Perspectives are very important. Without perspectives we are the Blind Men of Indostan touching an elephant.

My journalist friends won’t like it, but the fact is that if you paid too much attention to news, you would end up with a feeling of the world coming to an end anytime now. For example, this is what the Sensex did today (13-Mar-2024).

What does that mean? This is what it means.

OMG!! That is 13,000,000,000,000 Rs loss in one day!

But take a step back and see and the same Sensex of 72,761, will look very different over a multi-decade view.

So what perspectives can you get by zooming out:

1. Booms and busts are part of life. After every boom there is a bust and after every bust there is a boom.
2. Crashes are great opportunities to buy more.
3. Sensex has recovered from crashes in the past and is likely to do so. Why do I say that?
   • India has one of the youngest populations. Our infrastructure is getting better every day. We are an attractive investment destination.
   • We are the largest democracy.
   • We don’t attack other countries and we don’t seek wars.
   • We want prosperity and we are taking steps to become a more free market.
4. Big Money (FIIs, FPIs) tends to sway the markets. When they buy a lot, the Sensex goes up and when they sell, Sensex goes down. Like today.
5. Big Money also tends to call us Retail Investors as Dumb Money. You see, they have an army of researchers and economists who can talk eloquently. We have almost nothing…a blog maybe. But you know what? Big Money gets scared easily. And Big Money moves in and out of markets like a herd.
   • Imagine this…Big Money is waiting for Morgan Stanley to increase weightage of India for it to invest more. Does a mere rating change your perspective from okay to good?
   • I don’t care what Morgan Stanley has to say but we are going to need steel, aluminum, coal, oil, electricity, food, fertilizers, houses, cars, 2 wheelers, trucks, tires, credit, offices, business services, logistics, doctors, hospitals, laboratories, hotels, entertainment, etc. etc. etc. And we are going to need more of them. Our consumption is not going to stop and therefore our businesses are going to be in business today, tomorrow and for the foreseeable future and making more profits year after year.
   • Big Money needs India more than India needs Big Money. And so the Big Money that left today, will be back.
6. We- Dumb Money, can outperform Big Money by simply behaving better. By behave I mean buying when the market is down and being less scared.

To summarize: today looks all red, like a bloodbath. But in a few years we will look back at today, just like those events of the past and say “it was a good day to be a buyer”.

Have faith and have patience.