Many investors cannot stop themselves from buying mutual fund NFOs and clutter up their portfolios. This guide may help you think rationally and focus on the right priorities. 9.99 out of 10 mutual fund NFOs are not necessary. Hundreds of existing mutual fund options can be used to build a good MF portfolio. Investors often…

We discuss whether you should invest in a debt index fund and also list debt index funds in India as of November 2025. There are two types of debt-based passive funds in India. (1) Target Maturity Funds, which would buy and hold an index portfolio and hold it until maturity, thereby reducing interest rate risk…

A reader asks, “My name is Joy. Age 40. IT employee. My expected retirement is by 50. My current retirement portfolio is at 30X. Equity: Debt ratio is 45:55 ( don’t plan to increase equity more than 50%). I already have health insurance and an emergency fund (in FD)”. “Within Debt, I’m investing monthly in…

A subscriber to our YouTube channel asks, “Assuming we retire at the age of 60 and live up to 85 years. I have been investing in the NIFTY 50 Index since age 30. Can I not hold NIFTY 50 even in retirement for a consistent passive income through SWP? Seasoned investors in the USA do…

This article discusses how a debt mutual fund works in simple language. The ELI5 in the title stands for “explain like I am 5”. We all know how a fixed deposit works. The bank borrows money from us and pays interest regularly or upon maturity. This is also how a bond works. Now consider three…

A reader says, “I have been reading Subramoney and Freefincal for a few years. My father thought the stock market was like a lottery and never invested in it. After a few missed opportunities and very low savings at age 30 (<1x my annual expenses), I got my first decent job and realized I had…

From October, our popular equity mutual fund screener (thousands of our readers use it) will include the Ulcer Index as a parameter along with rolling returns, downside capture, upside capture, trailing returns and standard deviation. The Ulcer Index is a measure of downside risk in actively managed mutual funds. It is a simple way to…

A reader wants to know how he should invest Rs. 10 lakhs in equity mutual funds. A discussion. There are some questions an investor needs to ask himself before proceeding. 1: Will this amount be associated with a single goal or multiple goals? If it is the latter, for each goal what is the current…

In October 2022, we explained why we badly need an aggressive hybrid index fund! The situation remains the same ten months after SEBI announced a Mutual Funds Lite (MF Lite) framework for passively managed schemes of Mutual Funds, which includes passive Hybrid Funds. We determine how easy/hard it is to beat the CRISIL Hybrid 35+65…

In response to our recent articles on the performance of active mid-cap and small-cap funds versus the Nifty Midcap 150*, a viewer on YouTube suggested that 5-year rolling returns are insufficient to judge these funds, as they are typically recommended for longer periods. We should look at longer periods. These are the articles: Active Small…

“Dividends are unethical. They give you the impression that you are getting something extra from the fund. However, you are not. The dividend is just your returns being given back to you.”  – Parag Parikh, in the first unitholder meet held in Chennai and Mumbai, Nov 2014. Sources: this author, who attended the Chennai meet…

The Ulcer Index is a measure of downside risk in actively managed mutual funds. It is a simple way to find out how stressful it is to hold a fund compared to a benchmark.  Investors can make the analysis shown using the tools in the freefincal investor circle (details below). Context: The standard deviation (volatility)…

I was recently asked what tools and platforms you use for investing. I never stopped to think about it before. So, I did it in the hope that it may be of some interest to the reader. As older readers would know, I invest in NPS (mandatory), PPF (just enough to keep it alive and…