“Pessimism is a self-fulfilling prophecy”. These words by Sandeep keep ringing in my head all through the day. Two days ago I was chatting with a few friends on FB. I stepped out for a bit, and came back to find my less than 2-year old laptop screen say, “ disk not found”. A few…
Continue reading →Update: The scenarios mentioned in this article are no longer applicable as per our understanding from 1st Oct 2024. For details see: New PPF rules apply only to irregular accounts! The maximum amount per pan number is 1.50 Lakhs, including the minor accounts from 1st Oct 2024. If you have 3 PPF accounts (self, spouse, and minor)…
Continue reading →In this post, I discuss reader Abhay Deol’s question: As anyone who has played with a retirement calculator knows, the corpus required for the retirement portfolio is huge. And from all accounts, most Indians are not prepared for it or even realize the huge amount required. What I’m curious about though is why hasn’t this crisis played…
Continue reading →On August 1st, 2017, Bitcoin is expected to fork (split into two). In this post, I discuss my learning about cryptocurrencies with an emphasis on Bitcoin and Bitcoin fork and why they may be a reasonable choice of currency for those who have a set of specific requirements but does not (dare I say, should not) represent…
Continue reading →Yesterday (26th July 2017), the Nifty 50 closed above 10,000 for the first time. In this post, let us discuss what we can learn from its journey from 1,000 to 10,000. This post is inspired by a comment from Ravikiran Suryanarayana: “How many of you noticed that it took 7 long years for Nifty to…
Continue reading →Use this free Mutual Fund Portfolio Overlap Tool to compare five mutual funds and find out the common stocks and percentage portfolio overlap. Update April 2022: This tool is now available on Google Sheets. How to use the mutual fund portfolio overlap comparison tool? If you are trying to build a diversified mutual fund portfolio…
Continue reading →A so -called bull market reveals interesting behavioural traits. The worry about the dip in performance of ICICI Prudential Value Discovery Fund is part fact and part behavioural (in my opinion, of course). A look at the performance of this fund. One feeling a bull market brings about is, “why is my fund alone not…
Continue reading →Suppose my current annualised return from an equity mutual fund is 25% and my expectation is only 12%, can I book the excess return (13%) as profit into a safe investment? What if I do this from time to time? Reader Prakash Bala wanted me to create a tool for this and in this post, I…
Continue reading →Every day, more and more people are waking up to a grim reality – their medical insurance costs are sky rocketing. In this post, I discuss practical and reliable ways to lower medical insurance costs with an important caveat – there is no free lunch (you need to give up some to get some). Announcement:…
Continue reading →Axis Dynamic Equity Fund is yet another dynamic equity fund that proposes to tactically change its asset allocation to reduce risk (with no guarantee that the backtesting will work in the future). When Anish Mohan sent me the funds KIM*, his description piqued my interest to look deeper. Here is a description of its strategy….
Continue reading →A friend asked me this question: “I currently have an asset allocation of 60% equity and 40% fixed income. My retirement is many years away. Why can’t I continue to hold 60% equity after retirement too? In fact, all my life?”. Since the answer is not a simple “yes” or “no” and since it can…
Continue reading →So you think you have become financial literate by starting equity mutual fund SIPs assuming that they will beat inflation in the “long run”? Don’t get too comfortable with equity. Don’t assume those fairytale returns from DSP nanocap fund will last. This is how a real market crash “feels” like. Preparing for a presentation can be…
Continue reading →Here are some important business lessons from the box office collections of three movies released this year: The Mummy, Split and King Arthur: Legend of the Sword. As a movie buff, I am also a box-office receipts buff and all money information is from www.boxofficemojo.com (as on June 28th 2017). Announcement: As readers may know…
Continue reading →In this post aimed at new mutual fund investors, I discuss the basic aspects of the mutual fund redemption process. Knowledge of this is crucial from the viewpoints of risk, reward, taxation and product selection. Experienced investors may find this information quite basic, but please do consider sharing this post to someone who may benefit…
Continue reading →Here is a short compilation of step by step guides and tools to screen stocks and identify financially sound and good businesses. 1: A guest post by the mature and level-headed Krishna Kishore: A Guide to Understanding Stock Screeners Krishna is a regular speaker at the Bangalore DIY investor meets. 2: A guest post by the erudite Indraneal…
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