A reader asks, “I will be earning around ₹10 lakh as business income in FY 2025–26. Additionally, if I earn ₹2 lakh as gains from debt mutual funds. I’m confused about how these debt fund gains will be taxed this financial year.” “Here are two versions of what I’ve come across online: Some sources claim…
Continue reading →We publish a list of stocks with low volatility and momentum each month. We provide data for BSE 500 and BSE 100 stocks. There are now three different screener files available. (1) Stocks with low volatility and momentum from the BSE 100 large cap universe are available as a separate file (2) Stocks with low…
Continue reading →Over the past few weeks, many readers have asked us, “Can I invest in Zerodha Multi Asset Passive FoF?” – A discussion. Before we begin, it is worth noting that many investors appear to lack an understanding of the distinction between a passive fund and a passive fund of funds. A passive fund tracks a…
Continue reading →In October 2022, we explained why we badly need an aggressive hybrid index fund! The situation remains the same ten months after SEBI announced a Mutual Funds Lite (MF Lite) framework for passively managed schemes of Mutual Funds, which includes passive Hybrid Funds. We determine how easy/hard it is to beat the CRISIL Hybrid 35+65…
Continue reading →In response to our recent articles on the performance of active mid-cap and small-cap funds versus the Nifty Midcap 150*, a viewer on YouTube suggested that 5-year rolling returns are insufficient to judge these funds, as they are typically recommended for longer periods. We should look at longer periods. These are the articles: Active Small…
Continue reading →“Dividends are unethical. They give you the impression that you are getting something extra from the fund. However, you are not. The dividend is just your returns being given back to you.” – Parag Parikh, in the first unitholder meet held in Chennai and Mumbai, Nov 2014. Sources: this author, who attended the Chennai meet…
Continue reading →One of the first SEBI-registered investment advisors in the country, Melvin Joseph, is an amazing person. In 2018, he launched his movement to educate underprivileged children called Kids’ Education and You (KEY). A monthly investment of Rs. 2000 towards this cause will change lives and reward you in bear or bull markets! No better day…
Continue reading →The Ulcer Index is a measure of downside risk in actively managed mutual funds. It is a simple way to find out how stressful it is to hold a fund compared to a benchmark. Investors can make the analysis shown using the tools in the freefincal investor circle (details below). Context: The standard deviation (volatility)…
Continue reading →I was recently asked what tools and platforms you use for investing. I never stopped to think about it before. So, I did it in the hope that it may be of some interest to the reader. As older readers would know, I invest in NPS (mandatory), PPF (just enough to keep it alive and…
Continue reading →A retirement bucket strategy is an approach by which the retirement corpus is split into 3-4 buckets of varying risk. As retirement progresses and market conditions change, the retiree is expected to manage the buckets. That is, transfer money from one bucket to another to ensure the expenses (indexed to inflation, with some room for…
Continue reading →These are the freefincal handpicked list of mutual funds. New and old investors can use it according to their specific needs. The list, titled “PlumbLine,” has been published since September 2017 to help beginners use the freefincal robo advisor tool. Most importantly, Plumbline is a mix of my opinions, skin in the game (where I…
Continue reading →Specialized Investment Funds (SIFs) and information about them are popping up like mushrooms after a rainstorm. Thankfully, they are not a retail product, as the minimum investment is Rs. 10 lakhs (that many investors with Crores of net worth consider themselves “retail” and “middle class” is another matter!). SIFs are supposed to fill the “gap”…
Continue reading →A while ago, I was speaking with a financial advisor, and the conversation shifted towards the use of AI in personal finance. He believed that those who see the help of AI are not really DIY investors. Does this make sense? Like most things in life, “it depends” on how we use AI. First, let…
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 →The internet is full of investing advice to grow wealth or budget better. Most of this advice comes from financial advisors (who earn commissions from the corpus you generate), financial influencers (who prey on your vulnerability to earn lakhs from brands), and your neighbourhood insurance advisor (who is desperately upselling to pay their own EMIs)….
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