Put ₹12 lakh into a Nifty 50 index fund on the first trading day of January 2008 and it was worth about ₹5.8 lakh on 31 December 2008. Put the same money in as ₹1 lakh on the first trading day of each month through 2008 and it was worth about ₹8.4 lakh. In a market that falls, the SIP wins, and the gap there was 31%.
That is the lumpsum vs SIP result everyone expects. The less comfortable part is how rarely the market falls on cue.
Lumpsum vs SIP on four start dates
These figures use Nifty 50 closing levels as a stand-in for an index fund. They ignore dividends, expense ratios and tax, and they leave the money waiting for its turn at 0% interest. Value is shown 12 months after the start month, once the SIP has put in all twelve instalments.
| Start month | Lumpsum | 12-month SIP | Lumpsum vs SIP |
|---|---|---|---|
| January 2008, just before the peak | ₹5.78 lakh | ₹8.38 lakh | 31.1% lower |
| January 2020, just before the crash | ₹13.77 lakh | ₹15.55 lakh | 11.4% lower |
| April 2020, after the bottom | ₹21.36 lakh | ₹15.63 lakh | 36.6% higher |
| January 2021, a rising year | ₹14.86 lakh | ₹13.28 lakh | 11.9% higher |
If the waiting cash earns an assumed 6% a year in a liquid fund, that adds about ₹39,000 to the SIP side. It helps the SIP side a little and does not flip any row.
Most months favour the lumpsum
Across every start month from October 2007 to November 2025, with each result measured 12 months later, the lumpsum finished ahead in 150 of 218 cases, or 68.8%. The median lumpsum beat the SIP by 4.1%. The worst case for the lumpsum was 33.7% behind, and the best was 56.9% ahead.
Treat that with care. The windows overlap, so they are not 218 independent trials. The period is also one 19-year stretch that opens with a 60% fall and includes a long climb afterwards. It does show the shape of the trade: a SIP gives up a small edge most of the time to avoid a large loss some of the time.
What the lumpsum investor sits through
The Nifty 50 closed at a peak of 6,287.85 on 8 January 2008 and a low of 2,524.20 on 27 October 2008. That is a fall of 59.9% in 293 days. A lumpsum bought on 1 January was worth ₹4.93 lakh at the bottom. The index did not close back above that purchase level until 4 October 2010, nearly three years after the purchase.
The 2020 crash was faster and shorter. The index fell 38.4% from 14 January to 23 March 2020, and a January lumpsum of ₹12 lakh touched ₹7.5 lakh before it recovered its cost on 6 November 2020.
A SIP starting in the same month would have suffered the same slide on the money already in. What it avoids is putting every rupee in before the fall. For many people the real value of staging is behavioural: it stops them selling the whole pile at the bottom because they put in all of it at the top.
When the test does not apply
If your money arrives monthly as salary, you have no lumpsum to place, so a SIP is simply what you do. The comparison matters only for money that is already in hand, such as a bonus, a maturing FD or a sale.
For that money, a mechanical default makes sense. If you would stay invested through a 40% fall, put the lumpsum in. If you would not, split it over 6 to 12 months and write the schedule down before the market moves.
A systematic transfer plan does the staging from a debt or liquid fund for you. The wider SIP versus lumpsum question, including when each one wins on average, is in the SIP vs lumpsum comparison.
Your next step
Enter your own amount and a 6 or 12 month staging period into the SIP vs lumpsum calculator. Then look at the Jan 2008 row above and ask what you would do when ₹12 lakh shows ₹4.9 lakh. Choose the plan you would still follow at that point.
Sources
- Yahoo Finance: NIFTY 50 historical prices, daily closes from 17 September 2007 to 2 November 2026
- Wikipedia: NIFTY 50, used to cross-check the 2019 year-end close and the 23 March 2020 fall
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