Gold prices vs Sensex for the last twenty years.