Diwali 2021 Note

Diwali – a festival of light, joy and happiness. I would like to add one more key attribute which underpins all areas of

our existence – ‘Health’. This year we saw the paramount importance of health and how money lost its value during the second wave in India. I saw people ready to pay lakhs to procure one vial of life saving drugs, getting access to hospital and our life’s elixir ‘Oxygen’. I am not aware of a single family who did not lose their near and dear ones. Where the fitness levels were relatively better, people sailed through the bumpy COVID wave. I get goose bumps when I look back between today and last Diwali.

I would love to congratulate my readers who take disciplined care of their health schedule, their morning / evening exercise regime, eating patterns. For others, it is vital that we do not forget the wakeup call of COVID and get onto the health regime. It is rightly said – Health is Wealth and at the same time Wealth cannot buy Health.

Moving onto finances, Goddess Laxmi has been extremely kind for last one year. We have seen a steep uptick in stock markets. Even real estate has now started to bounce back. Many of the portfolios have a golden sheen which wasn’t ever seen. Such a healthy state of wealth does give a massively boost to one’s financial confidence. However, it is in such times too where costly mistakes happen. Seeing buoyant markets, it may sound logical to enhance your investment stakes in assets which are doing very well. It is here where we must follow a disciplined investment process of maintaining a balanced allocation towards all asset types and one must not get carried away towards a honey pot. Maintaining a good balance may help in avoiding a ‘bubble’ trap which often gets built in such times.

We have quite a handful of risks which have been gradually building up. These are all infront of us and we must be conscious of them while making incremental wealth decisions. Many pockets are having hyper inflation which are an outcome of sharp run-up in commodity prices. The impact of high fuel prices comes with a lag, but pinches all. Ultra cheap money cycle has to normalise. When that happens, lesser money is available at disposal to buy for consumption and speculation (yes I chose that word with an intent). Interesting investment options like Crypto currencies are cropping up where people are jumping into without having a clue of what they are.

What I am doing this Diwali ?

Personally, I am never underweight on wealth generating assets. I am either neutral or overweight. This Diwali I am :

  1. Continuing to invest at my normal budgeted capacity. In other words, I am not draining my war chest of reserve liquidity.
  2. Keeping sufficient liquidity at hand to take care of any unforeseen emergencies and possible opportunities.
  3. Sufficiently insured and have enhanced my risk covers – Term & Medical insurances.
  4. Managing my investment allocations and avoiding any skews by getting lured to short term speculative traps. I realise that I need my wealth to compound consistently and that I hate sharp downside spikes in my portfolios.
  5. And lastly – I am not letting go of my life guards (mask) and sticking to my fitness regime. Health is key.

With that, I would pray that we get out of the COVID tunnel and see a normal life back again. The kids really need to go to schools across all countries. People really need to travel across the worldand socialise. We are social beings and hopefully by next Diwali we can enjoy with lesser if with no further restrictions.

Happy Diwali Folks !

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