Q1 FY 2026 was a surprise quarter where the market started in a crisis mode in the first week of Apr 2025 hitting new recent lows on the Nifty at 22161 levels but closed the quarter at highs of 25517.  In nobody’s imagination at the start of the quarter one could have expected the markets to gain more than 3000 points given the weak commentary on global tariffs , wars and poor demand in place.  It seemed like a complete revenge by the markets on bearish marketmen as the stocks climbed the walls of worry.

The major focus remained in sectors like Defence, Capital Markets, IT and Real Estate.  With the Russia Ukraine conflict that had already been going on, and with Indo Pak and Iran Israel added to the mix, it just seemed obvious that the world will need all the defense production that is possible. FMCG, Consumption stocks and PSE meanwhile lost ground quickly Gold shone bright as it continued to rally up and made a new All Time High at one of its best quarters of the decade at $3500 . The role of asset allocation has continued to be the highlight of this situation.

US markets beat India in this quarter as the Trump trade which caused a dollar flow out of emerging markets since Q3 gradually although stemmed down but there were no encouraging inflows.

Nifty gained a good 8.5% this quarter and is a great start to FY26

For Q1 FY 2026 within Weekendinvesting strategies notably only the Mi Evergreen and the Mi ATH2 stood out while others gained more modestly vs the respective benchmarks.

Our belief in the concept of BBC (Bhav Bhagwan Che), a Gujarati saying which means that “Price is God” helps us follow the markets in a non-discretionary manner and we allow the markets to do the talking. This has been our sole mantra in the last 8+  years that we have been offering these services to tens of thousands of Weekendinvestors.  Our 100% non-discretionary approach at times can lag the markets when markets make trend changes but over time, we have seen this perform much better than many other styles of investing. The historical CAGR returns experienced by clients and the resulting thousands of testimonials are proof to this claim.

The forecast for next few quarters has not changed as it stands today to be that of extreme caution and hope of consolidation given that we are undergoing a complete reset of global supply chains and tariff negotiations. I am hoping that the world leaders will be able to resolve this before the end of the current quarter. 

At Weekendinvesting, we will continue to walk our established chosen path of following our strategies to the T. We have now run out of cash on all strategies and that usually is a good sign of ample opportunities in the marketplace.  All our strategies have a self-healing and self-correcting approach and will come around strongly after any drawdown period that we may face. The whole setup is like a high probability winning machine provided you give the strategies adequate time to heal if the market undergoes some damage. There is little doubt left that having a rule based system like momentum can help you navigate all kinds of markets and over a long period deliver market-beating returns.

This last quarter we have taken many new initiatives at Weekendinvesting.

We have started more content on our YouTube channels besides our ever popular Daily Byte.  Many shorts and other content pieces are now being delivered daily along with enhanced content in our daily newsletter. 

We are also launching new Asset allocation based strategies in the coming quarter to address the need for such positioning in the portfolio. Our momentum Score health checkup is also being used widely to check your own portfolio scores.  You may do a Momentum health check up of your portfolio here.

Many new things are planned for the next quarters. Weekendinvesting will also launch an Alternative Investment Fund in the coming quarters to cater to the needs of the HNI customers who would like us to manage their wealth. The advantages for larger amounts of money to run in a pooled portfolio environment are better price discovery and complete control by the manager.  We will reveal the details as we launch it.

We strongly believe in the long-term India story and we believe that momentum strategies will continue to do very well in this India scenario of continuity of growth and liquidity flows. All we need to do is to ensure that we are riding the winners when it is favourable to us and defending our position when it isn’t.  The key to success here is discipline and sticking to the proven strategy.