# The 41 percent and the 322 days | 2026-07-20 evening

_Strategy Spotlight . 2026-07-20 . By Tanmay Kurtkoti. Educational, illustrative, not advice._

My cousin found one of our Midcap cards on Saturday. Forty one percent a year on a five year backtest. He wanted to put money in by the afternoon.

I asked him the only question that decides whether that number ever becomes his. Not how much does it make. How long can you stay wrong.

Here is why. That same card, the focused Midcap one, twenty stocks rebalanced every two weeks, spent 322 days below its previous high. From 20 December 2024 to 7 November 2025. The better part of a year staring at red. And it did not ease anyone into it. The first two months of 2025 took it down almost 24 percent before it found a floor.

Now the part nobody screenshots. Everyone who held on finished 2025 up 5.7 percent. The 41 percent was real. It was just never a reward for being clever about mid caps. It was the reward for still being in the seat when the hole filled back in.

That is the whole thing with mid caps. The swing is nearly twice the index, 25.44 against the Nifty's 14.04. The number that sells you is the CAGR on the front of the card. The number that decides whether you keep any of it is the drawdown printed nowhere near it.

So before you look at what a midcap strategy returns, put its worst stretch on a calendar. 322 days. Ask yourself honestly whether you would have sold in February. If the answer is yes, the 41 was never yours to collect, and that is worth knowing before the money goes in, not after.

The full Midcap card, drawdowns and all: