What does XIRR mean? How are returns calculated for mutual fund and stock investments?

At some point, after you started investing in mutual funds or stocks, you might have heard the words “annualized returns” or “CAGR” or “XIRR”. If you are interested to know what these mean, how they are calculated and how to interpret them, read on. But first, do check out My Handpicked Mutual Funds September 2018 (PlumbLine)….

Continue reading →

Market Timing with the Motilal Oswal Value Index (MOVI)

In the 6th part on the series on tactical asset allocation techniques based on market timing, we evaluate the Motilal Oswal Value Index (MOVI) over five-year vs ten-year periods. The MOVI index data is available at the Motilal Oswal website used a combination of  Nifty price to earnings ratio (PE), price to book value (PB) and dividend yield…

Continue reading →

Will large cap mutual funds struggle to beat Nifty 100 Equal Weight Index?

Using the August 2018 Equity Mutual Fund Performance Screener published yesterday, we find out how large-cap and value-oriented mutual funds have fared against the Nifty 100 Equal Weight Index. This index has equal exposure to the top 100 stocks by free-float market capitalization. Sundaram and Principal AMC have index funds based on this. So like the Nifty…

Continue reading →

Should Resident Indians Invest in Internationals Stocks or Funds?

Diversification is a word that many investors use rather loosely. Whenever they seem something “offer good returns” I have seen many investors want a piece of that action and say “I have added it for diversification”. Again that classic mistake. Choosing a product/security/asset class by looking at its (recent) returns and not its risk. People who…

Continue reading →