As a financial planner I do spend a lot of time with 16 year olds working in call centers, media companies, banks and so on. When I am with them and discussing their problems, the one question that often comes to my mind is, “If these guys cannot make their monthly salary stretch one month, […]
I just met a 63 year old woman who had lost her parent. She had no clue about either the municipal formalities, banking formalities, or anything else of her late father. She was not a dumb woman. She had a PhD in philosophy, but had given up all that long, long ago for taking care […]
I always liked to use this line “It requires a complicated mind to think of simple things”. Of course one needs to add that a thing is simple does not mean it is easy to do. Like giving up smoking, or if you are a pace bowler bowling on or around the off stump. Look […]
Our FM has at last politically consented to an increase in fuel prices. So if you are a shareholder, rejoice. Your company is now perhaps 12 months away from bankruptcy instead of 2. That is about all. Look at the fertiliser subsidy. Who gets it? Farmers growing potato for Pepsi, Coke, ITC, – so that […]
It is customary for people to give sane advice- if you have a kid, the kid should have a PPF account. This advice makes very little sense. First of all most of the people I meet today invest far, far more in a year than the max possible amount of Rs. 70,000 in a PPF […]
Most retail investors assess performance of their mutual funds by looking at one number – returns. What most investors ignore is the risk that your fund manager took to get you that return. That is to say “how many sleepless nights did your fund manager give you for getting those returns”. Thus bigger fund performance […]
The Indian financial press loves talking about mis-selling but nothing about mis-buying. Most people who buy financial products do not understand what they are buying. However, this is not a one-sided affair. Luckily (or unluckily) most of the clients do not know what they are buying. You will admit that is a fantastic combination. Let […]