Do you need an Investment advisor?

Or Why you do not need an investment consultant or an Investment Advisor !
If you need bypass surgery, you should find the most qualified surgeon available.This need not be the most expensive surgeon. Some surgeons are better at PR so they command a higher price. Some surgeons are good but in smaller hospitals. You need [...]

Borrowing for investing? Be conservative!

If you have a financial planner with a ‘product sale’ mentality – especially who has sold loan products also in the past, there is a good chance that he would suggest leverage. Leverage means borrowing. So read on…
Financial planner: Borrowing sensibly is a good way to build wealth. Do a disciplined borrowing and you will [...]

NPS and budget crumbs

Am doing this posting because a few journalists wanted me to talk about the Union Budget and the NPS. What a joke! There was NOTHING in the budget for the NPS at all. One cosmetic change is ‘on share purchases the NPS does not have to pay service tax’ – the impact at best can [...]

Portfolio Risk: Same risk or different risk?

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 [...]

Real estate: Hidden costs

It is amazing that financial services – mutual funds, life insurance and banking are seen as villians in terms of charges in a country which has so many real estate deals!
Who can become a builder, who can become a broker, how much brokerage to charge, should prices be quoted for built up, super built up….NOTHING [...]

Will 2009 be the same?

 
Recession, slow down, pessimism about the Indian economy (of course because of the recession in the U.S. economy) are words that become common place in local lingo!
Everybody and his aunty is now convinced that the Sensex will touch 5000 very soon, and the last place to be investing now is the equity markets. Of course [...]

End of a bear market?

If the market goes up 3 days in a row, i get emails / queries asking “Is this the end of a bear market”. UNfortunately I do not have any simple answers.
First of all the market does not announce the starting of bull / bear markets. Pundits have chosen the names and almost always tell [...]

Politics and Money

I normally do not write about politics but this are special times! There is a chance that the government will fall (this is a defeat for Anil Ambani) or the government will survive (there is enough that AS and AA can do to irritate Mukesh).
However, there is a good chance that if the UPA government [...]

Choosing the financial adviser..

This is arguably the most important financial decision in your life you will ever make! Not too long ago life was simple. You wanted a bank account, you went to a bank. If you wanted to buy shares, you went to a sub-broker (a broker was out of reach till about 15 years back). If [...]

SIP: works or not? Caveat about direct equity SIPs!

SIP creates wealth in the long run, however it gives no immediate gratification. Equity trading (what the common man thinks is investing) gives immediate gratification and does not create wealth for the client. The broker wants him to trade so that broker’s wealth goes up.
So what is the solution?
Sell SIP in equities as a fantastic [...]