What’s Your Uncle Point?

Every bull market feels like a festival. IPOs are the sweets everyone wants a bite of, new mutual funds are decorated like shiny gift boxes, and investors are in a mood where every stock “will be the next Infosys.” WhatsApp groups turn into stock-picking salons. Even your quiet neighbor who once only spoke about cricket now says with conviction: “I’m a long-term investor.”

But markets have their own sense of humor. They don’t just rise, they fall too. And when they fall hard, something interesting happens: people hit their Uncle Point.

The “Uncle Point” is that moment when your confidence in the market is so badly shaken that you reach out for external help. Think of it as the investing version of pressing the red emergency button.

It usually looks like this:

• Markets are down, your portfolio looks like a bloodbath.

• You stare at the screen in disbelief, thinking, “This can’t be happening.”

• After a few more sleepless nights, you pick up the phone and make the SOS call — to your uncle, your advisor, your friend who’s “good with stocks,” or sometimes even Google.

That’s your Uncle Point — the point where you feel you cannot take the pain anymore, and you want someone else to tell you what to do.

I had mine many years back. My brother-in-law, a seasoned stock market investor, recommended a media company (its name has since changed, and I’ve honestly forgotten what it was called). I invested a few lakhs — big money for me back then — and waited.

For more than a year, the stock went nowhere. Absolutely flat. It felt like watching paint dry.

Eventually, I hit my Uncle Point. I called my brother-in-law and said, “This isn’t working. I’ve waited so long and got nothing. I’m selling.”

So I sold. Relieved, but also slightly defeated.

A few months later, curiosity made me check the stock price again. And of course — it had doubled.

That’s the cruel joke of the Uncle Point: very often, it shows up right before the tide turns.

It’s human. Here’s why most of us find ourselves there:

💡 Or as I like to put it with humor: “In bull markets, we check our portfolio every day for joy. In bear markets, we check it every day for pain. Either way, the habit stays — only the emotion changes.”

This is where it gets serious. Every investor needs to understand two key concepts:

• Risk Tolerance: Your emotional ability to handle losses. In simple terms — how much of a fall in your portfolio can you stomach without losing sleep or hitting your Uncle Point?

• Risk Capacity: Your financial ability to take risk. This depends on your income, expenses, time horizon, and commitments. A 30-year-old with no dependents has a higher risk capacity than someone nearing retirement.

The confusion happens because people mix the two. They may have the capacity to take risk but not the tolerance. Or they may be brave at heart but don’t have the financial cushion to back it up.

If these two are not aligned, the Uncle Point comes faster than expected.

Let me confess something: most investors don’t come to me when everything is going up. They come when the market has turned against them, when doubt has crept in, and when they are dangerously close to their Uncle Point.

That’s exactly where an advisor adds value. Not by handing out hot tips or predicting the next bull run — but by being the calm voice in the storm.

An advisor’s role is to:

In other words, an advisor isn’t there to stop you from losing money. They’re there to stop you from losing your head. And sometimes, that’s far more valuable.

Now, can you completely avoid your Uncle Point? Honestly — no. We’re human. But you can definitely push it further away so it doesn’t appear at the first sign of trouble. Here’s how:

Think of it this way: avoiding the Uncle Point is less about avoiding pain and more about designing your investments so you can live with the pain when it comes.

The Uncle Point is real. We all have it. The trick is not to deny it, but to prepare for it — with a plan, a process, and someone who can guide you when emotions run high. That’s what I do for my clients.

👉 If you’d like to talk about your goals and how to build wealth without panic calls, book a time with me → https://wealthwisher.in/book-a-call/