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Showing posts from March, 2020

Covid Impact, Part II - To Jobs & Income

It is one week since India proclaimed a lockdown on 24th March 2020. Tens of thousands of people started moving back to their hometowns. Those fortunate ones that could afford to work from home (wfh) settled back in their homes, while those that could not wfh stare at loss of income(s). Worse off are crores of low-income migrant workers across the nation, with a gloom future due to loss of job, income & livelihood - they are still walking 100s of kilometers back to their homes, also facing a lethal threat of contracting the viral infection. This blog aggregates data from several news sources to present a snapshot of where the nation is heading in terms of jobs & income! India's Workforce - The big picture With a population of 137 crores, India's workforce stands close to 50 crores. Of this, 20 crore people work in farms/agri related primary sector and 26 crore people work in non-farm sector. And at any point in time, about 3-4 crore people are unemployed as they ...

Covid Impact, Part I - To Personal Finance

The rapid spread of the novel coronavirus (aka Covid-19) across 104 countries in the world has caused panic and fear in the lives of people like never before. Stock markets across the world have fallen by 30% within a very short span of 3 weeks. Combined with the fight for market share of oil, launched by Saudi against OPEC+, it is not too clear how much more the markets will fall from this point onwards. On the one hand, while people are deeply distressed about the health & safety of their families, they are equally concerned about their job, investments and what the future beholds for them. Several questions arise in the minds of people - although we cannot address the health aspects, we shall try to address some of the key financial health issues here. Questions from an investor - What should I do? Qn1: Should I sell my stocks? Markets have fallen by 30-35% already, primarily due to the exit of large institutional investors. If your invest...