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Interesting, will be curious to know how others are going about it. I would recommend anyone (including myself) to have six months of salary deposited in Fix Deposits so as you don't have to touch other investments to get over a job loss. Now this is a preventive measure.

As a proactive measure always remember slowdowns are the times when companies separate men from boys (hope you get the drift). This is the time to invest in ones career by doing better then others in current job, building new skill sets to be considered for a new job, and also getting into some formal education program to enrich yourself with newer methods and newer ways of doing things.

The recession is here, and may last until the next general elections. No more reforms - see what happened with FDI! Nehruvian socialists just cannot run a market economy.

The recession will be worse for us this time around, since our forex reserves just about equal external debt.

During the 2008 global meltdown, our reserves far outstripped the national debt, which helped us sail over it without losing our pants.

Since we have acess to a cross section of industries, Fin seems to be the hardest hit, with most companies on a hiring freeze. International MNC's seem to be wary too. Most seem to have adapted a wait and watch policy. Indian MNC's seem to be doing fine, some even expanding :)

Came across this article few days back - Analysis: India inches closer to crisis as rupee retreats | Reuters

Yes its the second recession. My company has frozen all requirements. Also all new projects are on hold.
Uday

WORLD BANK CUTS GLOBAL GROWTH OUTLOOK, SEES EURO-AREA RECESSION

Bloomberg, which just released an embargoed summary of the World Bank action, summarizes it all.

World Bank cuts global growth forecast by most in 3 yrs as euro area recession threatens to exacerbate slowdown in emerging markets, World Bank says in Global Economic Prospects report.

Sees world economic growth of 2.5%, down from June est. of 3.6%
Sees euro area GDP contracting 0.3% in 2012, compared with pvs est. of 1.8% growth
World Bank estimates euro area entered recession in 4Q
U.S. outlook cut to +2.2% from +2.9%
Japan forecast cut to 1.9% growth from 2.6%
China’s GDP growth will slow to 8.4%, unchanged from interim revised projection released in Nov.

India forecast cut to 6.5% from 8.4%


World Bank urges developing economies to “prepare for the worst” as it sees risk for European turmoil to turn into global financial crisis reminiscent of 2008
Even achieving much weaker outcomes is very uncertain

My personal take in here : All this data is published "after" the events have taken place. So, if we say Europe was in recession last quarter [ remember, no one was accespting the same and projecting false data ], it might have been well extended into the future also, meaning this quarter.

This time its gonna hurt really bad. Watch out. Looking from a different perspective, initially it was US, now it is Europe and the future recession belongs to ASIA. And in Asia, where it hurts the most is India and China.

Taking the data for India, Govt itself has reeduced the growth projecttions within a very short time and that too by a good percentage. We now have external agencies telling us the same thing. What does it mean is that its gonna hit us more than in China.

Sit back for a while. Take a deep breadth and look around. Living a simple life has become quite costly compared to last few years. Is it that worth now ? For eg, I used to get bread for Rs 10-12 last year. Now its a Rs 20/-. What has not changed is my salary and my living standards and my responsibilites towards my family. How long is this going to go on ? I am not sure.

Sorry about the rant, but wanted to share it.

Disclaimer : Past performance on recession data does not reflect the future performance on recession. We may as well see growth !!! :deadhorse

A quick and probably a dumb question, if recession really happens, what will happen to the loan interest rates?. I believe it may come down and if you have opted for floating rates it will work in favour of you.

When recession happens the business activity in general slows down and the natural/normal response of governments and central banks is to lower interest rates, and flush the market with some cheap money so as its easy for businesses to borrow money and increase business activity.

Now in India it could be a double whammy as we are also dealing with super high inflation and any lowering of interest rates will only increase the inflation (Which the government wants to avoid). So its anyones guess as to what will happen in Indian economy.

To tide over such situations, businesses often issue bonds which work out cheaper for them than the loans. They are attractive to investors as well because the rate of inetrest is more than regular term deposits of the banks.

The only fly in the ointment is the risk of late payment or default. I hope things have improved since the early days of these instruments. Even Governments (like Greece) are doing the same, only the term used is not partial default but Haircut. Ditto for Air India.

Also, it seems that finally the GoI is taking heed of the demands of industry and moving again. How far they will get, is a matter of debate since there appears to be a total paralysis as far decision making is concerned.

Very true. Thats where the investor needs to exercise caution and choose company's with solid assets and fundamentals before investing in such bonds.

There might not be much progress till late 2012 or early 2013. Then the people friendly policies or reforms are made so that they can get the most votes. If they make any good decisions now, people might forget by 2014 elections or so the politicians think.

After commonwealth scam and 2G scam and Mining scams, I do not think they have any moral standing left to take any decisions. Not that I am giving them a clean chit.
If they could have managed these honestly then they would not be in such a situation. Not that they mind this situation. After all honesty is a bit asking too much from our Political class.

The whole thing is so so depressingly similar to what happened in US. A certain Bush installed in the Whitehouse by Oil giants so that he can be a rubber stamp to whatever short term gains they were after. And we saw the aftermath. The useless(but profitable to oil companies) war and the recession.

I hope MMS has some moral guts to say no to being used as a rubber stamp and quit for good.

OT: Seems Mr Kalmadi has got bail.
Enjoy your hard earned money sir while we worry about inflation.

I have noticed that majority of IT services companies have put their hiring on hold in the last 1 - 2 months and are moving with caution. Very few product companies are hiring currently.

It is the same case in Manufacturing sector as well. The only industry where I see expansion happening is the Pharma industry as we will not stop visiting hospitals or taking medicines whether recession or not.

I would say that it is a period to exercise caution by all of us. A clear picture will emerge by end of this Quarter.

Keeping my fingers crossed.

Most companies are on Hiring freeze for now, not really because they are feeling any pinch financially but mostly a cautious response to uncertain times ahead.

Folks still need talent, job needs to be get done right. So you would see more contractual positions opening up in-place of full time positions. If this recession happens this would be much deeper then the earlier one, is my believe as economic indicators overall are looking sluggish, and this time Asia will be of no help either as it itself is seeing downward trend.