Nifty has fallen for 8 straight weeks: How should SIP investors rethink their strategy? Experts explain — SkimNews
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- Nifty 50 has fallen for eight consecutive weeks, placing Systematic Investment Plan (SIP) investors in a familiar but uncomfortable correction phase.
- Sanjiv Bajaj, Joint Chairman and MD of Bajaj Capital, advised investors not to alter their SIP just because the market is going through a difficult phase, calling SIPs a tool designed to work across market cycles including falling ones.
- Continuing SIPs during a correction lets the same investment amount buy more units at lower prices, a benefit of rupee-cost averaging that Bajaj cited, while stopping creates a restart-timing risk since markets can recover before sentiment turns positive.
- Bajaj rejected increasing SIPs simply because the market is correcting, recommending instead that investors with rising incomes and a 10-year-or-longer horizon consider a gradual, annual step-up only after emergency funds and insurance are in place.
- Bajaj distinguished a market correction from a fund problem, telling investors that a few weeks or months of weak returns don't justify switching funds — meaningful review (benchmark, peer comparison, manager or strategy changes) should happen once or twice a year, not on headlines.
- The core message from Bajaj: investors should base SIP changes on whether their financial circumstances have shifted, not on market sentiment, with the goal being 'a strategy you can stay with through all' market turns.
Why it matters: For the millions of Indians running SIPs through mutual funds, Bajaj's counsel pushes back against two common urges during the 8-week Nifty slide — pausing to avoid further pain, or topping up to 'buy the dip.' His framework ties every SIP decision to the investor's own cash flows, horizon (he names 10+ years as the threshold for flexibility) and financial cushion, not the index's trajectory.
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