Diversification Financial Planner: A diversified portfolio lowers your risk. Reaction should be: Diversification won’t always save you – and you need more of it than you think. Your financial planner has to understand diversification across asset classes, geographies, business houses, industries, time horizons, etc. Not all financial planners are equipped to evaluate and advice on […]

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If you had invested Rs. 10,000 in Wipro and kept all the shares with yourself, and spent all the dividends, your portfolio would be worth Rs. 300 crores (ok it does not matter whether it is 100, 200 or 300 crores) – it is just a gigantic figure! If you had invested in Reliance, Hdfc, […]

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There are many signals which are likely to confuse you about bear markets and bull markets. Unfortunately the market does not ‘pre-announce’ the start and stop of ‘bull’ and ‘bear’ markets. You need to look at signals – monetary, philosophical, psychology, and physiological! You could look at how people behave, what they say and what […]

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There is one person who is rarely quoted in Financial Circles. He is George Bernard Shaw. He said “Whenever I go to my tailor, he measures me up”. I wish all of us would do it! Once we decide on a particular thing we do not let new facts change our minds. We carry prejudices […]

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Madhu Soman of Reuters writes well – and is a keen watcher of equity markets and real estate (especially in Wadala and Kerala!). He had written an article for REuters – on 16th October, 2008 –  and it was subsequently carried in ET.Here are the first 2 paras where Shankar Sharma….read on! “The world of […]

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Parroting ‘time spent in the market is better than timing the market’ is done by many journalists especially in the financial sector. However it does not giving the following advise: “It is your money. So if you are nervous about the market move into cash” When there are dark clouds, when you are feeling sad, […]

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While doing a risk review of a portfolio, I stumbled on a portfolio with 55 mutual fund schemes and 52 direct equity investments. When the investor asked me what was the risk, I said there was ‘concentration’ risk. I also told him he was running the risk of ‘over-diversification’ . He asked me to speak […]

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