Almost every investor knows they should stay invested when markets fall. Ask them, and you will get the textbook answer: think long term, don’t panic, keep the SIPs running.
But knowing is one thing, and doing is another. Take the ongoing fall in Indian markets (Sep-2026), when the Nifty has slid about 14% from its peak. Suppose you have Rs 50 lakh in equity funds, and it falls by about 14%. That is a notional loss of roughly Rs 7 lakh. You know all the right things. Yet the red numbers keep showing up on your phone, so you stop the SIP, and then redeem “just until things settle down”. The notional loss just became a permanent one.
Was the advice wrong? No. “Stay invested” is good advice. It just isn’t effective when your emotions get involved. Advice works only if it survives your emotions.
This is why I believe the real work in investing is not in picking funds, but in building the structure around them. An SIP that is automated, so that stopping it needs more effort than continuing it. An emergency fund, so you are never forced to sell equity to pay a bill. Money needed in the next few years kept out of equity altogether, so a market fall doesn’t touch your near-term goals.
And rebalancing rules that are written down in advance. Say your allocation was 70:30 in favour of equity at the peak, and after the fall it has drifted to 65:35. A rule that tells you to move it back, in phases, turns fear into a mechanical action. You end up buying equity at lower levels without having to feel brave about it. If you have fresh surplus, staggering it over a few months does the same job with more peace of mind.
None of this is glamorous. But this is what actually keeps people invested. Because if you want the UPs later, you will have to sit through the DOWNs now. Most investors accept that in theory, and very few accept it in a falling market.
Now the uncomfortable part.
Most of us believe we are the exception. The person who panics is always someone else. Honestly, it is hard to see your own behaviour clearly, especially in a bull market, when every decision looks smart because the account balance keeps going up. Very few investors ever check how their own decisions compare with simply staying put.
And that is where talking to a good financial planner helps. Not because you are incompetent, but because it is very difficult to be objective about your own money. A planner looks at your goals, your cash flows and your risk capacity, and then builds the plan and its rules with you when markets are calm. Someone who has nothing to sell you (which is the whole point of fee-only advice) and who can point back to what you had agreed on, when a falling portfolio is clouding your judgement.
Telling yourself the right thing is easy. Setting things up so that you can actually follow it is the hard part.
And the time to do that is before the next fall, not during it. If you are not sure how your own portfolio, or your own nerves, would hold up in the next one, that is a conversation worth having once. You know where to find me.