It is well known that stock market returns are clumped: it will rain returns in a big way followed by years of frustration. In this article, we investigate the annual and monthly returns of the Sensex from April 1979 and show the annualized return after 41 years depend on just a few good years/months. All…
Continue reading →RBI has notified the scheme for grant of ex-gratia payment of the difference between compound interest and simple interest for six months to borrowers in specified loan accounts (01.3.2020 to 31.08.2020). Why was this done? Will you benefit? About the author: Anjesh Bharatiya is a 30+ taxman by profession and a Chemical Engineer by education….
Continue reading →Ranjith writes, “Thanks to your articles I have started my investment journey with Nifty 50 and Nifty Next 50 index funds. Should I also start a SIP in a Nifty Midcap 150 index fund for wider market coverage?”. Let us find out if this has been worth the effort in the past. From the point…
Continue reading →“Which SIP is best for five years?” is a question often asked by mutual fund investors new and old. We are introducing a new category, shorts where we shall provide crisp answers to such common mutual fund questions. We would like to first point out that this is an incorrect question. You cannot invest in a…
Continue reading →Shyam Sunder asks, “I have been investing in SBI Bluechip Fund via SIP for about six years now. The fund has underperformed its benchmark for the last five years. Should I stop my SIP and invest elsewhere?” Let us discuss this dilemma faced by many large cap mutual fund investors. At this point, it is…
Continue reading →Sandeep asks, “can you please advice me on how a 22 aged guy should design his investment portfolio & invest regularly?” When the right question is asked at the right time, it can be a gamechanger. We will leave it to the judgment of the reader whether the question was posed to the right person…
Continue reading →If you read the scheme information document of a typical debt fund, say PPFAS liquid fund, you would fund interest rate swaps mentioned in many places. An interest swap is a derivative product used to hedge interest rate risk by mutual funds. In this article, we explain with simple examples, how swaps work. About the author:…
Continue reading →On 14th Oct 2020, the Nifty P/E ratio or PE ratio was 34.87. This was an all-time high from 1st Jan 1999. This means the Nifty 50 was priced at 34.87 times its earnings. The latest PE ratio at the time of publication is 34.37 (23rd Oct 2020). Investors are worried if this high PE is…
Continue reading →The “mutualfundsahihai” ads are into their second innings and this time around, the young earners who dreamt of big returns appreciate that big risk comes first! So much so that AMFI now includes a line “MFs are for those who wish to understand risks” (and hopefully don’t*). There is more to mutual fund risk than…
Continue reading →Investors often wish to classify mutual funds beyond the SEBI designated categories. A natural way to do this is to try and classify them in term of returns: high-return funds, medium-return funds and low-return funds. With low, medium and high defined in terms of say, an SBI fixed deposit account. Will this work? Immediately a…
Continue reading →Rental income is immediately appreciated by one and all as a form of passive income – perhaps the oldest. Real estate has an undeniable charm associated with it and it is quite natural to ask if it can be used as a source of passive income particularly after retirement. We had discussed how passive income…
Continue reading →The Government launched an LTC (Leave Travel Concession) Cash Voucher Scheme for Central Government employees on 12th October 2020 to enable employees to purchase goods and services instead of availing LTC & leave encashment. This is a reimbursement scheme for LTC expense to revive the economy. Details and FAQ about the scheme are presented. About…
Continue reading →“How much money do I need to retire comfortably?” is the central question of retirement planning. Comfortably refers to (1) generating an income that will keep pace with inflation; (2) having some buffer in the corpus to handled unexpected expenses (recurring or one-time). However, there is more to retirement planning than just money and that…
Continue reading →Govt of India (GOI) has announced the sale (Re-issue) of 6.80% Government bonds maturing in 2060. Retail investors can participate in this sale via the NSEgoBid platform on 20th and 21st Oct 2020 (10 am to 5 pm). The auction will be conducted by the RBI on 23rd Oct. Details of the 6.8% GOI Bond: …
Continue reading →ICICI Prudential Freedom SIP also known as Freedom SIP is a combination of systematic investing (SIP) in certain source schemes (equity-oriented or hybrid) followed by a switch to a target scheme (hybrid) and systematic withdrawal (SWP) from it. Here is what you need to know about the freedom SIP and why you should avoid it….
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