In April 2018, when SEBI registered fee-only financial planner Brijesh Vappala and member of fee-only India (FOI) was added to my list of fee-only financial planners, he had written a guest post highlighting a common problem among young earners: A high income will not make you RICH!! He partitioned money spending into four bins or quadrants and showed that if…
Continue reading →I am starting a new series on tactical asset allocation techniques based on market timing. In this first part, we will look at the index PE (price to earnings ratio) as a signal. In this series, results from a backtest with Sensex and/or S&P 500 data will be presented and is one of the most…
Continue reading →Would you as a money manager, prefer to get the basics right and get on with your life? That is, do enough to ensure that you have more than a reasonable chance of achieving your future money-dependent goals/dreams and focus on your work, family and hobbies? If yes, in this guest post, SEBI registered fee-only…
Continue reading →Last week I gave a talk on index investing and market timing at the monthly meeting of the Tamil Nadu Investors Association. This is a private recording of the index investing part. We have already started the discussion on the marketing timing part with: Do we need to time the market? More on this will follow next…
Continue reading →“I am worried about Quantum Long Term Equity Value Fund: Should I Exit?”, asked a reader. “Why does Value Research say this is a four star fund when it has only given half the benchmarks return in the past year?”, asked another. So that was enough encouragement for me to review the only fund from…
Continue reading →On 19th June 2008, I started investing in mutual funds. These ten years have changed the way I look at risk and even day to day money management. This is my story and the lessons I have learned. The broad trajectory should be well known to regular/old readers. This is an account of how I…
Continue reading →For a while now, I have been wanting to do a full back-test of multiple market timing or tactical asset allocation strategies. I used a speaking invitation as an excuse to create a spreadsheet where multiple models can be quickly tested with 1000s of time periods. While at it, I asked myself, do we need to…
Continue reading →Let us consider the basic differences between Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) and mutual funds and when should one use either product. A couple of announcements first: (A) I will be speaking on “index investing and market timing” this Sunday, 17th June in the Tamilnadu Investors’ Association monthly meeting (see invite below). Do join if possible. (B) If you are…
Continue reading →As I started preparing for a talk on Index investing, I needed to know how many indices are passively tracked and so here is a list of index mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in India sorted by their benchmark. I also indicate which ones to choose and which ones to avoid. Surprised to find as…
Continue reading →If you had to choose between making more money and spending less, what would you choose? “Wait a minute, why should I choose?”, you ask? Good question! Let us find out if you have to make that choice (or do both) ! Now, I hate thumb rules because most of the popular ones are flawed…
Continue reading →Resolve is a series of steps on investing and portfolio management. In the first step, we considered how to quickly select equity mutual funds and build a diversified (equity) portfolio. As a second step, we will consider how to quickly decide if I should stay invested in a mutual fund or exit it. To be frank, the…
Continue reading →After the SEBI mutual fund categorization rules came into force, fund houses were forced to merge many schemes. In this post, I discuss common investor questions and problems regarding the merger – should I pay tax? how do I track? how do I calculate returns and capital gains on exit? – and so on with…
Continue reading →As readers may be aware Re-assemble is series on the basic of money management aimed at beginners and young earners. Since it now pretty much complete with a compiled free e-book released, I think it is time to move on to the next step. Introducing. Resolve: a series of steps on investing and portfolio management. In…
Continue reading →With the SEBI mutual fund classification complete, here is an updated list of all mutual fund benchmarks. Thanks to Gaurav for suggesting this on Twitter. I had compiled this list for equity funds in Jan 2017. This list is compiled from Value Research. Benchmarks are an important indicator of fund strategy and it is insightful…
Continue reading →From June 2018, I have started testing five stock portfolios based on NSE indices. Three of them are based on smart beta (active + passive) indices and two on a passive index. The main aim is to find out (after the lapse of a few years) how effective a lazy investing stock picking strategy is….
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