01/06/2026
Every time the market falls 10%, my phone rings.
"Should I pause my SIP?"
My answer is always the same.
No. And here is exactly what it costs you when you do.
The market crashed in March 2020. Sensex fell nearly 38% in 40 days. It was brutal, fast, and terrifying to watch.
Two investors — Meera and Deepak. Same SIP. Same fund. Same ₹10,000 a month. Both had been investing since January 2018.
When the crash hit, Deepak paused his SIP for 6 months — March to August 2020. "Let the dust settle," he told himself. Meera kept going. Every single month. Without blinking.
By December 2023 — same fund, same everything — here is what happened.
Deepak — paused 6 months
SIP: ₹10,000/month
Paused: Mar – Aug 2020
Missed: 6 instalments at market bottom
Total invested: ₹6,30,000
₹9.8 lakh
Dec 2023 corpus
Meera — never paused
SIP: ₹10,000/month
Continued through entire crash
Bought units at lowest NAV of decade
Total invested: ₹7,20,000
₹13.1 lakh
Dec 2023 corpus
What pausing 6 months during a crash cost Deepak
₹3.3 lakh
He invested only ₹90,000 less than Meera.
He ended up with ₹3.3 lakh less.
Read that gap carefully.
Deepak invested ₹90,000 less. But his final corpus was ₹3.3 lakh smaller.
Because the 6 months he skipped were not ordinary months. They were the cheapest months of the entire decade to buy units. Every ₹10,000 he invested during the crash bought more units than at any point before or after.
By pausing, he missed the very months that do the heaviest compounding work.
Here is what that timeline actually looked like.
Jan 2020
Both investing normally. Sensex near 41,000. Everything calm.
Mar 2020
Crash hits. Sensex drops to 25,600. Deepak pauses. Meera buys.
Apr – Jul 2020
Market still low. Deepak waits for "stability." Meera keeps accumulating units at bottom prices.
Aug 2020
Deepak restarts — after missing the entire bottom. Meera has 6 extra months of cheap units compounding.
Dec 2023
Sensex at 71,000. Meera: ₹13.1 lakh. Deepak: ₹9.8 lakh. Same fund. Different discipline.
A market crash is not a stop sign for your SIP.
It is a sale. The biggest sale the market offers — and it arrives without warning, lasts only weeks, and rewards only the people still showing up.
The investor who pauses during a crash does not protect their money. They protect their emotions — and pay for it with their returns.
Volatility is not the enemy of your SIP. Panic is. The market will recover. It always has. The units you did not buy at the bottom — those you never get back.
