A reader asks, “I am 50 years old and plan to retire next year. My yearly expense is Rs. 12 lakhs. What is the corpus required to sustain 35 years in retirement?” The Rs. 12 lakhs annual expense (or Rs. one lakh a month) is only for the first year of retirement. For each subsequent…
Continue reading →A reader asks, “I recently read your mutual fund investment journey. I then read similar stories shared by readers about their financial independence. One common feature in all these stories is the high salaries involved. My salary is quite low (I am ashamed to disclose it). I don’t see any immediate prospects of increasing it”….
Continue reading →This is an index fund screener 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 a understand how tracking a midcap index or the Nifty 100, 500 is quite different from tracking…
Continue reading →A mutual fund portfolio growth visualiser is now available as an add-on module for our Google sheet-based mutual fund and stock investment tracker. Key features of the portfolio growth visualiser module Requires either the mutual fund or mutual fund + stock investment tracker. (see features below) This is an add-on module to the existing tracker…
Continue reading →A reader writes, “Sir, you have mentioned several times that equity mutual fund investing comes with no guarantees. I find this quite unsettling. Each time the market falls, I feel worried and am in two minds about investing. My mind tells me to stay invested, but my heart is worried. Please advise.” It is true…
Continue reading →This is an ETF screener based on tracking errors and tracking differences (ETF return minus index return). The screener will help a user evaluate how efficiently an ETF has tracked its underlying benchmark. The tracking error is simply the ETF’s standard deviation minus index monthly return differences. The lower the tracking error, the more efficient…
Continue reading →Here are a set of questions to determine how secure your financial life is. Personal finance is all about protecting our family against extreme situations (aka outlier risks). Everything we do, buying insurance, saving, investing etc., falls under this protection act. So let us get started. Don’t worry if you answer “no” or “not yet”…
Continue reading →A reader asks, “I’m unable to understand the need to venture into debt funds for my needs. What are the advantages they offer on the alternatives for the long term – PPF, EPF, SSY etc.? I’m primarily saving for retirement, and currently, almost all of my debt part is into epf and ppf (about 50%…
Continue reading →“Has anyone ever gotten rich using mutual funds?”. You may have seen this question do the rounds on social media and personal financial forums from time to time. This is asked by two sets of people. (1) Those who wish to push other products: Insurance, stock advisory services or a PMS and (2) young investors…
Continue reading →We profile debt mutual funds from time to time in our fund profile section. This time we consider SBI Magnum Ultra Short Duration Fund. Launched in May 1999, the fund currently has an AUM of Rs. 12,513 Crores. What is an ultra-short duration fund? Ultra-short duration funds are defined as “investment in Debt & Money Market instruments…
Continue reading →This is the list of equity index funds in India with AUM and expense ratios as of Aug 21st 2022. This includes ongoing and forthcoming NFOs at the time of writing. This list is only for reference. For investment recommendations, see: Handpicked List of Mutual Funds Jul-Sep 2022 (PlumbLine). Readers may know that we publish…
Continue reading →We break down the retirement planning process into nine simple steps for a beginner to get started. We shall assume retirement is 25 years away. Step one: Have a clear goal: Why the money is needed and when it is needed are already part of the question. So 25% of the question is already answered!…
Continue reading →The freefincal Equity Mutual Fund Performance Screener (Sep 2022) 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 two courses:…
Continue reading →A reader writes, “Sir, I recently read your article – Sensex vs S&P 500 vs Nasdaq 100: Which is better for the long term? In this, you have plotted the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100 in INR terms. Is there a way to quickly make such a comparison on our own?” As far as…
Continue reading →A reader writes, “Sir, you have repeatedly pointed out that it is hard for most active funds to beat the index, and this applies not only to large cap funds but also to mid cap and even small cap funds (when benchmarked with a mid cap index). However, can I use a hybrid like an…
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