I was invited as a guest on the Paisa Vaisa Podcast hosted by Anupam Gupta, a CA and equity research consultant. The podcast was co-hosted by CFP Anees Rao. In the first part, we discuss what exactly is financial freedom, why it is for everyone and why we need to replace conventional notions of retirement…
Continue reading →If you have a lump sum and would like to invest it in an equity mutual fund, what is the best way to go about it? Invest in one-shot or gradually over a few months? Is there any benefit in investing gradually other than psychological comfort? Let us find out with a backtest. Before we…
Continue reading →When I was trying to compile a list of mutual fund benchmarks after the SEBI recategorization, something strange caught my eye. Value Research had included the new benchmarks in the NAV growth charts. The Nifty 100 Midcap (N100M) is a popular midcap benchmark and I noticed many funds struggled to beat it over the long…
Continue reading →Avinash Luthria joins the freefincal list of SEBI registered fee-only financial advisors as its 12th member (yet another based in Bangalore) and to mark the occasion, in this guest post, he issues an important warning: “Real returns, (after inflation and tax), across one’s entire portfolio and across one’s lifetime, will be in the ballpark of zero…
Continue reading →At work, I have the privilege of constantly interacting with gen-X (or Y/Z/AA!) – 18+, 20+ young adults coming to terms with an environment very different from school. It is natural to encounter students who are generally unhappy with life and existence. They first seem distracted in class. Then they stop coming and if you ask…
Continue reading →In the third part of the video series on MF FAQ, we consider the following questions: 1: Do we even need mutual funds?; Why should we invest in mutual funds? What are the benefits? 2: What is so special about a debt mutual fund? 3: What are the risks associated with a debt mutual fund? 4: How to select…
Continue reading →Portfolio rebalancing refers to resetting your asset allocation (equity: fixed income ratio) from time to time – typically once a year – to lower risk in your portfolio. In this post, I show backtesting results and discuss exactly how much is the risk reduction and in spite of tax and exit loads, it is totally…
Continue reading →A few days ago, I gave a talk at a CFA Society meeting. One of the modules is covered in this post: How much equity should I hold in my portfolio? We know that equity has the potential offer better returns than fixed income (emphasis on potential) but how much equity – either as direct equity…
Continue reading →One thing is clear from this series on market timing. There is a lot of inertia when it comes to selling equity and moving to debt in the name of timing. Many seem to prefer “buying on dips”. That is whenever they “feel” there is a “buying opportunity”. So for the 4th part in this…
Continue reading →In the third part on the series on tactical asset allocation techniques based on market timing, we evaluate the Market PE and Ten-month moving average methods over five-year vs ten-year periods and also change the equity allocation in the portfolio from 30% to 50% to 70%. In addition, we also use the method followed by Franklin…
Continue reading →Do you want a steady source of primary or secondary income from a business or service? Do you dream of being a successful entrepreneur? Of being your own boss? Sebi Registered Investment advisor and fee-only financial planner Vikram Krishnamoorthy discusses four ways to start any business from scratch and grow it steadily. Vikram is a successful…
Continue reading →We all invest with the hope of having enough money for our future needs. This is true for even those who claim they do not have a goal – they just don’t know it yet. A good amount of equity exposure is important to beat inflation for long-term (10Y+) goals. However, many people make the…
Continue reading →No, this is not a click bait. I am being serious. There are several benefits to stopping your mutual fund SIPs and manually investing. I am working on an ebook – Mutual Fund FAQ: The Basics – that will provide short, easy to understand answers to 100+ common and basic questions that new investors ask. In…
Continue reading →As mentioned last week, I am starting a new series on tactical asset allocation techniques based on market timing. In this first part, we looked at the index PE (price to earnings ratio) as a buy/sell signal. In the second part, we consider the ten-month moving average (10 MMA) of the Index price. There are still…
Continue reading →In this episode of fee-only advisor journey, Basavaraj Tonagatti, who runs the popular blog Basunivesh, describes his growth from insurance and mutual fund advisor to a financial planner to enterprising blogger and now a SEBI registered investment advisor (RIA), fee-only financial planner. He also joins as the 11th RIA in my List of Fee-only Financial Planners…
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