As per Finance Bill FY 2020-2021, a person who receives dividend income from stocks and mutual funds must add it to total income and pay tax as per slab. Does this mean investors should stop buying dividend stocks since a portion of it would be lost to tax?
Continue reading →This is a question posed by 35-year-old Prakash: “I would like to get Rs. one lakh a month pension when I retire. How should I invest to achieve this?” A pension after retirement is a necessary component of a post-retirement investment portfolio. However, it is not sufficient. A discussion.
Continue reading →The Public Provident Fund (PPF) is a popular tax-saving instrument in India. The Government of India introduced it in 1968 and fully guarantees the scheme. NRIs cannot open new PPF accounts but can continue their existing ones till maturity (15 years). A person can open only one PPF account for himself and one account each…
Continue reading →Stocks with momentum and low volatility for September 2020 are listed in this stock screener for 100 stocks from the Nifty 100. This month 19 stocks quality (two new entrants) after filtering Nifty 100 with (1) positive 1-year return, (2) positive six-month return, (3) price > 200-day moving average, (4) 50% of daily positive returns,…
Continue reading →Portfolio folio rebalancing is like a “system reset”. It is used to remove money from a well-performing asset class (eg equity) and move it to another asset class (eg. fixed income). Investors have many questions regarding this essential portfolio management activity and one of them is: “should I use the best performing mutual fund to…
Continue reading →Are you delaying your investments waiting for the market to fall again? Here is why waiting for the suitable time to invest in the market can an expensive and irreversible mistake.
Continue reading →It seems incredulous to think that the Nifty was 12,174 on 13th Feb and fell 37.5% over the next 39 days to 7610 on March 23rd. Then over the next 158 days, it gained 53% to close at 11647 on Aug 28th 2020. These are 10 mutual funds (from 9 categories) that have moved up…
Continue reading →“My goal is long-term. If my risk appetite is moderate, what kind of mutual funds should I choose?”. This is a common question asked in personal finance forums. We discuss what investors in this situation should do.
Continue reading →In the past week, gilt mutual funds fell between 1-2%. Dynamic bond funds fell 0.8% to 1%, Banking and PSU funds, corporate bond funds and all categories of debt funds holding medium to long term bonds fell by varying extents. Why did this happen? Will it impact the stock? What it means to your investments.
Continue reading →The S&P MERVAL index has registered some astounding returns. Its 10-year SIP return is 36.68% (yes, that is annualized!) a 15-year SIP return of 30.25% and a 5-year SIP return of 30.06%. If you have wondered why the Indian and US stock markets have been moving up in spite of the pandemic, these returns from…
Continue reading →Let us consider this question asked by a reader: “Instead of starting a mutual fund SIP, can I invest small amounts on my own each month?” The answer might seem trivial to old investors, but it worth clarifying for the sake of newbies.
Continue reading →This is a performance review of Franklin India Feeder – Franklin U.S. Opportunities Fund. This is an open-ended fund of fund scheme that invests a minimum 95% of its assets in the Franklin U.S. Opportunities Fund – I (acc) USD based in Luxemburg!
Continue reading →Investing in mutual funds is only a choice and has nothing to do with “financial literacy”. Imagine yourself as a financial advisor with no conflict of interest – meaning you are neither a sales guy nor looking to profit from a percentage of a clients networth. A client comes to you and says, “I want…
Continue reading →This is a performance review of HDFC Top 100 Fund. We ask if existing investors should exit the fund because of its recent poor performance or hold on, wait for the market imbalance to reduce and give Prashant Jain some more time to turn things around.
Continue reading →A multi-asset mutual fund is a new fund category introduced by SEBI. It has the mandate to invest at least 10% each in equity, debt and gold or permitted commodities at all times. We discuss the nature of available multi-asset funds, when investors should consider them and what to expect. We also consider if these…
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