When we open a PPF account, the maturity date seems far away; However time flies, and before we realise it, it is time to make a decision: should I extend my PPF account for another five years or should I open a new one? The answer always depends on one’s personal circumstances, and extension is…
Continue reading →In this edition of reader story, Jyotinath Ganguly discusses his investment journey over the past thirty years from buying paper share certificates to authoring a book on money management basics for young earners. About the author: Jyotinath Ganguly is an IT Consultant, mentor, author and visiting faculty teaching Strategy, Cloud, and ERP. He is interested in…
Continue reading →How should funds in EPF be handled If we wish to quit our job and become self-employed or resign a few years before normal retirement or wish to retire earlier? Should we leave the EPF funds as is or should we withdraw? If we withdraw what are the alternative investment options? About the author: Sriram…
Continue reading →In this episode of ‘reader audit’, Nathiya shares how her approach to investing has evolved, guidance from Ashal Jauhari; why she sold all her shares and how her family could cope with job loss and reduced income still managed to keep their investments on track. As regular readers may be aware, we publish a personal…
Continue reading →The market rally over the last few months has seen the Nifty 50 equal weight TR index (N50 EW)surge past the Nifty 50 (N50) TR index. The N50EW one-year return minus the N50 one-year return has reached a level last seen four years ago. Readers may recall our Dec 2019 that the return difference of…
Continue reading →The freefincal Equity Mutual Fund Performance Screener (Feb 2021) is now available. Use it to screen for consistently performing equity mutual funds. You can screen based on fund category & benchmark and spot mutual funds that have got a higher return than a benchmark at a lower risk. Inside, you get ~ 40% discounted links…
Continue reading →This is the monthly update of my stock portfolio. Readers may recall a detailed analysis was published in Dec 2020: Stock portfolio analysis: total return 22.58% and in Jan 2021 it was first compared with the NIfty. An update is presented below. Important please do not ignore: The direct equity portfolio is only about 17%…
Continue reading →My new book for kids: “Chinchu gets a superpower!” is now available! Here are the details on what the book is about; how to use it and how to buy it. What is this book about? As parents, if we had to groom one ability in our children that is key not only to money…
Continue reading →The IRDA annual report with Life Insurance Claim Settlement Ratio Data for 2021 (FY 2019-20) was released on Feb 10th delayed by at least 1-2 months due to the pandemic. The claim settlement ratio data along with total claims and claims paid is presented in the table below. Life Insurance Claim Settlement Ratio Data for…
Continue reading →The PPF interest rate for the current quarter is 7.1% (1st Jan 2021 to March 31st 2021). Many investors are worried and some even accuse the government of lowering rates and causing hardship. We should be aware that the PPF rate is almost 1% higher than what it should be! How is the PPF rate…
Continue reading →Finance Bill 2021 has proposed several amendments to the Lic Insurance Corporation Act 1956. Most notable among these is the 10% reservation of the LIC IPO issue size to policyholders. Here is an explanation of the associated rules. What exactly does the finance bill say? Extract from Page 108 of the bill regarding various categories of…
Continue reading →Budget 2021 came as a shock to insurers who sold ULIPs. Their tax-status was changed from tax-free to taxable as capital gains (like mutual funds). In this article we discuss a question posed by a reader: Should ULIPs be avoided due to change tax rule in budget 2021? When equity mutual funds became taxable in…
Continue reading →In this article, author Smriti Tuteja explains why having a baby doesn’t mean ending your financial independence and discusses options to earn money from home after a maternity break. About the author: Smriti is a freelance content writer and an avid reader. She quit her six-year-long IT career to embrace her love for writing. Her…
Continue reading →The Sensex closed for the first time above 50,000 on 3rd Feb 2021. We look at its 42-year journey for lessons on reward and risk. The BSE provides closing price (excluding dividends) from 3rd April 1979 when the Sensex was 124.15. We shall use this data for analysis. Dividends will have to be added to…
Continue reading →Pulkit has designed an investment dashboard for planning and tracking his investments in a goal-based manner. He had shared some screenshots in the goal-based investing Facebook group. Pulkit immediately agreed to share the thought process behind creating this dashboard. There is no better way to showcase the benefits of managing an investment portfolio as per…
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