Here are four qualities needed to become a successful investor. Thankfully we can develop these qualities in time. We neither need to be smart nor intelligent to succeed in money management. 1. Individuality: We need to be clear about why we are investing. Otherwise, the smallest perturbation – a market up move or down move,…
Continue reading →The life insurance claim settlement ratio for FY 2020-21 is presented below. These were published in the IRDA annual report in Dec 2021. The reader must appreciate that the claim settlement ratio (CSR) is not a life insurance claim acceptance probability! Even if you make the mistake of assuming it represents a probability, a high …
Continue reading →In this article, a client shares how a SEBI registered investment advisor and fee-only financial planner (Swapnil Kendhe) helped him set his finances in order. Those wondering what to expect from a fee-only financial planner will benefit from this. The client prefers the pen name ‘safed pigeon’. About the advisor: Swapnil is a SEBI Registered Investment…
Continue reading →Apurva asks, “You often talk about the importance of discipline in investing. How do I become more disciplined?” Hard work and discipline are often not recognised as talents anyone can develop (at least in principle). Here are two steps to becoming more disciplined in everything that we do. Organisation Routine 1. Organisation: Now that we…
Continue reading →The freefincal Equity Mutual Fund Performance Screener (Janury 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 viewer on our YouTube channel asks, “Sir, are conservative hybrid funds a good alternative for FD? Especially the Parag Parikh Conservative Hybrid Fund. They seem to be investing only in govt bonds, and for stable returns, they are investing in dividend stocks like ITC and coal India. is this fund safe?” Let us expand…
Continue reading →This time on reader stories we meet a 24-year-old budding lawyer who prefers the pseudonym Mr Rakmo Hurtak. He believes his investment strategy is ‘okay’ (for his age and circumstances) but has a curious problem. He is not satisfied with “wealth creation” and needs a goal for his investments! This is of course fantastic as a…
Continue reading →A reader asks, “I have a query regarding mutual fund expense ratios. Let’s say, we have Fund A with 5-year returns of 15% and expenses of 0.5%. Fund B, with returns of 18% with an expense ratio of 1.2%”. “I consider Fund B as a better fund as it has a better return even after…
Continue reading →Many advisors and personal finance enthusiasts believe that “Indians are not ready to pay for financial advice”; “products and associated advice should be “pushed” with incorrect expectations ” and the like. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Indians (like any other person from any other country and like any other sensible buyer) are more…
Continue reading →Investors will be able to invest in Silver for the first time via ICICI Prudential Silver ETF (NFO period Jan 5 – 19 2022). Exciting as this may sound, investors need to appreciate several aspects of investing in silver and investing in it via ETF. A discussion. Before we begin, it must be understood that…
Continue reading →Here is a list of stocks with low volatility and momentum for January 2022 from the Nifty 100. You can also get the historical data from March 2019 to January 2022. We filter Nifty 100 for (1) positive 1-year return, (2) positive six-month return, (3) price > 200-day moving average, (4) 50% of daily positive…
Continue reading →1st Jan 2022 marked the 9th anniversary of direct plan mutual funds. In this article, we list the most popular direct plan mutual funds – that is the ones with the largest AUM. The AUM (asset under management) of mutual funds reported in most online portals is the total value. AUM of the regular plan…
Continue reading →This week we evaluate the performance of Kotak Flexicap Mutual Fund and find out if its large AUM (Rs. 36.,661 Crores) is affecting its ability to be a flexicap fund and therefore its performance. The market cap allocation history of the fund is shown below. The fund has operated as a large and mid cap…
Continue reading →A reader asks, “I am 39 yrs old. I am planning to take early retirement in the next 15 months. I have a savings corpus of 1 Cr INR. My monthly requirement is 50 K INR. I need help with two things: 1) advice if this can be done and 2) If yes, then investment…
Continue reading →As regular readers may know, we publish an annual personal finance audit every December – our 2021 audit was posted a few days ago. Since last year regular readers have been sharing their investment journey and portfolio reviews. Suhas who was among the first to do this shared an update last week: Why I hiked my…
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