Size Matters: Momentum and 52-Week High Effects Across the Indian Equity Universe

There is a question that has quietly haunted every investor who has ever stared at a stock chart and wondered whether the climb is just beginning—or already ending: does a stock’s recent strength tell us anything meaningful about where it is headed next? For more than thirty years, academic finance has offered an uneasy answer: yes. Stocks that have performed well often continue to perform well for a period, while those that have performed poorly tend to remain weak. This phenomenon, known as momentum, is among the most persistent—and most fiercely debated—anomalies in modern asset pricing. Alongside it sits the 52-week high effect: the idea that a stock’s position relative to its highest price over the previous year may contain valuable information about future returns. Yet while these effects have been extensively studied across global markets, an important question remains insufficiently explored in India: do they work equally across the entire equity universe? By examining momentum and the 52-week high effect across large-cap, mid-cap, and small-cap stocks, it investigates whether market size fundamentally changes the way these anomalies behave. Does momentum become stronger where information travels more slowly? Does the 52-week high serve as a more powerful psychological anchor in less-followed companies? Or do liquidity constraints, volatility, transaction costs, and institutional participation make these strategies weaker outside the blue-chip universe? Blending empirical research with behavioral finance and market structure, Size Matters looks beyond the obvious—and into the parts of the market where some of the most interesting answers may be hiding because in investing, the biggest opportunities may not always be where everyone is already looking.