Should I invest for my child’s marriage?

Ever since I revealed that I invest for my son’s marriage in the year-end personal financial audit, several friends, and readers have chided me about this: ‘Why do you want to invest for your kids marriage?’ ‘Our kids should fund their own marriage’ ‘Weddings should be simple affairs devoid of all lavishness’ Journalist Sunderajan Padmanabhan…

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Dynamic Asset Allocation Mutual Funds: Yield Gap vs. P/E Ratio

While investing periodically for long-term goals, an investor should be aware of two factors: The power of compounding oh-hum, boring!  I am sure most people reading this are tired of see how a small investment grows to an unimaginably large value 
 after several decades! Volatility Most of us must invest in volatile instruments like…

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Sensex Total Returns Index as a Mutual Fund Benchmark

Recently I had posted an analysis of Franklin Indian Blue Chip fund (FIBCF). In response, Swapnil suggested that I compare the fund with Sensex or Nifty including dividends. In the same post, I was able to include a comparison with the Nifty total returns index, as the data is conveniently available  (as Swapnil pointed out)….

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How to select mutual fund categories suitable for your financial goals?

You might be wondering why the title refers to mutual fund ‘categories’.  Would it not be more enticing and perhaps more useful had it read, ‘how to select mutual funds suitable for your financial goals’? Perhaps so.  However, I choose to focus on how to select mutual fund categories first, for two reasons I am…

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Visualizing Mutual Fund Volatility Measures

Mutual fund investments are subject to market risk!  Haven’t we heard that one before?! If we wish to analyze the performance of a mutual fund, we should know how to evaluate returns and how to evaluate volatility. Volatility, not risk. Risk pertains to your financial goal.  Volatility pertains to the instrument. There are many ways to…

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Index ETF vs. Large Cap Funds: The huge cost of ‘active’ management

How different is a large cap equity mutual fund from an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that tracks an equity index?  The portfolio of an index ETF is likely to be nearly identical to that of the index at any point of time. Typically the portfolio of all large cap mutual funds will have a good amount of…

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Mutual Fund Rolling Returns Calculator

Use this automated mutual fund rolling returns calculator to evaluate the consistency in performance of a mutual fund over any interval from April 3rd 2006 onward. You can compare results with benchmarks like Sensex, CNX Nifty, CNX Small-cap, and CNX Mid-Cap. This version is a major improvement over the previous Excel Rolling Returns Calculator.  The analysis…

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Calculator Updates: AMFI MF NAV history downloader and MF account statement generator

In the last couple of days AMFI has changed it web address! From www.AMFI.com,  it is now http://portal.amfiindia.com Therefore, I had to make this change in the mutual fund NAV history downloader. Also, while working on a mutual fund SIP returns analyzer, I noticed minor bugs in the mutual fund account statement generator and returns calculator….

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