Hornmerchant's BLOG

Most people think one should write a will (do estate planning) when they are old. Almost everyone thinks they should write a will when they are rich or have lot of assets. "The best time to write a will is just a day or a moment before one dies! But we don't know when we die. We may die anytime. So we should write the will right now!!" I read or heard the above, the first time, few years ago. I felt it is so simple and strong statement. I started my work on my will right from that moment. It took sometime to understand finer details and way to do it and more than anything else overcome the myths I had (like anyone else) about will writing. Covid-19 is reminding us the above quote in a harsh way. Lakhs of people getting infected, Tens of thousands scrambling for life and thousands of people succumbing every day - with no discrimination of age, gender, net worth etc. We all have lost some or the other in our circles (family members, relatives, friends and/or colleagues). I ...

Covid is spreading fast. I wish you, your family and loved ones be safe & healthy. We need to exercise high caution and try hard to prevent getting infected, by following good hygiene and social distancing practices. However, we also need to be financially prepared to handle the situation, if unfortunately we are infected. Covid treatment in private hospitals is costing 10-20 lakhs, depending on type of hospital and type of hospitalization (i.e., Isolation/Ventilator/ ICU). If a person in a family is infected, more often than not, whole or multiple members of the family will be infected consequently. If such infections turn out to be of moderate to high severity, hospitalization will be required. If that happens, mostly, most of us will not be able to afford private hospital expenses, out of our savings. If we spend so much, then we will become bankrupt. There will be no option but to go with Govt. provided free facilities. You know the state of those facilities as you ...

A little more than a month ago, stock markets in India and all over the world were at their all time highs. Suddenly, in a matter of few working days markets crashed at a speed that wasn’t seen before, including at the time of financial melt-down and recession of 2008-09. Until the end of first week of this month, I believed, in my life time I’ll never again see 2008-09 kind of crash. No living person then and today so far remembers experiencing any bigger stock market crash of a magnitude of 2008-09. Well, for Indians, it was the only biggest crash people have seen. In USA, something bigger had happened during ‘great depression’ of 1929, when Indian Stock Market was practically non-existent (though BSE is more than century old, there is no data, benchmark whatsoever for those dates). During 2008-09 I was still amateur investor with little money. That situation should have been much better for me, if had not done a bad financial decision just few months before the recession took enti...