Will you choose a risky mutual fund if it has a chance of beating the index? This is a question that can be convincingly answered, yes or no. Here is how 233 investors responded and what it means to our understanding of risk and reward. We shall discuss three other related polls on the investment journey. Before…
Continue reading →Everyone agrees that a good amount of equity exposure is necessary for building a retirement corpus capable of handling inflation when income from employment stops. This can be done via some mix of equity mutual funds and direct equity. What about the fixed income or debt part of the portfolio? Let us consider the investment…
Continue reading →Let us find out which index funds tracking the Nifty, Sensex or Nifty Next 50 have the lowest tracking error using a simple and easy to understand method. If there is enough interest, I shall publish this report from time to time. We shall restrict the discussion to index funds for now. ETF tracking error…
Continue reading →When a couple has children, securing their future is a top priority. In this article, SEBI Registered Investment Advisor Preeti Zende discusses the case of a couple, Venkatesh and Latha who desire financial freedom but will have to secure the future of their two children first. She explains in detail how a family can plan…
Continue reading →This week, let us consider, Axis Focused 25 Fund, study its portfolio history and compare performance with its benchmark and peers. In case you missed out on yesterday review, do check out Franklin India Ultra Short Bond Fund Review: When and how to invest. Also, the October edition of my handpicked mutual funds is now available….
Continue reading →Franklin India Ultra Short Bond Fund is one strange fund, some might even call special! About 80% of its portfolio has a credit rating lower than the highest and yet the fund has somehow managed to escape unscathed from major credit default events. How does it do it? What kind of investors should invest, when…
Continue reading →Interested to know which mutual funds retail investors prefer, how high Networth Individuals invest? Let us take a look at the Association of Mutual Funds in India – AMFIs AUM-Category / Age-Wise and Folio Data as on June 30th 2019. I had recently used this to find out how popular index investing is in India…
Continue reading →A lot of people start contemplating retirement because a ‘back of the envelope’ calculation shows them that they now have created a corpus high enough to meet their annual expenses. Fed up of the high-stress job, fed up of grinding away alone in ‘Gulf’ with family back in India, having built a home, children now…
Continue reading →This is my list of handpicked mutual funds for Oct 2019 (fourth quarter). New and old investors can use it according to their specific needs. Called “PlumbLine”, this was started in Sep 2017 for beginners to accompany the freefincal robo advisory template. This edition has a full makeover with brand new graphs and insights on…
Continue reading →From October 1, 2019, RBI has made an external benchmark based interest rate mandatory for certain categories of loans. What does this mean? How will this impact you? Let us find out starting with the basics. What does an external benchmark based loan mean in simple terms? The interest rate on your home loan/car loan/personal…
Continue reading →This is an in-depth performance review of SBI Equity Hybrid Fund. We find out how consistently it has outperformed its benchmark and peers. Known as SBI Magnum Balanced prior to SEBI MF categorization, it is the seventh oldest balanced fund or aggressive hybrid fund and largest with assets of 29,354 Crores. Let us check how the fund…
Continue reading →I asked new mutual fund investors of FB group Asan Ideas for Wealth on 12th Sep 2019, “What have you learnt by investing in equity mutual funds over the last couple of years?” New mutual fund investors were defined as those who started investing from Jan 2017 or later. A total of 115 members shared…
Continue reading →Axis Nifty 100 Index Fund is an open-ended index that aims to achieve a return close to Nifty 100 subject to tracking error. The NFO opens today (Sept 27th to Oct 11th) and then will be available for continuous purchase. This is the first Nifty 100 (N100) index fund – we have N100 ETFs from…
Continue reading →Here is a free ebook on health insurance prepared by Venkatesh Jayaraman. Use it to understand the features of a health insurance policy and choose one suited to your needs. The ebook was shared a few days ago by the author on Twitter. Mr Jayaraman kindly consented to not only share it with freefincal readers…
Continue reading →SEBI registered fee-only investment advisor, S R Srinivasan (SRS) discusses his journey to financial freedom for the benefit of freefincal readers. This is the second part of his guest post. In the first part published yesterday, he talked about his approach and investment choices. If you have not read it, please head over there first…
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