A DIY investor invariably ends up reading a lot of stuff (and fluff). One typically starts with basic finance and business books, one thing leads to another and next thing you know, you end up reading stuff on history, psychology, personal and career development, management, leadership, philosophy and whatnot. This is a guest post by…
Continue reading →Selecting a suitable health insurance policy is one of the most difficult decision in personal finance. Yet it is one of the most important steps that cannot be avoided. It would make a big difference if an experienced expert in the field discussed the basics of health insurance coverage and talked us through how to…
Continue reading →This week let us take review the performance of HDFC Equity Fund. Currently labelled as a multicap mutual fund with assets of 21,622 Crores, the fund has a long and rich history including frustrating investors with long periods of underperformance. However, the fund seems to have recovered a bit when the last 1-3 year window…
Continue reading →Here is how the NPS Tier 1 Equity Schemes (“E”) have performed since inception. Many mistakenly assume NPS equity schemes are index mutual funds tracking Nifty 50. A look at the scheme portfolios would immediately dispel that myth. The NPS E schemes hold close to 100 stocks. Getting the historical NAV history of the NPS…
Continue reading →Let us think about it for a moment: What is the ideal retirement plan? One that guarantees income for our lifetime, one that helps tackle inflation and unexpected expenses after retirement. All this with as low a corpus as possible! Yes, that does sound too good to be true. However, we can get close to…
Continue reading →Happy Teachers Day! There is no greater teacher than life in general and El Mercado – the market – in particular. We often forget its most important lesson: buy an asset class (eg gold or stocks) when it is not doing well and sell when it is doing well. No, I am not suggesting that…
Continue reading →Investors sense the risk of investing a lump sum in stocks in different ways. Here are two dramatically different Facebook poll results on the subject conducted at Asan Ideas For Wealth (AIFW) and what we can learn from it. This should also be of use to investment advisors in understanding how clients perceive risk. After…
Continue reading →Here is how you can buy LIC’s Tech Term online step by step. Kindly note that at the time of writing (2nd Sep 2019), the purchase portal is still new. You may expect them to test it and make some changes in the next few days. Therefore, for now, use it to compute the premium…
Continue reading →LIC’s Tech Term is now available for purchase from its online portal. However, LIC’s Tech Term Premium is still a few thousands more than term policies from private insurers. Waiting for a term plan to launch is the dumbest thing a person can do and now the wait is not worth it IMO. Here are…
Continue reading →Axis Long Term Equity Fund was the darling of first-time mutual fund tax savers a couple of years ago. Has its performance slipped? Is this because of its large AUM? Can existing investors continue? Can new investors consider this for tax saving under section 80C? Let us find out by checking how consistent the fund…
Continue reading →NSE has launched a new strategy index (aka factor-based index, aka smart beta index), the NIFTY100 Alpha 30 Index from June 28 2019. The NIFTY100 Alpha 30 index consists of 30 companies from Nifty 100 with the highest Jensen’s alpha using one-year trailing price. In this review, we study how good a “factor” (explained below)…
Continue reading →As readers may be aware, for the last six years I have been maintaining a list of SEBI registered fee-only financial advisors. It is a matter of great pride that hundreds of freefincal readers work with these fee-only advisors (FOAs). Recently I had requested such clients to complete a feedback form. Here are the results….
Continue reading →Ever heard someone say “investing in the stock market is like gambling”? Well, at least in part, it is more accurate than we care to admit. The mental aspects involved for succeeding in poker (gambling), stocks and life (the biggest gamble of all) are one and the same argues Srivatsan in this article. Srivatsan, as…
Continue reading →Motilal Oswal Nifty Bank Index Fund will be India’s first bank index fund*. The scheme will track the Nifty Bank index. This has 12 of the most liquid and large Indian Banking stocks weighted as per free-float market capitalization. Should an investor consider this bank index fund? If so, when and how? Can this be…
Continue reading →When I tell people that I managed to invest close to three times of what I spend each month for the last ten years and this is key to becoming financial independence, there is a similar-sounding comment or question: If I invest so much, when will I spend money on the things that I love? When…
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