PenguWIN turns 6

Greetings from PenguWIN,

                                           Today, we are 6 years old. Our sincere thanks to each one of you, for your patronage. Trust we are well set for a long innings. Initially, when I decided to move from corporate employment to entrepreneurship (whatever small business that we do), while there was a lot of support from friends and well-wishers, there was some scepticism from family members. It was a call between doing what you might not like the best vs what you love to do but may not be successful in monetary terms. Since I had a flair for Personal Finance from my management school days, I ensured that we (wife & daughter including) were covered for atleast 10 years based on my Networth at that point in time.  Hence, I decided to take the plunge to start PenguWIN.

While it may sound easy to do something that you really like, entrepreneurship has its own set of challenges, especially when you are a first-generation entrepreneur. Anyway, I am happy with my decision and honestly, never in these 6 years did I think of going back to corporate employment.

The Covid 19 pandemic has affected the economies of the entire world during the first half of this calendar year. The medical fraternity is still grappling with unknowns, how to find a cure and a vaccine. I hope they will counter this challenge and come out successfully in the shortest possible time.

Every company in India is struggling to sustain its business and contraction in our economy is unavoidable, given the complexity of problems that they face. The top 10 business groups of India including Reliance, Tata, Adani, Birla reported profit before tax loss of Rs.19,340/- crores in Jan-Mar 2020 quarter (Q4 FY19-20) compared to profit before tax gain of Rs. 48,500/- crores in Jan-Mar 2019 quarter (Q4 FY18-19).

The Indian equity markets have been on a roller-coaster ride in CY 2020. 

Sensex went all the way up to 42,000+ and then nose-dived to around 26,000 (38% fall in about 6 weeks) on Covid-19 fears. Now we are back to around 36,000 level as of yesterday, the 3^rd July 2020. Again, no investor or analyst could predict the market. While common sense tells us that when the economy is struggling, market is expected to go down, though the extent might not be predictable. But how did the market go back to 36,000 level from 26,000 when the Covid 19 is doing more damage than initially envisaged.?

One thing that has made a difference during this period is the heightened awareness about Life and Health insurance – Individual spending on life and health insurance has gone up 25% year on year. Interest and enquiries on long term life and health insurance are hitting the roof. Please ensure that you and your family have adequate coverage of Life, Health and Critical illness insurance.

Whenever there is uncertainty and stress in the economy, gold is expected to do well. While too high an allocation of gold and in jewellery form is not a good idea, a small exposure (upto 10% of networth) to gold as a hedge is a good diversification strategy. Sovereign Gold Bonds, issued by Government of India is the best option as it can be held in Demat (no issue of safety as in physical gold) and also provides 2.5% interest rate. There are 6 issues during this year and issue 4 starts on 6^th Jul, Monday. The details are provided in the table below. The price mentioned is for 1 gm of 24K pure gold and offline price. You get a discount of Rs.50 i.e. if you apply online through demat, the July 6^th issue price would be Rs. 4,802/gm.

On a different note, the Covid spread and consequences is alarming (I know atleast a dozen doctors and healthcare specialists who are directly facing the Covid patients). So, please be extra cautious.

Feel free to reach out to us for any of your personal finance requirements and please do refer your friends and family.

There is only one boss: the customer. And he can fire anybody in the company, from the chairman on down. Simply by spending his money somewhere else. - Sam Walton.

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