In 2016, markets may not be easy, but it’s going to be another good year for investors to go on an asset accumulation drive. Every year-end, it’s worth every rupee to re-check your portfolio and investment strategy, and make course corrections, depending on market conditions. Financial markets do not always behave the way we want them to. But as Peter Lynch notably remarked, to make money, one doesn’t have to predict the market.
Looking back at 2015, regretfully or not, the market’s performance was a mixed bag. At the start of the year, there was optimism about the debt market. The conditions for a rate cut, such as lower inflation and current account deficit being under control, were largely in the making. And as expected, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) cut the interest rate, in phases, by 125 basis points, bolstering the debt market. One basis point is one-hundredth of a percentage point.
