Every time debt mutual funds face credit risk – a sharp drop in NAV due to the credit rating downgrade of a bond – investors get spooked. Credit risk is part and parcel of fixed income and debt mutual fund investing and one cannot run away from it. However, after the SEBI categorization rules, I…
Continue reading →If you are looking for someone to advise you on money management, then you should sign up with a fee-only financial planner – an investment advisor registered with SEBI – who does not get commissions from any agency and works only for you. Hundreds of readers have engaged the advisors from the freefincal List of Fee-only Financial…
Continue reading →Can we spot market highs and lows using technical indicators? The answer is yes, provided a user understands the pros and cons of each method. I discuss the current state of a few technical indicators and discuss their benefits and limitations. This post is in-part triggered by comments from Dhinesh Kumar here: Timing the market by…
Continue reading →A question many people ask today is, How should we invest in the present market condition? I discuss simple ways to stay focused and navigate the present market condition. I would wager that five out of every 10 mutual funds or stock investor is fairly new having entered around 2014 or later. The downward movement in…
Continue reading →Here are 10 things mutual fund investors should not be doing! Avoiding these will make you a better and contented investor. Naturally, the following is an opinion formed from my experience (and nature) and naturally, I do not expect many of you agree with me. The serenity prayer made popular by AA groups goes like…
Continue reading →One of the first SEBI registered investment advisors in the country, Melvin Joseph is an amazing person. He has devised an Rs. 2000 SIP (which I have signed up for) that will not only reward you in bear or bull markets but also change your life and not just your life! No better day to…
Continue reading →After much debate and hesitation, I finally took the plunge and purchased super top-up health insurance for my family. Since I have written several posts on health insurance, I thought I will share the details here. This is not a recommendation and the purchase I made is truly personal. I am sure there are better…
Continue reading →So a question on many lips is, “Should I now switch from large-cap funds to index funds?” the reason being the new rule about large-cap funds that 80% of their portfolio should be from the top 100 stocks in terms of full market capitalization (that is from the NSE 100). In this post, I discuss…
Continue reading → In this guest post, SEBI registered fee-only advisor Avinash Luthria who is part of the freefincal list of advisors and fee-only India suggests that investors should minimize costs through index funds and not waste energy fighting the law of no-free-lunch, instead use it as a tool for thinking, to avoid mistakes and also. Avinash Luthria is Founder,…
Continue reading →I discuss how to use how to time the market by spotting bullish and bearish trends with the moving average crossover. The idea is well known in technical analysis and involves two moving averages. This is the 7th post in the series on tactical asset allocation (link to all posts). We had earlier considered market Timing With…
Continue reading →If you have started investing in equity mutual funds and/or stocks in the last few years and if your financial needs are far, far away, this is the best time to invest in equity. You don’t need to be an expert or genius to recognise that the markets are going to move up and down…
Continue reading →In this post, I discuss the difference between risk and volatility. Distinguishing the two can lead to better money management. Please do not expect the usual sales guys argument that volatility is good and everything will turn out okay in the long term. So let us start with the basics. This post is part of Resolve –…
Continue reading →Version 3 of the freefincal excel stock screener now includes the Joel Greenblatt Magic Formula Screener. This quickly allows you to select quality companies available at attractive prices. The screening can be done index-wise. sector-wise and market-cap-wise. The financial data is obtained from Value Research and the multiple screens available have been created with the help…
Continue reading →A few days ago, we had discussed, what is the best way to invest in Nifty Next 50 Index? and among the 8 choices available to invest in the Nifty Next 50 Index – which by now most readers should recognise as a high-risk, potential high-reward, hard to beat index – we had singled out three. These are…
Continue reading →After the IL&FS bond downgrade, it should be clear to all debt mutual fund investors that a high credit rating does not mean much. Even a small degrade will affect the NAV. While I am firm of the opinion that such credit risk NAV falls are part and parcel of debt mutual fund investing, many…
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