Who on Earth is a Financial Adviser?!

“who is a financial adviser? What do they do?”, are, for me, surprisingly difficult questions to answer. Perhaps if I did not know anything about advisory regulations, I might have said something naive like, ‘a financial advisor is a money-management doctor’ Unfortunately, since I know a bit about these regulations, I take it upon myself to irritate…

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Portfolio management is possible without AMC Feeds!

When direct mutual fund plans were introduced, many ‘advisers’ said, they would not recommend direct plans because they will not receive feeds from the AMC (a fancy term for account statement) and hence cannot monitor portfolios. The truth was that they were looking for an excuse to justify the trail commissions they receive. Soon the…

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Illustration: Passive Income Generation

Suppose I have 70 lakhs with me and would like to generate an inflation-protected income for as long as possible, how and where should I invest? The following is based on the Inflation-protected Income Simulator, and a thread at facebook group, Asan Ideas for Wealth (some inputs have been modified) A more detailed how to generate inflation-protected income…

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Do not use ELSS mutual funds to save tax in the last minute!

Thanks to the ‘bull run’, ELSS mutual funds are projected as a ‘good’ last minute tax savings instrument. If you are thinking about tax deductions only now, do not use ELSS mutual funds. Last minute tax-savers are not interested in preaching: how you should integrate tax planning with goal planning, plan for it at the start…

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How to choose a financial planner?

Do you even need a financial planner? Money management, especially  inflation proofing long-term goals, is not rocket science.  Then again, even rocket science is not rocket science! The inclination to act, coupled with commonsense is all that is required. So the answer is, a financial planner is not necessary. Of course, financial planners and ‘independent’ financial advisors…

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