Why do people time the market? That is, why do they enter and exit the market based on certain signals (moving averages, PE etc.)? Is it for getting better returns? Or is it for getting risk adjusted returns? This is a poll I created in Facebook group Asan Ideas for Wealth. As expected, a majority…
Continue reading →If we ‘hold’ equity for the ‘long term’ are we assured of beating inflation with a real return? Will equity beat all other asset classes if we wait long enough? Will long-term equity investing always be successful? Equity as an asset class is sold to investors with an ‘yes’ to such questions. Sold either directly or…
Continue reading →A little over two years ago, an automated mutual fund & financial goal tracker was released. It was made with extensive beta testing by readers and is reasonably popular despite the availability of user-friendly online trackers. Update: This file does not work anymore since the historical NAV download from AMFI has been discontinued. I am working on a…
Continue reading →The withdrawal rules of the Sukanya Samriddhi Account has been modified with effect from March 18th 2016. Thanks to Muthu Krishnan for alerting me about it. They are discussed in this post in case you missed them like I did. Old withdrawal rule: (Source: Gazette of India 2nd December 2014) To meet the financial requirements of the account holder…
Continue reading →This is a triple update announcement – to two rolling returns calculators and to the Google spreadsheet for tracking financial independence. First two updates: The mutual fund lump sum and SIP rolling returns calculators have been updated with additional benchmarks. Rolling returns calculators provide a simple, easy to understand visual representation of how consistently a…
Continue reading →Tax-free bonds are purchased in the secondary market via a Demat account when either new ones are not available or not attractive. How does one decide between buying existing tax-free bonds and new ones? Should we just look at the coupon rate and choose the one which is higher? It depends on the purpose of the…
Continue reading →Anyone who has used a retirement calculator would tell you the primary input is current expenses that are likely to persist in retirement. I have always maintained that one should not assume expenses will decrease after retirement! Therefore, I will only exclude cash outgo like EMI and expenses related to children from current expenses. This is all that one can do…
Continue reading →Mutual fund investing is not like investing in an insurance scheme or buying term life insurance or health insurance. You cannot choose a fund based on past performance and assume that all you need to do is to invest in it from time to time. As mentioned several times before, one should not get married…
Continue reading →A little too much is made of the importance of investing in PPF before the 5th of the month. How important is this? What if I fail to invest before 5th for a few months? Should I beat myself up about it? Let us find out using the PPF tracker/calculator. Assumptions: Annual investment limit: Rs….
Continue reading →I am a ‘zero’ when it comes to personal finance! Where do I start? I would like to change my attitude towards money and my financial status. If these statements reflects the state of your mind or if you know people who feel that way, here is a list of personal finance essentials to work…
Continue reading →The mutual fund industry has done a mighty propaganda job of ‘educating’ investors about ‘systematic investing’. So much so that many investors believe (not just new ones) that SIP is a financial instrument in of itself! 1. SIP is not different from lump sum when you invest Every time you make a mutual fund purchase,…
Continue reading →This is a guest post by Butun Mohapatra. When he posted his experience with a SEBI registered fee-only financial planner at FB group, Asan Ideas for Wealth, Vivek Vishwanathan suggest that it be published here. Butun immediately agreed and turned in a draft in just a few hours! Let us find out what Butun wants us…
Continue reading →A little while ago, I was invited to participate in an informal gathering of humanities students from various institutes. We watched the movie, Hector and the search for happiness and there was a presentation by a student who was studying the movie for a mini-project and a discussion on ‘what makes us happy’. The title, Side effects…
Continue reading →The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) has announced guidelines regarding partial withdrawal from the National Pension System (NPS). (1) A subscriber whose NPS account is at least 10 years old will be eligible for withdrawing 25% of his/her contributions alone. Employer contributions (if any) cannot be withdrawn. Notice the similarity with the recently…
Continue reading →A simple way to screen mutual funds using downside capture and upside capture ratios is discussed. The capture ratio data obtained for equity-cap funds is used as an example. With such a batach analyzer, it is a simple task to get the data for other fund categories. However, it is also boring – one needs…
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