Social talk on equity returns is back in group behaviour. People you meet physically or in social media are all talking of only one thing now: equity returns. I was curious to test their knowledge on how good the Nifty show has been over the last 365 days. Most people didn’t know the exact details. Or, didn’t care about the returns. But, everybody was focussed on how the nifty has shown performance from the bottom of March.
Interestingly, most people had not actually invested much around that bottom. At the bottom, conversations mostly centred around performance. What a time to judge that! Now, the conversations are comfortably perched around opportunities. When opportunities are juicy, investors go on a no-show and then show up when the party is just about to go out of control. This time, digitally empowered investing is adding to the confidence. The ease of transaction is comforting investors about the ease of investing. Everybody thinks the markets have more steam now. Interestingly, they saw a seizure coming in markets in March. Neither judgements may be accurate.
But, investors must learn to invest in times of inaccurate judgements, misplaced expectations, and heightened volatility. They must learn to be more opportunity-driven in 2021 and definitely show lower risk aversion when opportunities are before them.
Investment games are won and lost in the mind. 2021 will only reinforce this truth to us.
