It is the beginning of Samvat 2079 next week. All was not hunky dory in the year gone by for the financial markets as the 30-share index Sensex declined 0.96 per cent, while the broader Nifty index fell 1.48 per cent. This compares to the near-decade-high gains in the indices the year before (Sensex was up 38 per cent and Nifty moved up 40 per cent).

According to the Hindu Calendar, the Vikram Samvat calendar is 56.7 years ahead of the solar Gregorian calendar. Hence, when the Gregorian is in 2022, it is the beginning of Vikram Samvat 2079, which will be post Diwali next week

Market watchers say Samvat 2078 (last Diwali to this) was likely to have been muted mainly because of the sharp gains in previous year. First, it was the Omicron wave which spoiled the party for the stock markets. Then came the Russia-Ukraine conflict that pushed up oil and metal prices. Soon, the US Federal Reserve came with its sledgehammer of rate cuts — to fight this spiraling inflation — that acted like the final straw that brought the bull-run of the past two years to an abrupt stop.

Next year, too, the dominating theme is likely to be the pace of US interest rate cuts and the likely recession in the Americas and Europe, said analysts. The general consensus is that market gains would remain muted, especially if global crude oil prices remained high.