Many debt mutual funds invest in corporate bonds which carry credit risk. It is important for investors to understand how this can affect debt mutual fund returns. Yesterday, rating agencies, CRISIL, ICRA and CARE downgraded short-term and long-term ratings on Jindal Power and Steel bonds. As a result, the NAV of debt funds which held…
Continue reading →Here is an illustration of Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana vs. PPF when used for a girl child’s education goal. It also serves to understand why liquidity is more important than higher interest rates. Update: Current Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana rate is 8.3% and current PPF rate is 7.8% (the same 0.5% difference as assumed in the article). This does…
Continue reading →This is an analysis of my mutual fund investing journey in particular, the growth of my retirement corpus. The aim of this post is only to share my insights. The main reason I did this analysis is to explore the possibility of creating a tool to automate this analysis. My first ever equity investment was…
Continue reading →In the last month, the Nifty fell by 7.7%! Out of which 3.32% was just yesterday! Yesterday I wrote a short note with a few suggestions for new equity investors at such a time of carnage. In this post, I would like to expound on that. Just as I was thinking about ways to do…
Continue reading →Here is an illustration of the most important factors that we need to keep in mind while choosing health insurance. Health insurance policies are riddled with window dressing. That is, the features advertised by insurers are often tertiary or downright unnecessary while considering the purchase of a policy. I have written a guide on How to…
Continue reading →Worried about turbulent markets? Thinking about stopping your stopping your SIP instruments? If you believe that our economy is bound to grow and that we should profit from it, I would strongly suggest that you do not stop your SIPs or equity investments now. Instead use the time to accumulate more units. Let us track…
Continue reading →Do you know what your investing growth rate is? No, I am not asking about your investment growth rate or CAGR. I am referring to your investing CAGR – the rate at which your investments have increased over a period of time. When I made my first retirement calculator about 6/7 years ago, the first thing…
Continue reading →‘Should I buy a house/apartment now’ or ‘should I continue to stay in a rented accommodation?’ I am sure you would agree that this is a common dilemma faced by many youngsters. In fact, although there are several decent ‘rent’ vs. ‘buy’ calculators available, I continue to receive requests to make one. For a variety…
Continue reading →MF Utility is a free “Transaction Aggregating Portal” run about 25 AMCs jointly. It allows users to invest in direct mutual fund plans. Here is a step-by-step user guide prepared by Anish Mohan to buy and sell direct mutual funds using the MF Utility portal. If you are thinking about getting an MF Utility account,…
Continue reading →Use this tool to analyse the consistency in performance of your mutual fund holdings with respect to their benchmarks (43 indices from BSE and NSE). You can also use this to evaluate new funds that you want to invest in. This is the fourth version of the Rolling returns calculator The present version is an offshoot…
Continue reading →Use this free Excel tool to download historical data from 43 indices from the BSE and NSE. List of Indices available: BSE Sensex, NSE Nifty, BSE Small Cap, BSE Mid cap, BSE 100, BSE 200, BSE 500, BSE Bankex, BSE Capital Goods, BSE Oil and Gas, BSE Metals, BSE IT, BSE Auto, BSE Healthcare, BSE…
Continue reading →It is frustrating to see individuals having difficulty in choosing insurance policies – be it life, health or accident insurance. Their minds are cluttered with so many product features (some necessary and others not so) that they keep delaying the purchase. Here is a step-by-step guide to purchasing a health insurance policy. I am no…
Continue reading →I discuss simple ways in which a mutual fund portfolio associated with a long-term goal can be reviewed. This is a grey area in personal finance and there is no optimal way to do this. Each individual must necessarily develop their own style of review. So multiple solutions are the norm here. This post is…
Continue reading →Closed-ended equity mutual fund NFO started cropping up frequently a little before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. They represent the efforts of AMC and distributors to lock-in AUM and therefore, profits regardless of market volatility. I had earlier written about why one should not invest in closed-ended mutual funds from a financial goal planning point of…
Continue reading →Assuming that we all agree that proper money management is vital to our financial well-being, a syllabus for financial literacy might help in evaluating not only our fiscal health, but also that of our friends, relatives and contacts (if they want such help!). Such a syllabus is surprisingly short when we have nothing to gain…
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