The media is blaring at full blast about the number of jobs (not just IT) that could be lost in 2017 and beyond and how it could be “bigger” than 2008. Whether there is merit in such speculation remains to be seen. What should be clear to anyone working in a non-government establishment is that…
Continue reading →If you’ve been through the last few posts, you’ll know that my new book co-authored with Pranav Surya is out for pre-order and we’re running a crazy small experiment of eliminating the middleman (aka Amazon). This enables us to provide you the book at a discounted price of 180 as compared to 249 on Amazon…
Continue reading →In this post, my GameChanger co-author, Pranav Surya offers a sneak peak into the book. The hard copy is now available for pre-order for just Rs. 180 (offer closes Sunday 21st midnight) before it retails at Amazon Rs. 249 from Monday. We also have two exciting add-ons at a small additional cost. This will be announced…
Continue reading →It was when my seven-year-old son declared that he wanted to be a fruit seller that I realised that the …. er … apple has not fallen far from the tree! Yes, I too had similar aspirations and I nurtured it for years until I heard the plight of a pharmacist. In this post, I…
Continue reading →I am a typical middle-class Indian in terms of birth, upbringing and manner. My interest in money management and investing stems from despair and anguish and not interest or passion. In this post, I discuss my failures, shocks and how they acted as a catalyst to seek financial independence. Although driven my specific events, my…
Continue reading →The freefincal automated stock analyzer (screener.in edition) now has now auto-generates Hewitt Heiserman Jr.’s Earnings Power Box, thanks to efforts of R. Srivatsan, who explained how to identify good business from bad one using it: It’s Earnings That Count: Forget the next Infy; Can you identify the next Satyam? I had previously published a version that uses morningstar…
Continue reading →Between Jan 21st, 2008 and July 6th, 2009, the Sensex witnessed 11 single-day falls of 700+ points. The highest was 1,408.35 points on Jan 21st. In this post, I discuss the simple arguments put forth by Edgar E Peters to understand why such stock market crashes occur, in his book, Fractal Market Analysis. It is human nature to try…
Continue reading →In July 2016, while researching on the Nifty Smart Beta Indices, I accidentally realised that the Nifty Next 50 (formerly Nifty Jr) is one tough benchmark to beat. When I compiled the list of equity mutual fund benchmarks, I could not find any active mutual fund benchmarked to the Nifty Next 50! Now, if that…
Continue reading →Here are forty ways to make more money In India based on real-life inspirational examples of hard work, skill and determination. I asked the members of Facebook group Asan Ideas For Wealth to share details of how they are earning an extra income to supplement their main salaries. I received 100+ responses which make it…
Continue reading →Here are five unique books that will will completely change the way you think about stock market risk and reward. They have certainly shaped mine and my first ever financial calculator was based on one of them. The books will bust established myths about the market – its so-called efficiency, mean reversion, and the way we measure…
Continue reading →Anirban Ghosh had posted his analysis of a debt mutual fund at Facebook Group, Asan Ideas for Wealth (AIFW). When I requested him to write an account of how he selected his first debt mutual fund, he readily agreed. Anirban’s data crunching has unearthed an interesting mutual fund with a curious strategy and is the…
Continue reading →I am often asked this question. The catching up here refers to being able to create an adequate retirement corpus. The answer depends on the age of the person. For someone in the 30s (even late 30s), I think it is quite possible if they put their head down and invest enough for the next 15 years….
Continue reading →For a person who has been investing in equity (directly/indirectly) for several years, the question, “how much equity exposure should I have after retirement?” is not so hard to answer. However, that is not the case for most 50+ investors heading towards retirement. They would have little or no experience with equity or any market-related…
Continue reading →If we wish to build the financial well-being of our family, one of the first things to do is to protect it. With life insurance, in case the breadwinner(s) die; health insurance, in the case of a hospitalization; an emergency fund, to handle unexpected expenses; an accident insurance to cover of temporary or permanent loss of…
Continue reading →I discuss ways in which we can visualise and interpret the annualised return, also known as the compounded annualised growth rate or the CAGR and volatility of returns. Franklin India Prima Fund had a NAV of 201.75 on April 3rd, 2006 and a NAV of 878.5 on 12th April 2017. What is the annualised return?…
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