Can a 10-Year SIP Lose Money? What the Index Data Shows

Edelweiss Mutual Fund's October 2026 market update, The Thinking Corner, presents rolling SIP returns for three NSE indices, based on Bloomberg data as on 30 September 2026. In the worst 10-year window, a monthly SIP in the Nifty Smallcap 250 TRI ended with an annualised return of -0.13%.

That looks like a rounding error. It is not a trivial outcome. Ten years of monthly instalments ended marginally below the total amount put in — a decade of discipline with no growth to show for it, in that particular window.

This post covers what the data measures, what the number means, and what it does not.

What the Data Shows

Source and method, as stated in the report: Bloomberg data as on 30 September 2026; SIP taken at the end of the month; monthly rolling returns considered. Figures are Total Return Index (TRI) returns, annualised.

Source: Bloomberg. Data as on 30 September 2026, as presented in Edelweiss Mutual Fund, The Thinking Corner, October 2026, pp. 54–55. SIP taken at the end of the month; monthly rolling return considered. These are index returns, not fund returns. Past performance may or may not be sustained in the future.

Three things stand out:

• Only one 10-year worst case went below zero — the smallcap index, at -0.13%.
• The 5-year worst cases were much deeper across all three indices. Even the Nifty 100 had a 5-year SIP window that ended at -3.03% a year.
• In this dataset, the longer horizon narrowed the range sharply. The smallcap worst case moved from -16.81% at five years to -0.13% at ten. Narrower is not the same as closed.

The 5-year chart in the report plots these rolling returns from August 2011 to August 2026.

Worst Case and Average Answer Different Questions

A rolling SIP return does not pick one start date. It assumes a new SIP begins every month across the data period, runs each one for the full tenure, and calculates the result. The output is not one number but a series of outcomes.

• The average describes the typical outcome across all those start dates.
• The minimum describes the unluckiest start date.
• The maximum describes the luckiest.

The smallcap figures — 15.01% average and -0.13% minimum over ten years — are both true at the same time. An individual investor does not experience the average. They experience one start date and one end date.

Returns here are expressed as XIRR, an annualised figure that accounts for each instalment being invested on a different date. A negative XIRR means the final value sits below the sum of all instalments.

Why the Start Date Matters So Much for a SIP

A SIP builds its corpus gradually. The amount invested is smallest at the start and largest at the end. So the market level in the final months has an outsized effect on the final value — a large corpus meets whatever the market is doing at that moment.

The 5-year chart makes this visible. The deepest point for all three indices falls in early 2020, between the August 2019 and August 2020 markers. A 5-year SIP that happened to end around the March 2020 fall looked very different from one of the same length that ended a few months later, after the recovery shown on the same chart.

Same tenure. Same discipline. A different end date.

Smaller companies have historically tended to see larger price swings and deeper drawdowns than larger ones. That is why the gap between best and worst outcomes is widest in the smallcap rows. Wider dispersion cuts both ways — the smallcap index also had the highest 5-year maximum in the table.

Not Losing Money Is Not the Same as Growing It

Every figure in the table is nominal. None of them subtracts inflation.

A 10-year worst case of 5.07% for the Nifty 100 TRI, or 6.37% for the Nifty Midcap 150 TRI, avoided a nominal loss. Depending on inflation over that same window, the growth in purchasing power may have been modest.

For goal-based investing, the real return is often the more relevant measure. Education costs, retirement expenses and housing prices rise over time, and a corpus is ultimately measured against them. The figures are not inflation-adjusted, and both views are worth keeping in mind when reading any return table.

Index Returns Are Not Fund Returns

A TRI tracks the index with dividends reinvested. It carries no expense ratio, no tracking error and no cash holding. No investor can buy it directly.

• Index funds tracking these indices pay an expense ratio and carry some tracking error, so their returns generally sit slightly below the TRI.
• Actively managed funds in the same categories may do better or worse than the index. Index data does not speak to that either way.

These are category-level observations about indices. They do not describe the experience of any particular scheme.

What This Data Does — and Doesn't — Tell You

What it suggests:

• In this data, time in the market reduced the chance of a poor outcome but did not eliminate it.
• Category risk is visible even over ten years.
• The end date of a SIP can matter as much as its length.

What it does not tell you:

• What any index or fund will return in the future.
• That any category is good or bad, or that one will outperform another.
• That anyone ought to start, stop or change a SIP.

These figures describe one historical period. They are not a forecast, and a different period would produce different numbers.

Six Questions to Ask When Reading "X-Year SIP Return" Figures

1. Index or fund? Index returns carry no costs; fund returns do.
2. Which dates? The period covered shapes every figure in the table.
3. Average, median or worst case? Each describes a different thing.
4. Where did the window end? An end date near a market high or low shifts the result considerably.
5. Nominal or real? Inflation changes what a return means for a goal.
6. SIP or lump sum? The two produce different figures for the same index and period, and cannot be swapped.

Key Takeaways

• In Bloomberg data as on 30 September 2026, presented by Edelweiss MF, the worst 10-year SIP in the Nifty Smallcap 250 TRI returned -0.13% a year.
• 5-year worst cases were far deeper, ranging from -3.03% (Nifty 100) to -16.81% (Smallcap 250).
• A longer horizon narrowed the range of outcomes in this data, but did not remove the possibility of a loss.
• The end date of a SIP has an outsized effect, because the corpus is largest at the end.
• All figures are nominal index returns; real returns and fund returns can differ.
• One historical data period, and no forecast of future returns.

Where This Leaves a Long-Term SIP

The -0.13% figure does not overturn the case for long-term investing. It makes it more precise. Horizon, category risk and the timing of the end date all shape the outcome, and none of them works alone.

That is why the questions that matter are about structure rather than headlines: how much of a portfolio sits in higher-volatility categories, how far away each goal is, and whether there is room to avoid drawing down at a bad moment. The asset allocation section of the 8 Freedoms Checklist covers that thinking, and a risk profile is the usual starting point. For the basics of how SIPs work, see What is SIP?; to keep contributions in step with income, the step-up SIP post covers the mechanics.

The suitability of any investment category depends on an investor's financial goals, risk appetite, investment horizon and overall financial circumstances. If you're working out how a long-term SIP fits around your goals and timelines, that's a conversation worth having.

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