The reduction in the EPF interest rate from 8.5% to 8.1% for FY 2021-2022 is a wake-up call for the retail investor. Particularly the young earner. The “EPF rate is still higher than other instruments” argument is of little use for most investors. As discussed several times before, the fiscal prudence of EPFO is far…
Continue reading →A reader who prefers anonymity, asks, “I have been following your retirement bucket strategy illustrations with interest. While I have no issues with the plan and see the necessity for dividing a corpus into an income bucket, low risk, bucket, high-risk bucket etc. I wonder how practical all this is for a retiree. How many…
Continue reading →A finance influencer or finfluencer is someone capable of influencing investment or insurance or money management decisions based on the content they create (articles, video, tweets, Instagram posts etc.). Sadly, many of them are capable of harming our portfolios. A discussion. Note: We are acutely aware that the opinions presented below also applies to freefincal…
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. Before we begin, investors need to appreciate the context of these investments. I started direct equity investing only after achieving a comfortable level of financial independence and ensuring my son’s future…
Continue reading →This is a debt mutual fund screener for fund selection, fund portfolio tracking and learning. It also includes hybrid funds that invest in bonds. It will satisfy investors who wish to invest in money market funds, banking and PSU funds etc. The credit quality of the bonds in the portfolio and the bond maturity profile…
Continue reading →In this edition of the reader story, we meet 30-year old Phanindra. He explains how his style of money management changed from buying interesting or apparently useful products to building a robust goal-based investment strategy. This is the 31st such article published here. About this series: I am grateful to readers for sharing intimate details about…
Continue reading →In this edition of the “fund performance report”, we look at Axis Bluechip fund. Launched in Jan 2010, the fund has an AUM of about Rs. 34,000 Crores – the highest among actively managed large cap funds. Disclaimer: Fund performance reports present return and risk analysis of a fund with representative benchmarks and not investment…
Continue reading →In this article, Suresh explains how he uses bank recurring deposits to efficiently manage his family’s annual expenses. I requested Suresh to elaborate his email into an article in the hope that it will benefit readers. Hello readers, my name is Suresh. One of the long-time freefincal readers. This year, I had to pay an…
Continue reading →Axis Nifty Midcap 50 Index fund will track the Nifty Midcap 50 Total Returns Index In this review, we shall find out how this index compares in terms of reward and risk with Nifty Midcap 150 and Nifty Next 50. According to the NSE, “NIFTY Midcap 50 includes top 50 companies based on full market…
Continue reading →In this article, we discuss what investors should do if they have already achieved their target corpus years before when they actually need the money. Today this may seem like an unlikely scenario for most young investors reading this, but over the years we have encountered so many people who are in this situation. Investing…
Continue reading →A reader asks, “I notice that many large cap mutual funds have five-star ratings now. This was not the situation before the March 2020 crash. Can you please do a study on this?” Results of active large cap funds vs benchmark study will depend on the duration of the returns considered and when the return…
Continue reading →This is a passive fund screener based on tracking error and return difference wrt benchmarks. The screener will help a user 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 the Sensex…
Continue reading →Somnath is 30 and salaried and hopes to retire by 55. In this case study, we shall find out how he can plan for financial freedom in retirement. That is, we shall find out how Somnath can derive an inflation-protected income and be financially free after retirement. What is inflation-protected income? A retirement income that…
Continue reading →Days after we predicted (for once rightly!) “Parag Parikh AMC might rethink their foreign equity investment strategy. After all, the flexicap is their flagship fund and main profit source. They would not like prolonged or repeated disruption to their income”, the fund house has announced that Parag Parikh Flexicap will reopen for investment from March…
Continue reading →In this article, we discuss the difference between risk and volatility and why one must not misinterpret the difference! What is risk? Risk can be defined as any factor that can result in a loss of value. For example, if you buy something for Rs. 10 and after a year its market value is Rs….
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