We just shared this on the Twitter handle of Coin. The reason is the 21-year journey of Niftybees perfectly captures the pain and rewards of long term investing. Like many here, I have no edge nor the skills to pick stocks and mutual funds—most of my monthly investments are in index funds. The only edge for normal people like me is outbehaving others. In other words, outperforming others by behaving better 
It’s the last remaining edge for most people.
Before someone says, “Oh but Japan” and “SIP has worked but might not work,” the point I’m trying to make is not that long-term investing = guranteed good returns. The point is, it’s the most probable way of creating wealth to reach your goals. If India becomes Japan and has three decades of lost returns, I think the only investment that will generate returns is a ponzi scheme 
NiftyBeES ETF tracks the Nifty 50 index. It was launched 21 years ago and is one of India’s oldest funds.
Since its inception, it has delivered about 15% annually. The journey of NiftyBeES shows the beauty of the difficulty of long-term investing 
Log view
Here’s the growth of Rs 1000 SIP, which increases by 5% every year. The upward-sloping line looks brilliant. But below the SIP chart, you can see the drawdowns, or the peak-to-bottom fall in prices.
Here’s a different way to look at it. This shows the calendar year returns and the biggest fall during the year. To capture the long-term returns, you had to continue investing every month with discipline.
There are several takeaways here. You could also argue other funds delivered far higher returns.
True. But you can see the returns after the fact. Predicting fund performance in advance is hard. The previous year’s “best” funds are next year’s worst.
The idea of using Niftybees as an example is because it’s an index ETF. Even if you just generated market returns, you would still come out looking very good.
Returns matter, but your benchmark in life is not to “beat” Nifty—It’s to reach your goals. Consider that.
Over 21 years, these are some of the events Niftybees has been through.
Everybody knows that you have to invest for the long term. After all, people like us keep screaming, “think long-term,” etc 
Despite it being obvious, mutual fund industry data shows that only about 4–5 out of 10 equity mutual fund investors stay invested for more than 2 years.
In other words, your behavior matters more than fund selection. Picking the right fund, maximizing returns, etc., matter. But what matters the most is the ability to keep calm and invest every month when there’s peak euphoria and absolute despair.
What’s your longest investment? We’d love to hear about your investing journey in the comments—the good, bad, and the ugly
