Why we need to start investing early for our children’s future

“Why should I invest for my child’s future needs like education or marriage?”, asked a reader. “Why can’t I simply get them an education loan?”, “why can’t they foot their own marriage bill?”. Well, we need to invest what we can for the simple reason that life does not pan out the way we plan. Especially…

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Fingerprinting: A Visual Tool for Analyzing Mutual Fund Performance

In this post, I describe a visual tool for analysing mutual funds and portfolios, referred to as fingerprinting by its developer,Jim Otar, a Canada-based financial planner. I thank Swapnil Kendhe for bringing this method to my attention. As the song goes, ” I get by with a little help from my friends”. I have developed…

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Good Personal Finance Questions with Arbitrary Answers!

Here are a few perfectly relevant and ‘good’ questions in personal finance or money management with arbitrary answers! In my opinion, the following questions are distinctly different from those that seek the best insurance or investment products to buy. There are right questions to ask, the answer cannot be based on a formula. First some book…

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What is Risk?

“Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing” is one of the many famous Warren Buffett quotes. Risk also comes from an inability to apply context to a (WB) quote! For example, Mr. Buffett has repeatedly stated that volatility and risk are very different from each other.  Statements like these have been used to mis-sell and…

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Understanding the risk associated with an equity investment

When returns fluctuate wildly it is important to not only measure ‘average’ return (CAGR or XIRR), but also to measure risk – that is, quantify the fluctuations. The simplest way to do it is to calculate the standard deviation and best non-technical illustration of the same is from Subra: Rahul Dravid’s individual score will typically be…

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Freefincal Mutual Fund Screener with SIP Returns

The freefincal mutual fund screener on Google Sheets is now available with 1,3,5,10,15 and 20-year SIP returns data from Value Research. This is an independent screener which complements the previously published Freefincal Mutual Fund Screener- Google Sheets Edition (call this SCR1) which is based on 12-year annual returns and 1,2,3…12 year CAGRs. So SCR1 is based on lump sum…

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Why are PPF and Sukanya Samriddhi interest rates still so high?!

The government announced the interest rates for small saving schemes yesterday and surprising or should I say unsurprisingly, the interest rates of many schemes, especially the long-term ones like PPF and Sukanya Samriddhi are still too high! Why is the government not sticking to policy? If you are surprised by the title in spite of…

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