The Economic Survey 2017-2018 was published yesterday with a clear warning that the stock market valuations are too high and unless earnings increase, a correction should be expected. The survey also argued that the bond market seems to have forgotten about the growth in the national small savings fund. Amidst the euphoria about increased GDP growth…
Continue reading →All of us dream. Some of our dreams are serious enough to become goals and like it or not, many dreams are financial. That is they require money to implement. Here are three key factors that decide how well we can achieve our financial goals. Although each individual is different, there are some similarities. This…
Continue reading →Each time the markets move up for a few sessions, it makes many investors uncomfortable. Is it a bubble? Is it euphoria? They wonder and if the movement results in an all-time time, the worry machines are turning in full swing. In this post, I discuss some reasons for this investor behaviour and how one…
Continue reading →We discuss how to create a retirement income plan with 27-year old Amar as a case study. We shall consider asset allocation for each year of investment before and after investment and how Amar can derive an inflation-protected income and be financially free after retirement. This is step 11 of Re-assemble, a series on the basics…
Continue reading →Claim settlement ratios (CSR) published by IRDA do not represent the probability of claim acceptance. Most private insurers have a claim settlement ratio comparable to that of LIC. Therefore the CSR will not help you choose a term life insurance policy. At best, CSRs would help you reject a few insurers. Here are some insights…
Continue reading →How much return can I expect from the stock market? What is long-term in the stock market? What is the risk associated with the stock market? Regular readers may be aware that I have discussed these questions with returns and risk spreads from time to time. In my most comprehensive analysis, Sensex return charts for…
Continue reading →I discuss simple ways in which a mutual fund portfolio associated with a long-term goal can be reviewed. This is a grey area in personal finance and there is no optimal way to do this. Each individual must necessarily develop their own style of review. So multiple solutions are the norm here. This post is…
Continue reading →This is part one of an investment planning case study in which we consider how to create an investment plan step by step using real data obtained from readers belonging to different age groups. This is step 10 of Re-assemble, a series on the basics of money management aimed at beginners and young earners. So far…
Continue reading →Download a free spreadsheet Mutual Fund Portfolio Growth Visualizer With Index Benchmarking. This will allow you to compare the growth of your mutual fund portfolio with a variety of BSE and NSE benchmark indices. This was to compare my retirement equity portfolio with Sensex and Nifty Next 50. Now it is your turn! Along with the sheet,…
Continue reading →When the personal financial audit 2017 was published, I had discussed how my equity retirement portfolio has grown with time and also mentioned that a tool with which you can do the same is on the works. It is now nearly complete. In this post, I use the tool and compare my equity mutual fund portfolio (retirement)…
Continue reading →Re-assemble is a series on the basics of money management aimed at beginners and young earners. So far we have covered 8 steps and completed the basic financial fortification process. Now we are all set to move on to investing – with a clear purpose. In step 9 of re-assemble, I have a few questions…
Continue reading →We buy health insurance in the hope that it would come to aid in the time of need. Many people do not have a personal health insurance policy because they rely on their corporate health insurance or a group cover. The assumption is that corporate health insurance claims are unlikely to be rejected as the…
Continue reading →Every time a young investor reads John Bogle or Warren Buffett’s statements on low-cost index funds, they want to know if index investing will work in India? if in the long run index funds will outperform actively managed mutual funds, should I not switch to an index fund? I recently showed how the Nifty Next…
Continue reading →Here is a list of suggested New Year Resolutions for Investors based on three principles: imbibe the basis, implement it as soon as possible and ignore the noise. To me, personal finance is nothing more than common sense. And common sense is nothing but mathematics expressed in a spoken language. Before I started the blog,…
Continue reading →On 4th January 2008, the Nifty Next 50 index (then Nifty Junior) closed on 13069.35. We now know that was the end of the last great “true” bull run. On Dec 31st, 2008, the index closed at 5443.11. An incredible fall of over 58% in a year. The Sensex/Nifty peaked four days later on 8th…
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