Up, down and sideways

The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation is preparing to invest in the stock market. As part of the preparations, key officials had a couple of rounds of meetings with top equity fund managers in Mumbai. According to a fly on the wall, an important question to the fund managers was: "How does one get positive returns from the market always?" Fund managers did their bit to convince these officials that the fundamental trait of the equity market was to move both ways and that the behemoth should be prepared to take hits once in a while. But they were not sure if the labour ministry mandarins took the suggestion positively.