Should a subscriber be given the option to make partial withdrawals from a pension plan? The EPFO always allowed it. That is how mom and dad funded my education! Which, many argue is the main reason why retirees do not have much of a corpus to speak of! Now the pension fund regulatory and development…
Continue reading →A newspaper knows how to get your attention! The economic times carried an article yesterday titled, “EPFO may have ruined your retirement plans. Here’s how”. For its standards, the article makes the sensible conclusion that young people should invest enough in equity. The subject of the article is the following: EPFO will now invest 5%…
Continue reading →So social media is abuzz* that someone called Kenneth Andrade is quitting IDFC amc (update: now official). To be frank, I had no clue who he was, until I saw an AIFW post. When I googled his name, I then remembered seeing his interview at VR and that he is the manager of IDFC premier equity. Perhaps I…
Continue reading →Asset allocation refers to the proportion of different asset classes in a portfolio. For example, percentage allocation to equity and debt. The allocation is (or rather should be) decided with an aim to balance risk and reward. The adage, “do not put all your eggs in the same basket” is usually used to explain this…
Continue reading →“who is a financial adviser? What do they do?”, are, for me, surprisingly difficult questions to answer. Perhaps if I did not know anything about advisory regulations, I might have said something naive like, ‘a financial advisor is a money-management doctor’ Unfortunately, since I know a bit about these regulations, I take it upon myself to irritate…
Continue reading →Use this sheet to generate a schedule of future EPF and EPS contributions. It uses the new salary threshold of Rs. 15,000 and include the three ways in which the contributions are computed if the basic salary is above the threshold. Pratheek John suggested this would be more useful than the EPF corpus calculator published…
Continue reading →Here is a simple EPF corpus calculator derived out of the retirement calculator sheets. The corpus calculation is the same as any SIP calculator. Just that we need to factor in increasing contributions due to a salary increase and the correct total EPF contribution from salary. The formula used for total contribution (employee+employer) has been…
Continue reading →In this third and final part on “how to select an equity mutual fund”, we will consider different ways in which one ‘make a choice’ from a shortlist. Yes, there are several ways to choose from a shortlist, just like there are several ways to make a shortlist. You will have to take your pick….
Continue reading →Any selection process should have three components: (a) an objective; (b) a method to create a shortlist and (c) a method to finalize with the shortlist. Yesterday we discussed the objective. Today we shall consider how to create a shortlist from which an equity mutual fund can be selected. If you have not read yesterday’s…
Continue reading →Over the next few days, I would like to do a series on “How to select an equity mutual fund”. This is the long overdue update to the step by step guide to mutual fund selection. I write this primarily because my understanding about mutual funds has grown significantly since I wrote the pdf guide. I…
Continue reading →Here is how people react when they use a retirement calculator for the first time. Fear! Most online calculators do not allow you to increase the investment amount each year. So I made one for myself and punched in the numbers. The results scared the living daylights out of me. I sent the sheet to Subra…
Continue reading →Perhaps, “what should be the role of a fund manager?” is a more appropriate question. In an interview to Cafemutual, Mirae assets fund manager, Neelesh Surana said, “The challenging part (of being a fund manager) is the pressure of generating superior performance vis-à-vis markets and peers. The pressure of getting it right consistently is always there”….
Continue reading →Upside and Downside capture ratios are two easy-to-understand measures used to analyze performance of a volatile instrument. I had earlier written a post on how to use them for mutual fund analysis. Suggest you it along with this post: Simplify Mutual Fund Analysis with Upside/Downside Capture Ratios The explanation provided there is quite oversimplified. In…
Continue reading →Dynamic bonds are debt mutual funds with a flexible investment strategy. There is a perception that they funds can be used to take advantage of interest rate movements to maximise gains. Unfortunately, these funds do not reward investors enough for the effort and risk involved in its investment strategy. Which is why I believe that…
Continue reading →Many people ask, “how much should I save each month from my salary?”. They are not looking for ‘dumb’ answers like, “invest as much as possible”;”use a retirement calculator and goal calculator to find out”; “have you thought about financial freedom in future?” They are looking for a nice low percentage like 10%, preferably 5%,…
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