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 [...]
In all my financial interactions – be it planning for clients, training, teaching or writing, people have come to me with some problem which they think is unique. In all the financial problems, I am able to find a pattern. Believe it or nor, people more often than not choose the problem by their behavior. [...]
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 [...]
Suzie Orman says: Keep enough money in ultra safe accounts to cover life’s emergencies, – say 8 months expenses – but no more.
Financial planners talk only of an income emergency. They do not talk about an asset emergency. When your assets crash and you are reluctant to sell at the current prices it is equivalent [...]
Most financial planners and personal portfolio managers are questioning their basic assumption of asset allocation. In the year 2008 asset allocation failed. This of course is their conclusion based on a set of data. Data is accurate but the conclusion seems to be a little flawed.
In the years from 2002 to 2007 (when Mr. 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 [...]
I have a nephew in high school and he had to say a few things about money:
1. I carry money to school, but never lend it to my friends: I am not sure whether I will get it back from them or not, so I do not lend it…..NINJA anyone?
2. I buy things only at [...]
Whenever I meet clients who are new to investing I can make out who has been their adviser for their earlier investments. It could be a cousin, neighbor, or a banker. They leave a lot of trail. The greatest thing that they do is emphasize on recent history. Though we all know that today was [...]
This is of course an old article inspired by Mr. Buffet’s thinking – or Mr. Graham’s thinking, language and concept of Mr. Market. It appeared in Moneycontrol long back….however things have not changed much.
Mr. Market: Good trader but a terrible investor.
When you push that ‘Place Order’ button or get that confirmation in the [...]
When my uncle called me in the morning and asked me a simple question, it set me thinking, talking, smsing “Is the increasing yield in FMP coming from increased risk” i.e. is the quality of assets falling. And this small note was born.
The retail investor, tired of falling equity markets was (is?) looking for [...]