Financial goals maybe arranged into three categories. (a) Goals based on a one-time expense. Classic example is a marriage. You invest to create a corpus, which evaporates around the time of the wedding. Any event that is unlikely to occur again or occurs infrequently would fall in this category. For example, a child’s under-graduate and…
Continue reading →How different is a large cap equity mutual fund from an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that tracks an equity index? The portfolio of an index ETF is likely to be nearly identical to that of the index at any point of time. Typically the portfolio of all large cap mutual funds will have a good amount of…
Continue reading →On occasions like Dhanteras and Akshaya Tritiya, AMCs and fund distributors advice you to start gold ETFs for financials goals like a child’s marriage. For some reason, many around us seem to think that one must start investing in gold-ETFs because gold is needed for our children’s (typically daughters!) marriage. As a result, many end…
Continue reading →Use this automated mutual fund rolling returns calculator to evaluate the consistency in performance of a mutual fund over any interval from April 3rd 2006 onward. You can compare results with benchmarks like Sensex, CNX Nifty, CNX Small-cap, and CNX Mid-Cap. This version is a major improvement over the previous Excel Rolling Returns Calculator. The analysis…
Continue reading →Annualized yield is a notion associated most often with fixed deposits. Many of us do not realize that it could be used with recurring deposits as well. It can be, and is used by many banks. FD yield though misleading, is at least correctly calculated. I am very uncomfortable with the way RD yield is…
Continue reading →The difference between annual yield and annual interest and how it can be used to misrepresent gains from fixed deposits is discussed. Let us face it, most investors are confused with the two percentages associated with a fixed deposit: annual interest and annual yield. Most people make the common mistake of assuming that the yield…
Continue reading →Excel’s IRR and XIRR and simple but excellent tools to estimate the returns from a periodic investment in a volatile instruments (eg. Mutual fund SIP). Unfortunately, two issues affect its usage: Bug(s) of unknown origin that make it give the wrong result sometimes. Read more about this here: XIRR: A Bug? (Thanks to financial planner…
Continue reading →A retirement plan is a road map that helps you understand, plan and prepare for a financially independent life post-retirement. Well, that is what it is supposed to be! Unfortunately, each person’s retirement roadmap is unique. While past and peer experience can aid to a certain extent, it is entirely up to us to chart…
Continue reading →Use this tool to analyze the returns from monthly SIP investments in mutual funds for investment periods ranging from one to seven years. For comparison, SIP returns of an equity index (choose among Sensex, Nifty, CNX small cap and CNX mid cap) is also calculated. Features Choose the mutual fund you need to analyze, click…
Continue reading →In the last couple of days AMFI has changed it web address! From www.AMFI.com, it is now http://portal.amfiindia.com Therefore, I had to make this change in the mutual fund NAV history downloader. Also, while working on a mutual fund SIP returns analyzer, I noticed minor bugs in the mutual fund account statement generator and returns calculator….
Continue reading →This is an update to the Excel Mutual Fund NAV History Downloader posted a few days ago. I have now included the possibility of retrieving NAV history from the AMFI website in addition to Yahoo! Finance. Can retrieve NAV history of all mutual funds from AMFI up to April 3rd 2006 If you need NAV history from…
Continue reading →Unfortunately, Value Research Online changed their website format shortly after this tool was released. I often wonder if they did that because of this tool! So this tool does not work anymore. I only keep this post for sentimental reasons. If you wish you to analyse your mutual funds try these: Mutual Fund Rolling Returns…
Continue reading →Inflation – a gradual decrease in purchasing power with time – affects all human beings. The average inflation in India is more than twice the average inflation in the US. Will inflation in India ever increase? Many seem to believe that after a long time (say a couple of decades later) inflation will decrease, as…
Continue reading →Features Get full historical NAV from inception – not possible with the painful to use AMFI site. Fast download! Select frequency: daily/weekly/monthly Sort ascending or descending For dividend mutual funds obtain dividend history alone Suitable for Indian Mutual Funds only. Uses of Mutual Fund NAV history 1. Using calculators available at freefincal: Generate Mutual Fund…
Continue reading →No matter how often we mention/promote/advertise that equity investments if continued over a long enough period would generate handsome returns, many investors seem to require constant reassurance and encouragement to continue their equity investments. A person who wishes to remain anonymous made the following SIP rolling returns analysis with Sensex data to provide his friends…
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