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Summary: Dhirendra Kumar’s latest Editor’s Note published an unusually cautious note about the current global crisis, prompting a wave of anxious responses from investors. The piece resonated because it broke from years of steady optimism, leaving readers searching for practical guidance in uncertain times.
For years, readers have turned to Dhirendra Kumar’s weekend notes for reassurance during market panic. Stay invested. Ignore the noise. Crises pass. Markets recover.
However, the latest Editor’s Note, When ‘this too shall pass’ doesn’t, published on May 16, 2026, landed differently. Readers immediately sensed the shift in tone. Not panic. Not surrender. But caution. A recognition that this crisis may not behave like the ones investors have learned to sit through over the past two decades.
What followed was not disagreement so much as unease. Many readers accepted the core argument that wars which destroy physical infrastructure are fundamentally different from sentiment-driven market corrections. But almost every response circled back to the same practical question: What should ordinary investors actually do now?
“This time feels different”
Several readers said the column unsettled them precisely because it came from someone who has spent decades arguing against reacting to headlines.
Kaveri Annamalai, a CFP who says she has built much of her investing philosophy around Dhirendra Kumar’s writings, admitted the piece ‘kind of shook me’. The line about reassessing return expectations, she wrote, was creating ‘unrest’.
“Will equity still be the same asset class that we should be in?” she asked. “With corrected expectations of returns, will it still be worth all the turmoil?”
Mukul Pande sensed ‘a slight fear’ in the usually confident outlook. Sunny Varma wrote that the note felt “a bit less optimistic for the first time”, while Dheeraj Chawla said the column sounded “more cautious than usual”, which made the message land harder.
Some readers interpreted the warning through their own life stages. Harsh K Chopra, over 77 years old and invested largely through hybrid funds and RBI bonds, asked bluntly: “What’s the way forward for us seniors?”
Retirees and near-retirees wrote in especially large numbers. Debashis Mukherjee, who retired last year, said he was now “deeply worried about the erosion” of his savings. Shiv Singh inverted his allocation from 60-40 equity-debt to 25-75 in favour of debt for the next couple of years. Others wondered whether large-cap funds, multi-asset funds or gold should now replace aggressive equity exposure.
The questions kept repeating in different forms:
- Should SIPs continue?
- Should equity allocations be cut?
- Should investors sit on cash?
- Should they move abroad?
- Should they lower expectations permanently?
The fear is not just oil
What made this round of responses different was that readers rarely spoke only about crude prices or West Asia. The anxiety felt broader, almost civilisational.
Prakash Virkar worried about a chain reaction: reduced fertiliser use, falling food production, job losses, AI disruption and eventually social unrest. Nilesh Pushpangathan called it a “double whammy” where both manufacturing and services are simultaneously under pressure.
Others questioned whether India’s growth assumptions themselves need revisiting.
Sudha Devi Janga wrote that many investors assume India’s growth story remains intact, ‘no matter what happens in the global market’, but pointed out that global shocks, from Japan’s rates to China’s property troubles to the US-Iran conflict, continue to dominate Indian markets. “Unless we reduce this dependency,” she warned, “India will always be a developing country.”
Tarun Malik pushed even harder. He argued that investors now need ‘hard facts’ about the economy, industrial competitiveness, AI disruption and weakening growth, rather than only the standard message of staying patient through SIPs.
Even readers who disagreed with the degree of pessimism acknowledged the underlying concern. Kunal Sharma argued that oil supply disruptions may stabilise faster than feared, especially if sanctions ease or production ramps up elsewhere. Ajit Venniyoor felt the note was ‘unduly pessimistic’ because oil is no longer dependent solely on West Asia.
But even these responses accepted the central premise: this crisis is structurally different.
As G M Krishna put it, “it’s not different per se, but 300 per cent different,” because this time “damage is done to physical assets/resources.”
“What should we do now?”
More than anything else, the inbox reflected a search for practical action.
Abin Paul captured the frustration directly. “This time, your post sounds alarming,” he wrote, “because this time you have not given any advice on what course of action should common people take.”
That sentiment appeared repeatedly.
Amit Roy wanted to know what a disciplined 60:40 investor should do now. Hemanta Saikia, 35 and largely invested in equity SIPs, simply asked: “Shall I continue this?” Ritwik Chakrabarti requested an entire issue devoted not to clichés but to actual investor actions in this environment.
Some readers proposed their own answers.
Satish Jeurkar felt short-term debt looked like the only practical near-term alternative in a flat equity market with rising inflation. Rajeev Malhotra suggested reducing exposure to weak-performing equity funds and temporarily shifting some allocation into income or arbitrage funds. Shriniwas Dandekar, a mutual fund distributor, said he had already begun recalibrating investor expectations and encouraging austerity instead of aggressive return projections.
Yet even amid the gloom, some readers returned to the long-term discipline that Value Research has always advocated.
Yogesh Thakur reminded readers of the difficult 2010-13 period, when even three-year SIPs showed negative returns before eventually rewarding patient investors. “A U-shaped recovery will no doubt test investors,” he wrote, “but disciplined investing would likely still be rewarded eventually.”
Bikram Mandal interpreted the note less as an abandonment of ‘this too shall pass’ and more as a reminder that patience may simply have to stretch longer than investors are used to.
And perhaps that was the emotional core running through the responses. Readers were not rejecting long-term investing. They were trying to understand what long-term patience looks like when the crisis itself feels longer, slower and more structural than anything they have previously experienced.
The strongest responses were not fearful or defiant. They were honest. Readers recognised that this was not just another market wobble to be dismissed with a chart from the past. But they were also searching, sometimes anxiously, for a framework that still makes long-term investing sense in a world that suddenly feels less predictable.
And maybe that, more than anything else, explains why this particular column drew such an extraordinary reaction. For once, even the optimists paused.
Credits
Kaveri Annamalai • Mukul Pande • Sunny Varma • Dheeraj Chawla • Harsh K Chopra • Debashis Mukherjee • Shiv Singh • Prakash Virkar • Nilesh Pushpangathan • Sudha Devi Janga • Tarun Malik • Kunal Sharma • Ajit Venniyoor • G M Krishna • Abin Paul • Amit Roy • Hemanta Saikia • Ritwik Chakrabarti • Satish Jeurkar • Rajeev Malhotra • Shriniwas Dandekar • Yogesh Thakur • Bikram Mandal
This story came from readers who hit reply on the Editor's Note. The next one will be on its way to your inbox this Saturday. We're reading every response.
Also read: The real product is you
This article was originally published on May 19, 2026.
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