How I achieved financial freedom and became an Investment Advisor!

SEBI registered fee-only investment advisor, S R Srinivasan (SRS) discusses his journey to financial freedom for the benefit of freefincal readers. You may recall that he recently wrote about the List of Mutual fund categories that you can avoid! (incidentally, this went viral!). SRS believes in numbers based insights and naturally, I find this appealing….

Continue reading →

Everything you need to know about equity portfolio construction

This is a step by step guide on equity portfolio construction for retail investors with a listing of options available and pros and cons of each by SEBI Registered Investment Advisor Swapnil Kendhe who is part of my list of fee-only financial planners. Swapnil is a familiar name to regular readers. Swapnil’s website is Vivektaru. You can…

Continue reading →

HDFC Equity Fund Review: Is this still good or should I avoid?

This week let us take review the performance of HDFC Equity Fund. Currently labelled as a multicap mutual fund with assets of 21,622 Crores, the fund has a long and rich history including frustrating investors with long periods of underperformance. However, the fund seems to have recovered a bit when the last 1-3 year window…

Continue reading →

Four Consistent thematic Mutual Fund Performers

Here are four thematic mutual funds that have consistently outperformed the Nifty 100 Index and Nifty Large Midcap 250 index (dividends included) over every possible 1,2,3,4,5 year periods since inception.  The SEBI categorization rules have clubbed fund that invests in a particular sector or particular theme in the same category “sectoral/thematic”. For the purpose of…

Continue reading →

ICICI Prudential Asset Allocator Fund: Here is why you should avoid this!

ICICI AMC is busy pushing its ICICI Prudential Asset Allocator Fund down the throats of any investor gullible enough to take their “advisor” seriously.  Why? Probably because the AMC sees this as an opportunity to secure AUM from investors scared of “current market scenario” by pushing a product that “invest in the right asset at…

Continue reading →

Forget Buffettisms/Mungerisms: try these 2000 year old personal finance tips!

The other day, I was in a get-together, and the topic of personal finance came up. One of them asked where to start. There was an inevitable chorus of “security analysis”, “intelligent investor” and the likes. There was also the litany of blogs that mindlessly parrot Buffettisms and Mungerisms with “investor” in their titles with…

Continue reading →

Six ELSS Funds that have consistently beat Nifty LargeMidcap 250 Index!

Here are six ELSS mutual funds that have consistently beat Nifty Largemidcap 250 Index (incl dividends). These were shortlisted with the Equity Mutual Fund Performance Screener July 2019. You can use the screener to quickly create such lists from Value-oriented, Aggressive Hybrid, Dividend Yield, Large Cap, Focussed Funds, Large & Mid Cap Funds, Multi Cap Funds,…

Continue reading →

This will change the way you invest: S&P Index Versus Active Funds report

Avinash Luthria explains why the most important report about mutual fund investing in India was published in April 2010 – the S&P Index Versus Active Funds India report – and how there is sufficient and repeated evidence avoid active mutual funds and change the way we invest. I respect Avinash’s approach to investing especially his realistic…

Continue reading →

Three simple tips to choose the right financial advisor

Here are three simple tips to choose the right financial advisor for you with no conflicts of interest (fee-only registered with SEBI). If you wish to outsource money management, either because you cannot do it yourself for want of time, confidence or expertise or because you prefer outsourcing, a trusted financial advisor is necessary. More…

Continue reading →