A few days ago, a young man approached me after a talk and asked, Is it unpatriotic to buy gold and international stocks now? I was not sure I was convincing in my answer, so let me put my thoughts together as an article. Caveat: I am not an economist. So please excuse the crudeness. Thankfully,…
Continue reading →Most retirement planning focuses on the “Magic Number”—the total corpus. But the day you stop working, the game changes. You stop getting credited on the 1st of the month, which helps you meet all your expenses. Instead, you need to plan to get that money into your account from the corpus you have accumulated. To…
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…
Continue reading →A reader says, “I am 36 and have a 4-year-old daughter, trying to save some money for her education, marriage and my retirement. I need your advice on how to invest 1 lakh per month wisely to achieve my goals.” You can treat each goal independently and have separate portfolios, or consider a single portfolio…
Continue reading →In this edition of the reader story, Sahil presents his fourth financial audit. About this series: I am grateful to readers for sharing intimate details about their financial lives, which benefits us all. Some of the previous editions are linked at the bottom of this article. You can also access the full reader story archive. Opinions expressed…
Continue reading →This ETF screener tracks errors and differences (ETF return minus index return). It will help users evaluate how efficiently an ETF has tracked its underlying benchmark. The tracking error is the ETF’s standard deviation minus the index’s monthly return differences. The lower the tracking error, the more efficiently the ETF tracks the index. Unlike returns,…
Continue reading →When Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams could not find a publisher for a one-page book on “Everything you need to know about financial planning”, he was forced to write a 368-page book – Dilbert and the Way of the Weasels. (Ref: MyMoneyBlog) You don’t need a page to hold all the advice Adams gives. All you need…
Continue reading →You may have heard this on many personal finance forums: It is hard to reach a net worth of Rs. one crore. After that, things become easier. In my experience, this is not a universal truth. Going from Rs. 10K to 20K networth and going from Rs. 1 Crore to 2 Crore could have similar ease or hardship….
Continue reading →A reader asks in response to – I am 30 and wish to retire by 50; how should I plan my investments? – “Can I use a single bucket to manage inflation-indexed income?”. The article details the retirement bucket strategy adopted by the freefincal robo advisor tool. We reproduce an extract below for a discussion….
Continue reading →The latest freefincal Equity Mutual Fund Performance Screener is now available. Use it to screen for equity mutual funds that consistently perform. You can screen based on fund category & benchmark to identify mutual funds that offer higher returns than the benchmark while maintaining lower risk. Inside, you get discounted links to our robo advisory…
Continue reading →A couple of months ago, I went to the insurance department of an eye hospital to apply for a cashless claim for my mother’s cataract surgery. I usually chat with hospital staff, particularly those responsible for claim processing. The conversation led to “Cashless Claim vs Reimbursement: Which is better?” I was surprised to note that…
Continue reading →In this edition of the reader story, “Here we are again with our fifth yearly audit. If you missed the earlier ones, you can read our previous audits on freefincal below. A huge thanks, Pattu sir, freefincal community and AIFW group on Facebook, which has been the constant source of guidance.” A very brief background: we…
Continue reading →This is a National Pension Scheme Fund Screener to shortlist consistently performing NPS schemes. You can also identify NPS schemes that offer a higher return than the benchmark while maintaining lower risk. This is similar in design to the freefincal Equity Mutual Fund Performance Screener. Inside, you get discounted links to our robo advisory tool…
Continue reading →There is a scene in the classic Bollywood movie Baghban that haunts an entire generation of Indian parents. Amitabh Bachchan’s character, having retired and spent his entire provident fund on his children’s settlements, sits at home. He asks his son for a small amount of money for glasses. The son sighs, rolls his eyes, and…
Continue reading →I recently tested several risk profilers available online to Indian DIY investors. Most of them, I realised, are built to sell rather than to help. I didn’t set out to write this. I was just trying to find a decent risk-profiling tool for myself as part of my research for NISM Retirement Advisor preparation. The…
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