Has arranged marriage become an impossible challenge in India?

Due to increasingly specific demands from the boy and girl, arranged marriage is becoming harder and harder to accomplish, at least in urban setups. Has it become an impossible challenge for some communities? A few decades ago, it was important to have a steady job (assuming other more important metrics like caste, religion, sect, sub-sect,…

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Comparison: Short-term gilt vs. long-term gilt vs. Ultra short-term mutual funds

Here is a comparison between three types of funds (by choosing one in each category): Short-term gilts funds, Long-term gilt funds and ultra short-term gilt funds. In this post, I would like to reiterate a point made earlier about staying away from gilt funds unless we know how to trade in accordance with interest cycle…

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Obsessing over returns is unnecessary for investing!

Investors tend to display extreme behaviour. Most of them want the solace of risk-free returns without understanding the impact of inflation. A few who do understand this impact tend to obsess over ‘how much their portfolio made’. A look at why keeping things simple, with minimal effort and systematic investing,  is all that is required…

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What is wealth?

‘How does one define wealth?’ is a question that I often think about, often with a tinge of sadness that there is no universally accepted definition. A compilation of attitudes about wealth based on my insignificant experience. Speaking purely from a financial point of view, wealth is the ability to tackle emergencies. When life chugs along like…

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Investment options for senior citizens

A look at investment options for Indian Senior citizens, taking into consideration, tax, liquidity, capital preservation and ability to generate an increasing pension. This is a dangerous topic to broach! Before retirement, volatility is a friend and inflation a mandatory benchmark for a portfolio return to surpass. After retirement, volatility can either be a friend…

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Videos Part II: Uma Shashikant on Strategic Personal Finance

Here are the remaining videos of the  “Strategic Personal Finance” workshop conducted by Dr. Uma Shashikant, Managing director, Centre for Investment Education and Learning (ciel.co.in and moneykraft.com), at Bangalore on July 26th 2015. Segments I, II, IV, V, VI, VII, can be found here: Videos: Uma Shashikant on “Strategic Personal Finance” This post has parts III and…

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Benjamin Graham Formula and Graham Number for Stock Valuation

In the 7th version of the automated stock analyzer, two more valuation metrics have been added: The Graham Formula and the Graham Number. Bugs and suggestions made by users have been corrected/incorporated in this edition. The automated stock analyzer pulls annual (standalone/consolidated) and quarterly financials from Value Research online pulls financials from morningstar and analyzes…

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Videos: Uma Shashikant on “Strategic Personal Finance”

Here are the videos of the  “Strategic Personal Finance” workshop conducted by Dr. Uma Shashikant, Managing director, Centre for Investment Education and Learning (ciel.co.in and moneykraft.com), at Bangalore on July 26th 2015. Regular readers may have read the Nuggets from the workshop on “strategic personal finance” published earlier. It is hard to follow the slides because the hall…

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