Often, readers email us saying, “I do not have enough to invest for my long-term goals. What should I do?” This is a fairly common situation; most of us start our investment journey this way. There is nothing to despair about. Here are some options to consider. 1. Consider clubbing all long-term goals together (greater…
Continue reading →A reader says, ” This is concerning the article titled: Is 87A rebate applicable for capital gains after budget 2025. It mentions that the rebate is available for LTCG – Debt funds – special rates for FY 2024-25. However, the calculator on the income tax department website does not provide the rebate. This is for…
Continue reading →Since Sep 2024, my retirement portfolio has lost an amount equivalent to 1 to 1.5 years of my annual expenses (X). That is if it was 10 times X in Sep 2024*. It is now 8.5 to 9 times annual expenses. * Not my real portfolio value. It will take a huge fall to erase…
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 →A reader asks, “I will turn 55 this year and would like to retire in 2025. How do I find the corpus required if my monthly expenses are close to Rs. 1 lakh?” We shall use the freefincal robo advisor tool for this exercise. The retirement corpus is assumed to be invested in five buckets….
Continue reading →In this article, Ganesh, a central government employee, decodes the unified pension scheme and discusses when it makes sense to opt for it. Per the UPS Gazette notification, an individual corpus will be built for each employee, consisting of 20% of Basic + DA (10% by employee and 10% by government/employer). A separate contribution of…
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. The tracking error is the ETF’s standard deviation minus index monthly return differences. The lower the tracking error, the more efficient the ETF is…
Continue reading →AIF means any fund incorporated, which is a privately pooled investment vehicle that collects funds from sophisticated investors, for investing it following a defined investment policy for the benefit of its investors. These are governed by the SEBI (Alternative Investment Funds) Regulations, 2012. There are three categories of AIFs. About the author: Manmohan Sethumadhavan is a…
Continue reading →In early 2024, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) mandated that all mutual fund houses disclose the results of stress tests for their small-cap and mid-cap schemes. Following this directive, the Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI) required fund houses to publish these stress test results by the 15th of each month…
Continue reading →Unit Linked Insurance Policy is a life insurance policy that has components of both investment and insurance and is linked to a unit as defined in regulation 3(ee) of the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Unit Linked Insurance Products) Regulations, 2019, governed by section 10(10D) of the Income Tax Act 1961. About the…
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 →A few weeks ago, Swati wrote: “I regularly follow the Reader Story section on Freefincal and deeply appreciate its effort in sharing valuable insights into personal finance journeys. As a strong advocate for women’s financial independence, I understand the critical importance of women taking charge of their own finances, rather than leaving the responsibility solely…
Continue reading →“We do not know what to do with our salary minus expenses, so we just open FD after FD”. This is a common refrain from many employees I have met during my commonsense approach to money management corporate talks. I notice that many women in double-income households are guilty of letting unutilized salaries pile up in…
Continue reading →A reader asks, “Sir, I have just turned 25 and started working since November 2021. I see many of my peers using credit cards. Somehow I am not comfortable with them. Do they really have a use? Can you please an article about this?” A credit card is one of those things that is neither…
Continue reading →Previously, taxpayers could file belated returns up to two years from the end of the relevant assessment year without incurring any penalties other than interest, except that these returns did not allow carry forward of losses. The period for filing belated returns was reduced to one year and then further restricted to the end of…
Continue reading →