Here are three simple tips to choose the right financial advisor for you with no conflicts of interest (fee-only registered with SEBI). If you wish to outsource money management, either because you cannot do it yourself for want of time, confidence or expertise or because you prefer outsourcing, a trusted financial advisor is necessary. More…

After 13 years of using a feature phone, I finally decided to get myself a smartphone. Selecting one I realized that many of us have the right approach to buying a smartphone but fail to apply it to managing money and investing. First some blah blah about my new phone, kindly bear with me. Did…

The latest freefincal mutual fund portfolio overlap tool allows you to compare five mutual funds at once to check for common stocks! Since Moneycontrol had changed its layout, this tool has been written from the ground up. Users will now have to select equity or debt as fund type before running the comparison. Update April 2022: This…

This is an update of the rolling return and rolling risk calculator. Download this to check how consistently a fund has beat its benchmark in terms of return and risk. New AMCs, New fund names (open-ended) have been added to this sheet. You can download the sheet from the link below. This tool is now…

Many mutual fund SIP buyers and sellers incorrectly believe that SIP is a disciplined form of investing that reduces market risk because it averages the cost of purchase. In part 2 of “this is how a real market crash “feels” like“, let us travel with a SIP started ten years apart and see for ourselves…

Don’t be fooled by those who stand to profit from your investments!  SIP is NOT systematic investing! Starting a mutual fund SIP and continuing it through market ups and down has nothing to do with systematic investing. Buying mutual fund units on the same of day of each month is automation. It has nothing to…

ETMoney is an app which lets you invest into Mutual Fund Direct Plans without any commission or fees (as on date). To start investing in Mutual Funds you need to complete one time central KYC process as per SEBI guidelines. This KYC is valid across all platforms so even if you don’t want to invest…

In this article, I compare, category-wise, ten-year ULIP returns vs mutual fund returns. ULIPs are currently being sold as a “better alternative” to mutual funds because they are tax free. Investors by looking at the ULIP returns shown below must recognize the huge difference between the best and worst performer in each ULIP category. Since there is…

A new mutual fund investor has to verify ID and address proof. This is known as KYC or Know Your Customer. Here is how you can do online KYC using Paytm money. The facility of online KYC is crucial for direct mutual fund investors who are too busy to visit an AMC office or CAMs…

Here are 18 mutual funds with better than index return & lower than index risk over the last 1,2,3,4 and 5 years! I have calculated this with trailing returns and trailing standard deviation (a measure of volatility) using the freefincal equity mutual fund consistency screener. This is an alternative way of short-listing mutual funds. However,…

One question that new investors ask is, “since the NAV of a direct plan mutual fund is always higher than that of the regular plan, I will get a lesser number of units for the same investment. Is this not bad? Will I not get lower returns and lesser corpus?” In this article, we shall…

I received two interesting questions received on email. (1) As a new investor, how many mutual funds do I need to begin with? (2) Can I begin investing with a single multi-cap fund? Interestingly, the answer to the second question is “yes” and that is the also the answer to the first question – “one”. Yes, most investors,…

One of the most popular beliefs about a mutual fund SIP is that it reduces risk because the buying price is “averaged”. Many also believe a SIP helps achieve higher returns. We show that statements are not true and merely myths propagated by the mutual fund industry for profit. That a mutual fund SIP cannot…

Here are lessons from the best and worst performing mutual funds of 2018. None of the funds mentioned are to be considered for investment. Observing annual returns can make us understand risk better and sometimes introduce us to a new investment strategy adopted by mutual funds. In this 2018 return means return between Jan 1st…

This is a performance review of HDFC Balanced Advantage Fund, previously HDFC Prudence Fund. Does it still make sense to consider this fund or continue investing in it? Let us find out by comparing it with Nifty 50 and HDFC Hybrid Equity (Balanced) fund. This fund has had a colorful history  The fund was launched in…