While 2020 has shaken the toughest of minds and taken everyone through most uncertain times, we believe that it is time to shun the pessimism and embrace positivity – a necessity, not just for our mental wellbeing but also for our financial health. Three years ago, we had written about the relevance of optimism in taking maximum benefit from markets (https://www.simplymutual.com/optimistic-wealthy/), we find it important to highlight the same in the context of the current scenario. The Indian economy was well poised for years of sustained growth before it went off-track with the onset of Covid. Now, with a vaccine distribution plan getting in place equity markets are looking ahead of the crisis. The fast pace of recovery in demand across sectors has convinced participants that the economy will get back on track sooner than expected. Foreign institutional investors have been the quickest to sense this and have pumped in their highest ever monthly figure in our markets in Nov’20 (USD~9 Billion) and continue to add in December With the low interest rates regime here to stay for some time, we expect local demand to remain strong across sectors. Efforts to boost local manufacturing will continue to be in focus especially after the border standoff with China. The keenness of global MNCs to reduce over dependence on China as a manufacturing hub has created a favorable environment. The Indian government is eager to help with policies like the PLI scheme and rationalization of labor laws Markets reaching all time high levels has created a sense of skepticism in the minds of investors. The extreme pessimistic environment during the lockdown period is fresh in the minds, but we need to quickly come out of this self-doubt and show confidence in the abilities of our industry captains to put our investments back on track for a stupendous performance in the coming years. While there are sections of the economy that are harder hit and will take some more time to revive, and news flow will keep the markets volatile, there is reason to be confident about the future The simplymutual family wishes you a happy, prosperous and optimistic new year 2021