It is quite easy to appreciate the benefits of diversification. The proverb, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket” (earliest use: Miguel de Cervantes’ 1605 novel Don Quixote) appeals to us immediately as a caution against taking on too much risk. However, there are issues with its practical application to an investment portfolio. First,…
Continue reading →Here are nine steps beginners can follow to start planning for retirement. We will assume that retirement is 25 years away. The first step involves defining your target. The purpose for the funds and the timeline for when they are needed are already established, accounting for 25% of the planning. Investors often ask, “What return can…
Continue reading →This article compares my stock portfolio with an equivalent investment in a Nifty index fund and the Nifty 100 Low Volatility 30 TR index. We post this comparison each month. Before we begin, new readers need to understand the context of these investments. Update: We recently added a new tool to the freefincal investor circle…
Continue reading →Many investors often ask, “I have some surplus cash. Where should I park it?”; “Can I park my surplus cash in my SBI Max Gain account?”; “Is this market dip a good time to deploy my surplus cash?”. Almost always, digging deeper reveals it to be a case of bad planning. The first question to…
Continue reading →In this edition of the reader story, “The path to financial independence is rarely a straight line. For me, it has been a story of shifting mindsets, career pivots, and learning how to manage risk without losing my mind”. I am 32 years old, married for four years, and a father to two daughters aged three…
Continue reading →A reader asks, “Should I choose an outperformer or underperformer for rebalancing my portfolio?” The primary objective of portfolio rebalancing is risk reduction. We remove some funds from an asset class that is performing well and shift it to another asset class. Typically, this is done through equity to fixed income or vice versa. So…
Continue reading →“Can we use the freefincal robo advisory tool to track the progress of our financial goals?” is a question we often get from users and potential users. The robo tool, as many readers would know, is a financial planning tool. It automates the process of systematic risk management and suggests a variable asset allocation schedule…
Continue reading →A reader says, “I’ve been a reader of freefincal for the last few years, I really like your work. I have a generic question about health insurance for senior citizens, if you could write a post about it, it would be very helpful”. “My question is as follows – For senior citizens, if the premium…
Continue reading →Mr Sharma (a pseudonym for perhaps your father, uncle, or neighbour) is a success story of the great Indian middle-class dream. He grew up in an India of scarcity—ration cards, waiting years for a telephone connection, and job security being the ultimate prize. For 40 years, he worked tirelessly in a PSU or a corporate…
Continue reading →We have recently witnessed a big shift in how young earners manage money. Investing is getting popular instead of saving. Many more think of future money management (a better-sounding phrase than “retirement”) earlier than ever. However, not all of them sit down and do a proper retirement planning exercise. Here is why this is essential….
Continue reading →This is a debt mutual fund screener for portfolio selection, tracking, and learning. It also includes hybrid funds that invest in bonds. It will satisfy investors seeking to invest in money market funds, banking PSU funds, and similar instruments. The credit quality of the portfolio’s bonds and the bond maturity profile can be tracked. Instead…
Continue reading →One evening, my eleven-year-old asked me a simple question. “Why do you keep putting money into that account?” He had seen me do it many times while hovering around my laptop. A small investment every month. Quietly. Consistently. To him, it looked like money kept disappearing somewhere. To me, it was something very different. It…
Continue reading →A reader shared a health scare he recently experienced and the lessons he learnt from it. He would like to remain anonymous. I have diligently built my net worth to Rs. 10 crores over the past 20 years, with a good but not spectacular salary, all of which has been earned in India. Thanks to…
Continue reading →Many NRIs living in the Middle East may be making a simple but expensive mistake with their Indian mutual fund investments. They continue holding their mutual funds for years without periodically realising their long-term capital gains, assuming they can redeem whenever they want. On the surface, this may not seem like an issue. But if…
Continue reading →This index fund screener is based on tracking error and return differences wrt benchmarks (also known as tracking differences). It will help users evaluate how efficiently an index fund has tracked its underlying benchmark. It will also help them understand how tracking a midcap index, such as the Nifty 100 or 500, differs from tracking…
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