In response to Portfolio Audit 2023: The annual review of my goal-based investments, a reader asks, “Why are you recommending index funds when your portfolio has beat the market?” If you take a casual look at the growth of my retirement portfolio*, it may seem like my portfolio has comfortably beat the market. *compared with…
Continue reading →In social media forums, many investors ask if they could stop their SIPs because the markets have hit an all-time high. We show that this is a needless and pointless thing to do, The market hitting an all-time high is a fairly common event. This is not some “signal” for the market to “correct”. The…
Continue reading →A Let’s Get Rich with Pattu podcast listener says, ” I learned about your podcast today and watched an Episode on Stocks vs. MF Investing on YouTube. It was interesting and packed a lot of common sense in a simple and interesting way. I have a question which I request you to answer”. “I shall…
Continue reading →This index fund screener is based on tracking error and returns difference wrt benchmarks (aka tracking difference). The screener will help users evaluate how efficiently an index fund has tracked its underlying benchmark. It will also help to understand how tracking a midcap index or the Nifty 100, 500 differs from tracking the Sensex or…
Continue reading →Many investors seem to believe their long-term goal planning is done if they choose an index fund or two! Unfortunately, an index fund is just a product. Choosing a product without due process won’t get us anywhere unless we ride on luck. The first step is always when we need the money and how we…
Continue reading →This ETF screener is based on tracking errors and tracking differences (ETF return minus index return). The screener will help users evaluate how efficiently an ETF has tracked its underlying benchmark. Update: 76 ETFs are now covered. The tracking error is the ETF’s standard deviation minus index monthly return differences. The lower the tracking error,…
Continue reading →I maintain a document named “Where is our money?”. This document captures everything I want my family to know about money if I were to be in a position not to tell them—maybe because I am dead or in a coma or prison—or something more pleasant, like being in a Vipassana camp. About the author…
Continue reading →In this edition of the reader story, 31-year-old Mr Yo (name withheld on request) explains how he has systematically structured his money management and tracks his financial goals. This is a follow-up to his previous audits: How I track financial goals without worrying about returns. (2021), My net worth grew 33% last year, but my focus…
Continue reading →Avadhoot reviews his investment portfolios in his 3rd audit for freefincal. His first two audits are linked below. About this series: I am grateful to readers for sharing intimate details about their financial lives for the benefit of readers. Some of the previous editions are linked at the bottom of this article. You can also access…
Continue reading →I am a 36-year-old mechanical engineer working in a multinational company. I have been a Facebook group Asan Ideas for Wealth member for over two years. I want to share the story of the personal loan fraud that happened to me. The idea of sharing this is to make everyone aware of the risks. About…
Continue reading →We simplify retirement planning into nine easy steps to help beginners start their journey. For this process, we’ll work with the assumption 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…
Continue reading →A significant realisation strikes us as we complete our college education and enter the workforce. We discover what our school and college peers are up to, their lifestyles, probable income, and more. We start to determine our relative position in life. So, what should a relatively young individual with a “low income” do to reach…
Continue reading →A reader says, “I have a query in portfolio rebalancing. When we are moving excess funds from equity to debt (based on asset allocation), normally from which asset, i.e. top performing or laggard fund, do we need to move? All funds in the portfolio are entered after considering all aspects, but given market volatility, few…
Continue reading →The latest freefincal Equity Mutual Fund Performance Screener is now available. Use it to screen for consistently performing equity mutual funds. You can screen based on fund category & benchmark and spot mutual funds with a higher return than a benchmark at a lower risk. Inside, you get discounted links to our robo advisory tool…
Continue reading →In his new book, Same as Ever, Morgan Housel says, “A good summary of investing history is that stocks pay a fortune in the long run but seek punitive damages when you demand to be paid sooner.” “Consider a long stretch of history, from 1871 to 2018. During that period, the odds that the US stock…
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