Should you stop your SIPs in equity funds? No, that will be a bad idea

If you do so during a bear phase, you will forgo the benefit of rupee-cost averaging, an important factor in boosting long-term performance

Haril Kohli, a Gurugram-based graduation student and part-time worker at an advertising firm, has been running systematic investment plans (SIPs) in a couple of equity funds for the past two years. With the markets in correction mode, news of the economic slowdown dominating the headlines, and the SIP returns of his funds entering negative territory, Kohli is thinking of stopping his investments. “Going by the current state of the market, I don’t think my funds will give the kind of returns I was expecting from them,” he says. The BSE Sensex, Midcap and Small-Cap indexes are down 6.47 per cent,