A reader asks, “I recently used your equity mutual fund screener, and it is probably the best tool available for selecting consistent performers. You are comparing Small cap mutual funds with Nifty Midcap 150 TRI. Can you please explain why you do this?” Suppose the Indian Cricket team has played 15 matches in about half…
Continue reading →There is more to retirement planning than beating inflation, investing enough and managing the corpus post-retirement. When we just start investing for retirement, everything seems a blur. The corpus seems impossible. The amount we need to invest seems impossible. However, the corpus does not seem as steep with time, discipline and some luck. The investment…
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 →1st Jan 2023 will mark the 10th anniversary of the introduction of direct plan mutual funds. This article discusses whether their introduction has caused more harm than good for investors. About 46% of total assets are in direct plans (a good chunk of it is as institutional and HNI assets). The honest answer to this…
Continue reading →Here is a money management action plan for young earners fresh out of college. Use your first paycheck and make your parents and the rest of the family happy. Use your second paycheck to get something for yourself (money is there to be spent, after all!). Just make sure these are not high-end recurring expenses….
Continue reading →All of us dream. Some of our dreams are serious enough to become goals, and like it or not, many dreams are financial. That is, they require money to implement. Here are three key factors that decide our financial success. That is, how well we can achieve our financial goals. Although each individual is different,…
Continue reading →These are the freefincal handpicked list of mutual funds for Jan-Mar 2023. New and old investors can use it according to their specific needs. The list is called “PlumbLine” and has been published since Sep 2017 for beginners to accompany the freefincal robo advisory tool. Most important! Plumbline is a mix of my opinions +…
Continue reading →SEBI has included nine freefincal calculators created by M. Pattabiraman in its investor education website. Ms Monika Halan, the SEBI Investor Protection Education Fund Advisory Committee chairperson, suggested including these tools, and the committee inaugurated them on 22nd Nov 2022. The concerned SEBI team, headed by Mr Manjesh Roy, converted the excel files to online…
Continue reading →A reader writes, “I am 29 years old and had started a few LIC policies on my parent’s insistence six years ago. I pay an approximate total of 3000 a month for 25 yrs, or so the policy insured sum is 1 lac for seven policies, and the return the life insurance agent said I’d…
Continue reading →Over the last decade, the number of capital market participants (stocks or mutual funds) has increased sharply. Retirement corpora have gradually shifted from 100% fixed-income to higher and higher equity exposure. This shift implies both retirees and advisors must be mentally prepared to face big challenges. An extended rate cut for a good part of…
Continue reading →In this edition of the reader story, Gayatri takes us through her personal finance journey, and how she has gradually filled the gaps in her financial planning and is on track to achieving financial freedom. About this series: I am grateful to readers for sharing intimate details about their financial lives for the benefit of readers….
Continue reading →In this edition of the reader story, here is a short account of a person who achieved financial independence and quit his corporate job by age 46. For the last two years, he has been enjoying his FIRE status and working on select assignments. About this series: I am grateful to readers for sharing intimate details…
Continue reading →I evaluate my retirement portfolio’s performance and my son’s future portfolio each year in a personal finance audit. This is the tenth edition. Published from 2013 onwards, these audits provide a sense of accountability and ensure I do not fall prey to fear of missing out, preventing bad investment decisions. They also point out the…
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 appreciate the context of these investments. I started direct equity investing only after achieving a comfortable level of…
Continue reading →The Indian bond market is exploding with options. If you search on Google for “buy bonds in India”, the first hits and the last three hits are ads by bond portals! Then we have portals that exclusively sell via influencer networks and content marketing. These bond portals have different offerings, from gilts to corporate bonds…
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