Parenting is an instinct, not an investment!

Visu is a Tamil writer, actor, director and producer well known for his “family-oriented” movies and plays. He also became popular on the small screen when he began hosting a debate on social issues. Recently he was felicitated by the ‘Humour club’, a Chennai-based organisation that promotes healthy humour and humorists.  I got to see…

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Do not choose the moneyback feature of ICICI Balanced Advantage Fund!

ICIC Amc launched a new feature called ‘moneyback’ in its ICICI Balanced Advantage fund. Here is why retirees or young investors should not choose the moneyback feature of ICICI Balanced Advantage fund. The moneyback feature is a terribly misleading term for a Systematic Withdrawal Plan or a SWP (check out a Step-up SWP Calculator). A SWP is the…

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Mutual Fund Performance Analysis: Consistency of returns

A method to analyse mutual fund performance during a particular investment duration in terms of consistency of returns is discussed in this post. Many mutual fund investors are unable to rationally analyse the performance of their equity mutual fund holdings and often ask, When should I exit an equity mutual fund?. I would like to suggest…

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Financial Goal Planner with Flexible Asset Allocation

Asset allocation or the percentage allocation to different asset classes in a portfolio is probably the key aspect of investing. Not only does it determine the corpus that we would accumulate, it also determines the volatility associated with the portfolio. Update: The template has been merged with Freefincal Robo Advisory Software Template. Those who start investing…

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Comparison: Short-term gilt vs. long-term gilt vs. Ultra short-term mutual funds

Here is a comparison between three types of funds (by choosing one in each category): Short-term gilts funds, Long-term gilt funds and ultra short-term gilt funds. In this post, I would like to reiterate a point made earlier about staying away from gilt funds unless we know how to trade in accordance with interest cycle…

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Obsessing over returns is unnecessary for investing!

Investors tend to display extreme behaviour. Most of them want the solace of risk-free returns without understanding the impact of inflation. A few who do understand this impact tend to obsess over ‘how much their portfolio made’. A look at why keeping things simple, with minimal effort and systematic investing,  is all that is required…

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What is wealth?

‘How does one define wealth?’ is a question that I often think about, often with a tinge of sadness that there is no universally accepted definition. A compilation of attitudes about wealth based on my insignificant experience. Speaking purely from a financial point of view, wealth is the ability to tackle emergencies. When life chugs along like…

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Ebook: Young earners guide to money management

Here is a compilation of selected posts from the young earner category, meant as a ‘getting started’ money-management guide.  I have not made any attempt to connect the posts, but I hope the sequence should make enough sense for the reader to introspect about money management and enumerate the necessary steps to get started. This…

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