Investment lessons from Warren Buffett in times of Coronavirus lockdown

Lockdown in India has entered second phase as Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced its extension up to 3rd May 2020. From an investor's perspective, spread of Coronavirus has jeopardized earnings over the next next 5-6 months. In such a precarious situation, it would be interesting to know what investment lessons can be drawn from ace investor Warren Buffett. Famously, Buffett says 'invest in yourself.' Here we decode this investment lesson from the Oracle of Omaha and apply it to this global lockdown situation. How to do that? The greatest threat in this lockdown is to the life of an individual from Covid 19. So, how to interpret Buffett's sage advice in this scenario? It means that while making an investment plan, an investor's prime focus should be on insurance, say tax and investment experts.

On this issue, SEBI registered tax and investment expert, Manikaran Singhal said, "The foundation of the investment begins with investment in yourself and that means insurance - the focus is especially on health insurance. Today, when the whole world is facing an economic crisis purely on the basis of threat perception to human health, those who know this fundamental rule of investment and acted to implement it are today better placed than those who made investments keeping just good returns only in mind." 

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Singhal said that investment plan for a beginner should begin with Term Insurance followed by health insurance and personal accidental insurance. Once an investor is done putting in place these three foundations of investment planning, they should go for life insurance.

Elaborating upon the benefit of 'investing in yourself' as suggested by Warren Buffett, another SEBI registered tax and investment expert, Jitendra Solanki said, "Term insurance, health insurance and life insurance plans require annual premium that keep on increasing with your age. So, lesser is your age , lesser will be the annual premium. Apart from this, initiating one's investment with term insurance, health insurance and life insurance, one is able to fix one's own value, which is very important." 

Solanki said that once an investor is done with term insurance, health insurance and personal accidental insurance, he or she should go for the emergency fund investment. This investment gives an investor some kind of financial freedom during financial crisis like 2008 or today's COVID-19 caused crisis, where speculation in regard to the salary cuts or delays in payment is doing the rounds.

Manikaran Singhal said, "Investors should keep themselves away from such negative rumors as it may push you to take some decision that in future may turn out a Himalayan blunder."

Those who believe Government has asked employers not to cut or delay salaries of their employees and hence they are safe from the COVID-19 caused financial crisis should know that the Ministry of Home Affairs order is not a binding on the private companies. 

Speaking on the matter, Senior Advocate Rajeev Bansal said, "On the basis of the order by the Ministry of Home Affairs it is clear that the compulsion to pay is only for the employers of the migrant workers and not for anyone else, it would be unreasonable to include private establishments and their employees within the ambit of the said order. The private establishment are not covered under the purview of the said order."

So, one should not depend fully on the government for hard times. They should make some investments in themselves by following the Investment lessons from Warren Buffett.