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…
Continue reading →I discuss the factors to consider before purchasing a personal accident insurance policy. The key being to understand the insurers definition of what an accident is, and when a personal accident insurance policy will come into force. This is step 8 of Re-assemble – a series on the basics of money management aimed at young…
Continue reading →Here is a set of slides from the DIY investor meets that hopefully might convince you that there is more to investing than getting high returns. That is, a return above inflation (called a real return) is only one side of the investing coin. Consider some product or a service or a fee that costs 10L today….
Continue reading →Looks like mutual fund star ratings are useful for something after all! To understand how much you lose via commissions, study the difference between the star rating of the direct plan (no commissions) and regular plan (where commissions are removed from your investment value before NAV is reported – because what you can’t see cannot hurt…
Continue reading →“How much medical insurance I need?” can be answered in two ways: (a) as much as you can afford and (b) 50 lakhs to one crore. Naturally, option (b) is not only scary but also not affordable. Hence we all need a corpus of medical expenses to handle increasing medical costs, fund our lifestyle diseases…
Continue reading →In this post, Niten Kapoor discusses how he selected a health insurance policy. In my previous article on health insurance, I had invited readers to compare policies as guest posts. Niten agreed to write about how he compared policies and selected one. This is part of Re-assemble – a series on the basics of money management…
Continue reading →This is an account of how a member of Facebook group Asan Ideas for Wealth(AIFW), – let us call her Jenna – got her money back after a failed credit card payment with the help group admin Ashal Jauhari and the banking ombudsman. Although the circumstance of the failed transaction discussed below is not common,…
Continue reading →Each December I take stock of how well my goal-based investment is moving along (or is it?) Since 2013, I have been publishing these audits. Here is this years edition with some analysis of my retirement and sons-education goals. The only reason I am sharing this is to advertise the benefits of goal based investing. Kindly do…
Continue reading →Readers may be aware that in September 2017 I had introduced a handpicked list of mutual funds and called it PlumbLine to accompany the freefincal robo advisory template. While we are still waiting for AMCs to fall in line after SEBI announced its mutual fund classification rules, this month, I present the funds in table form for…
Continue reading →There can be no doubt that 2017 is the year of cryptomania. Every day more and more investors, especially young earners want to try their luck with Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and any other crypto coin they can get their hands on. Cryptomania 2017 is fantastic to watch as it unfolds, but dear bitcoin and altcoin…
Continue reading →I discuss how to buy a super top up health insurance policy with examples on how it differs from a top-up policy and a base policy and why we need one. With medical costs increasing day by day, a medical cover of just a few lakhs will not be sufficient for us. Every day I am…
Continue reading →Follow these simple steps to learn how to close your loans and live debt-free. This week in ₹e-assemble, we shall discuss one of the most important money management problems for young earners – handling debt. You will be surprised as to how many people in their 20s and 30s nurse huge credit card debts, personal…
Continue reading →Wouldn’t it be great to have a DIY health insurance comparison chart that will immediately help you shortlist policies with most relevant and beneficial features? You could then read the policy wordings of these and choose one easily. Using the comparison feature at policybazaar, here is a health insurance policy comparison template with six policies…
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