“I am worried about Quantum Long Term Equity Value Fund: Should I Exit?”, asked a reader. “Why does Value Research say this is a four star fund when it has only given half the benchmarks return in the past year?”, asked another. So that was enough encouragement for me to review the only fund from Quantum AMC. Wait, the only fund? Yes, check the assets of their funds and you will see what I mean.
Ten Years of Mutual Fund Investing: My Journey and lessons learned
On 19th June 2008, I started investing in mutual funds. These ten years have changed the way I look at risk and even day to day money management. This is my story and lessons I have learned. The broad trajectory should be well known to regular/old readers. This is an account of how I went from spendthrift to debt-bearer to financial independence: The Financial Arrow of Time and My journey: driven by the fear of making the same mistakes again
Do we need to time the market?
For a while now, I have been wanting to do a full back-test of multiple market timing or tactical asset allocation strategies. I used a speaking invitation as an excuse to create a spreadsheet where multiple models can be quickly tested with 1000s of time periods. While at it, I asked myself, do we need to time the market? I also recognised that question is different from, can we time the market?
How ETFs are different from Mutual Funds: A Beginner’s Guide
Let us consider the basic differences between Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) and mutual funds and when should one use either product. A couple of announcements first: (A) I will be speaking on “index investing and market timing” this Sunday, 17th June in the Tamilnadu Investors’ Association monthly meeting (see invite below). Do join if possible. (B) If you are using my Features of the freefincal mutual fund and financial goal tracker, then due to the fund mergers you need to make some changes to the sheet to make it work right. You can download the list of changes here. I will release an update shortly.
List of Index Mutual Funds and ETFs in India: What to choose and what to avoid
As I started preparing for a talk on Index investing, I needed to know how many indices are passively tracked and so here is a list of index mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in India sorted by their benchmark. I also indicate which ones to choose and which ones to avoid. Surprised to find as many 75 index funds and ETFs.
Many people worry about costs associated with active mutual funds and believe “in the long run” they will not beat passive (index) funds. Well “beat” does not simply mean more returns and it is important to remember that risk is in real-time and returns are always in hindsight. So I would first suggest that you first consider the advantages and disadvantages of index investing
