“But Subra Sir I do not want to put my money in Mutual Funds’

Er, Why May I ask?

Sir Mutual funds are subject to market risks…..don’t you see the ads?

Well: What about bank fixed deposits?

No, no, Sir just tell me ‘are MFs subject to market risks…

Well, yes, but

No Sir. I cannot afford to take risks.

Well, so what will you do?

Keep it in a bank FD. It feels so safe.

Conversation number 2:

Why do you not ride a bike?

It is so risky! You could get killed by one of these cars…or trucks.

Conversation 3:

Me: How much did you get as Interest credit on you SB account?

Friend: Rs. 56,000.

Me: That means an average balance of Rs. 28,00,000 in your SB account.

Friend: God! but it feels so safe.

I am not sure whether I am a risk taking gambler or am I surrounded by people who think that they are not taking any risk! Clearly their ability to understand risk is close to zero.

I bike even at 5am, run on the road at 5am with low visibility (I wear reflective vest, but a drunk driver can completely miss me till I scream, death). I keep my money in risky assets. I live in a rented house (OMG he cannot STILL afford a house?), …what other risky things do I do?

– I use a small car (sadly in India there are no stats but generally riding a big car with seat belts while sitting in the back seat is the least probability of dying. It helps if it is a Merc S class or a high end Skoda, not one of the Jap toys!!).

I travel public transport – OMG I could be hit by a bomb, right?

Sadly the people who think I am taking risks, have no clue how much risk they are taking.

What risks are they taking:

Keeping money in a SB account: Inflation.

Big car, big house: confusing between Convenience and Freedom

Higher expenses: Voluntary serfdom.

their idea of safety seems to some kind of an illusion. Is it called Myopia by any chance?……….

well….lets be friends, sorry!!!

  1. Every thing accepted Subra Sir, however living in own house is a feeling which can not be compared with interest saving, I know if you stay in south Mumbai in your own house then at least you are making a loss of 10-12 lakh annually but still….ghar to banta he;)

  2. the greater the gap between logic and emotion, the greater the profits. Happy being a shareholder of Hdfc, Ultratech, Tata Steel. Thank you very much.

  3. The biggest risk to achieving long term success is thinking and acting short term.

    Be it managing your portfolio, running a company, or building a nation.

  4. Hmm.. if doing business was not risky, why are companies trying to get other peoples’ monies from stock market? It makes sense to play away with other person’s money than my own.

  5. for that 28 lacs in a bank account, why would the person not look at something like NHAI bonds– ssovereign, better interest and taxfree? I can understand about being ultra conservative and risk averse

  6. Subra Sir, you are affecting me to postpone my plan for house though my parents will not like it but now I think I can consider to stay on rent. But still some doubt prevails like good properties on rent are not easy to find and changing address every year etc.

  7. At least in south metros if they have that much amount in their bank a/c’s they will simply go & INVEST IN FLATS 🙂

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes:

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>