PPF interest rate has been “slashed” from 7.1% to 6.4% for the second quarter of 2021. This has come as a big shock to retail investors who, at the least, expected rates to remain the same. The rate for Sukanya Samridhhi Yojana has also be reduced from 7.6% to 6.9%. Does it still make sense…
Continue reading →Many PPF investors have a habit of investing Rs. 1.5 Lakh between April 1st to April 5th to “maximise” the interest benefits of PPF. Here is what you need to consider before you do this! The discussion also applies if you wish to maximise PPF investments over the course of the financial year. If you…
Continue reading →When it comes to managing our money, there are several questions to ask. (1) Should I do it myself? Can I do it myself? Or outsource it to a professional? (2) If I wish to outsource, who should I contact, what should I expect, what questions should I ask them? For the last six-plus years,…
Continue reading →Anyone investing in mutual funds would have heard the saying, “time in the market is better than timing the market”. This was propagated by AMC folk to try and stop fluctuating AUM and, therefore, income/commissions. However, “time in the market” or “staying invested” at all times or “buy and hold” is not different from “timing…
Continue reading →This is a list of the worst-performing equity mutual funds over every possible five, four, three and two year period between 1st Jan 2013 (introduction date of direct plans) to March 8th 2021. Some caveats before we begin: (1) The definition of a “worst mutual fund” is as arbitrary as the definition of a “best…
Continue reading →Interest in passive investing has increased in India over the last few years. This trend was driven by perceptible outperformance: first was the increase in interest in Nifty Next 50 – as usual after the index started moving south in 2018. Then in the Nifty and Sensex as they were held up by a few…
Continue reading →Over the past few years, freefincal has regularly reported how hard it has been for Indian fund managers to beat the Nifty/Sensex and the Nifty Next 50. Did you know that 582 US large cap mutual funds have outperformed the S&P 500 over the last ten years! In this article, we present some results from…
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 the requirement of 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…
Continue reading →Swarup asks, “I am a salaried employee for 8 years, having good pay. Due to a lack of knowledge, I never invested in MFs. I do not have a goal yet. But I want to maintain a 50-50 asset allocation. For 8 years, I have put money in FDs mostly. Now I have started investing…
Continue reading →If you are actively following the financial news nowadays, you might have read that ‘US Bond Yields Rising’ and that this is causing the volatility that we see currently in the Indian Stock Market. This article will try to understand what US Bond Yields are, why they are rising, and how exactly it affects the…
Continue reading →One year ago, on March 23rd 2020, the stock market stopped falling in fear of the global economy coming to a standstill due to the pandemic. From Feb 18th 2020 to March 23rd 2020, the Nifty fell by 36.5%. On March 23rd 2020 we saw the biggest intraday fall 0f 13.5%. The 10-year Nifty SIP…
Continue reading →This is a review of ICICI Prudential Nifty Low Vol 30 ETF FOF, an open-ended fund of funds scheme investing in ICICI Prudential Nifty Low Vol 30 ETF. We try to answer two main questions that investors should ask before considering an investment in this FOF. They are: 1: Does low volatility investing work? If…
Continue reading →HDFC Bank has been a favourite investment for a lot of investors in the Indian equities – be it Retail Investors, Fund Managers, FIIs, or DIIs. And, with good reason too. HDFC Bank has outperformed almost every bank in India in terms of stock price performance. An analysis. About the author: Arjun Budhraja is an…
Continue reading →It is now a little over a month since the release of my new book for kids “Chinchu gets a superpower!“. Here is what parents have to say about it 🙂 What do readers say? I loved the way you carried the discussion forward. I just have two words – Structured and Free Flowing. Great…
Continue reading →My favourite Twitter bio is actors Kevin Hart’s: “My name is Kevin Hart, and I WORK HARD!!! That pretty much sums me up!!! Everybody Wants To Be Famous But Nobody Wants To Do The Work”. You can replace the “be famous” with “make more money”, which would still be true. Another reality is, among the…
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