In this article, we compare the performance of international equity mutual funds (based in India and available for the retail Indian investor) with the S&P 500 Total Return in INR over the last one, two and three years as of July 23rd 2021. If we exclude the international index funds tracking the Nasdaq 100 and…

I get this kind of question a lot: There is a 30-40% overlap in the portfolios of my mutual funds. Is this okay, or should I change my funds? How much of a portfolio overlap is OK, and how much is not? A discussion. The reasoning presented here is similar to the one discussed before: Can…

Neils Bohr, one of the founding fathers of quantum physics, said, ”If quantum mechanics hasn’t profoundly shocked you, you haven’t understood it yet.” The same is true of retirement planning. When you sit down to do a retirement calculation for the first time, it should shock you. If it does not, you are probably making…

This is a list of mutual funds that gained the most in AUM after the March 2020 market crash.  To ensure we account for the fund inflow and not the fund returns, we compare the NAV and AUM on March 31st 2020 and May 31st 2021 and subtract the percentage change in NAV from the…

Each time the market hits an all-time high, several investors get jittery and start wondering if they should stop their SIP investments or delay their lump sum investment (including STPs). Here is why there is no benefit in doing so. We recently discussed who should “book profits: and who should not: Is it time to…

Sometime last year, I was on a Zoom call with a few school friends. While we were discussing the good old days and how the school system worked differently for all of us, we stumbled upon the idea of teaching about politics and finance in school.  About the author: Smriti is an author, freelance content…

Sriram asks, “Instead of separately investing in equity mutual funds and fixed income and then worry about rebalancing and pay taxes, why not use just one aggressive hybrid mutual fund for long term goals? This has both equity and fixed income. The rebalancing is automatic, and we do not have to pay tax”. On its…

On May 27th 2020, the Reserve Bank of India released its annual report for 2020-2021.  On page 93 (II. Economic Review), a section titled, “Is the Bubble in Stock Markets Rational?” caught the eye of the financial media. Over the last couple of days, we have received several emails and comments from worried investors regarding…

A viewer on YouTube wants to know which equity fund should one use for an 8-9 year SIP. She/he had also listed three funds to choose from. Their names are not important here. This type of question is perhaps the most common among those invested or interested in mutual funds. Unfortunately, this question is wrong….

Balaji asks, “Dear Pattu Sir, You have given proof over and over again that one should not expect any particular return from investing in mutual funds and that there are no guarantees, I have just started my mutual fund investment journey. May I know how much risk or loss I should expect? This will help…

Suresh Padmanaban writes, “Dear Pattu, I have been investing in the markets since the mid-90s. I get a feeling that the volatility over these years has gradually come down. Can you please quantitatively verify this?” On 3rdf Feb 2021, the Sensex closed above 50,000 for the first time. We studied the evolution of stock market…

Nearly three years have passed since mutual funds complied with the SEBI recategorization rules. We now have enough data to classify hybrid mutual funds in terms of their risk with respect to equity mutual funds. We shall use the standard deviation of monthly returns over the last three years to classify hybrid mutual funds. Let…