In investing, there are very few things that carry the same allure as picking direct stocks. The potential for outsized market-beating returns, the satisfaction of picking winners, is no doubt tempting, potentially profitable, and glamourous. And the stories of small…
Read More Why Stock Picking Isn’t for Everyone – Economic Times Wealth (20-Oct-2025)
Equity offers high long-term returns but can be volatile in the short term. Debt is stable but lacks inflation-beating gains. If we leave out the ultra-aggressives and the ultra-conservatives, then for everyone else, a balanced mix of both is ideal.…
There is significantly less portfolio overlap among active Smallcap Funds than among Largecap funds. One of the reasons for this might be that, given the very nature of the small-cap space, there are numerous different styles/strategies that different fund managers…
Read More Making Sense of Overlap among active Smallcap Funds
As India matures as an economy, every few years, we are bound to witness various financial innovations. The latest one, introduced by SEBI, is the Specialised Investment Fund (or SIF). It is an altogether new breed of investment vehicle, which…
Read More Should you invest in SIF (or Specialised Investment Funds) in 2025?
I did a simple analysis to see what is the Difference in the Final Portfolio value when you do a simple Rs 25,000 Monthly SIP for 10 years by investing in Active Largecap Funds (DIRECT Vs Regular)? Here are the…
Everyone keeps talking about how (even) Smallcap Funds gave multibagger returns from the pandemic lows of 2020 (March) till now. But what many people don’t see and realize is that the levels from where NAVs fell in March 2020, the…
Read More Smallcap Funds: What Happened in 2018-2020 before the Sharp Rise in 2020-2024?
Many people are not comfortable investing 100% in equities for certain goals (and rightly so). All they want is to just have 60-70% in Equity and the rest 30-40% in Debt. There are many ways to do this - One…
Long-Term Capital Gains (LTCG) Tax in Equity has been increased to 12.5% (from earlier 10%) in the Budget 2024. So, the 10% era existed from 2018 to 2024. The earlier pre-2018 era was about the good old days of 0%…
Read More LTCG Tax Increased to 12.5% – How it Impacts You, a Long-Term Equity Investor?
The recent Budget has proposed big changes in the Indian Mutual Fund Tax Rules (2024). Based on the type of mutual funds, here are the taxation rules: Let me explain this table in simple words: Equity Funds – The Long…
Yesterday (on 23rd June 2024), a business news platform Moneycontrol reported that SEBI had conducted search and seizure operations in Quant AMC offices (link). The operation was supposedly conducted on suspicion of front-running operations. On its part, the AMC has…
Read More Quant’s Front Running Allegations: What Should You Do?
My views on this topic were recently published in a Mint column: You are already aware of the differences between active and passive funds. And if you are active on social media like X (erstwhile Twitter), you would also know…
Read More Is There a Place for Both Active & Passive Funds in your Portfolio? (Mint Column May 2024)
If you started in January 2013 with Rs 1 Crore in Liquid Fund (say for example - ICICI Pru Liquid Fund) and did a SWP of Rs 50,000 monthly, then to date, you would have withdrawn a total of Rs…
Read More How to Optimize Rs 50,000 SWP from Rs 1 Crore Corpus for Regular Monthly Income?
A few months back, I had written that the removal indexation benefit in debt fund meant that investors would start looking for alternatives. And it was only a matter of time before AMCs found a way around this new development…
Read More Don’t Rush to New Multi-Asset Allocation Funds to avoid Increased Debt Fund Taxation
Many people at the start of their earning years, had got introduced to LIC via some relative/friend of the family who forced them to buy LIC New Jeevan Anand at the start of their careers as investments and for tax-savings.…
Read More Should I Surrender LIC New Jeevan Anand & Instead Invest in Mutual Funds (2023)?
Recently, SEBI came out with a consultation paper reviewing the Total Expense Ratio charged by AMCs and the need to rationalize them. You can check the detailed paper here on SEBI website. But there was one interesting insight in the…
