What Buffett's farewell and India's 800× Sensex agree on

What would you do if your main investment fell 50 per cent? Most of us panic at a 10 per cent market fall. Legendary investor Warren Buffett has lived through several 50 per cent declines in Berkshire Hathaway, the company he has run for decades. In his final annual letter, he mentions those falls almost casually. At Value Research, we frequently observe investors reacting in the opposite way when the index stumbles. A routine correction feels like a crisis, and people rush to book profits. Between Buffett’s calm and the history of the Indian market — especially the Sensex rising nearly 800 times since 1979 — there are five clear messages on how to live with volatility. Markets fall hard, then recover fully Serious setbacks are built into equity investing. Buffett’s reminder that Berkshire has seen steep declines is not an admission of failure. Indian markets say the same thing. The Sensex has climbed from about 100 to above 80,000 through scams, global crises and a pandemic. Each crash felt li

This article was originally published on November 20, 2025.