As every goal comes with a cost, judicious financial planning is important to achieve your financial goal. Even if your goal constitutes creating a corpus in the long run, investments in SIP could help you achieve this corpus. But, what is SIP? Systematic Investment Plan (SIP) is a mere tool to invest in mutual funds.
The pandemic has deeply impacted investor sentiments all over the world. According to the reports of the Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI), the ratio of discontinued SIP investments to new SIP investments reached a record high of 81% in May 2020. Against a total of 6.5 lac discontinued SIPs, nearly 8.1 lac new SIP accounts were registered. This shows that investors continue to keep their faith in SIP investments as one of the most dependable investment options.
What should one do in these challenging times?
The Covid-19 pandemic has triggered volatile market conditions which have greatly affected the stock markets around the world, including Indian stock markets. In these challenging times, the first question that comes to a SIP investor’s mind is if they should continue, pause or entirely stop their SIP investments. As you might be already aware, some volatility is part and parcel of every market. It is this volatility that offers an opportunity to buy units of investments at lower costs with rupee cost averaging. Under this concept, more units of a fund are bought at lower market levels and vice versa.
While your concern about the future of your equity investments in the current Covid-19 pandemic is justified, experts advise against any knee-jerk reaction concerning SIP investments. Unless your financial situation has drastically changed, they recommend investor to stick to their investment strategy even in these ambiguous times.
Options available
The decision of not stopping SIP investments in these perplexing times reflects maturity. It might even help one in achieving their dreams and goals. Instead of plugging your SIP, experts recommend continuing it with one of the following modifications:
- Change the payment frequency of your investments, say from monthly to quarterly
- Reduce the SIP investment amount as per your reworked cash flow situation
It’s always suggested to temporarily pause SIP investments and continue it later as the financial condition improves with time. Staying invested in these challenging times will help you partake in the upside when the markets start recovering gradually.
Ideally, your financial goals should not change with a change in the market situation. The current market scenario is expected to improve in the next 2-3 quarters. Hopefully, both the economy and life, will slowly begin getting back to normal. In these challenging times, it is prudent to hold on to your mutual fund investments, keep the faith and continue to invest in SIPs. Suppose you want to evaluate the true value of your investments. In that case, you can also use a mutual funds SIP calculator. Keep in mind that the stock market rewards those investors who are patient. Happy investing!
