What is cognitive dissonance?

What is cognitive dissonance? Actually the question should be why as an investor / wealth creator should you be aware of this! Cognitive dissonance is our need to justify all our actions – even if we know that it is not worth justifying. It is easier to see examples of what is cognitive dissonance. We [...]

Real estate, equities or gold?

Where should an investor invest today? Equity markets? Real estate or Gold? – I am assuming that investors look only at these 3 asset classes – I do not know how to invest in horses, oil, other commodities etc. so I will stick to these 3 asset classes… Let us start with Equities. If some [...]

What type of an investor are you?

First of all let me make a distinction between a saver and an investor. A saver puts his money in instruments which give fixed or very closed to fixed kind of returns. Examples of this are bank fixed deposits, PPF, National savings certificates, Endowment insurance policies, Retirement plans fully in debt instruments, etc. etc. These [...]

Sins of Money Management

Money management is the whole process of getting wealthy and includes: earning, budgeting, spending, borrowing, accounting, taxation,  saving, trading, investing, etc……. So it is likely that some of the points here could be relevant to you but not to APPLICABLE at this point in time……but still please read on: 1. NOT knowing the difference between [...]

Basic Investment philosophy

Here I am putting in some of my own effort, and some copied from the masters. Remember there are some very holy but useless sounding right advice. If you do not know how to do, LEARN them if you wish to be a good investor: A. Know yourself before starting to invest: 1. What kind [...]

The distributor and his fate….

The most maligned person in the financial service space is the distributor. It is he/ she who provides the last link between the financial product manufacturers and the end investor. Let us describe the typical distributor: He earns about Rs. 2-3 lakhs a year (a decent MBA would not EVEN consider looking at such a [...]