Long term investment story

For those who want to know , how a rational long term investment approach works, here's a story on ET wealth.

"Over the past four decades, not only has he reaped the benefits of investing in equity, but also helped his clients. “I had subscribed to the rights issue of Gammon India and got shares at Rs 6 each. While I sold mine at Rs 120, I advised a client to hold on for a little longer. He sold when the price touched Rs 197.5 with an additional dividend of Rs 2.5 when sold,” he recalls. ...read on at ET"

Understand the contradiction in advices

After introduction and a bit of eulogizing of ET wealth, here's a general comment on the article titled 'Four reasons why not to buy IPOs' 

If IPO should not be bought why do papers like ET publish a buy/ no buy recommendation for IPOs. Is the recommendation not for the retail investor. Or is any FII or QIB is interested on a ET recommendation? ( I have taken this article just as an example and no offence intended to the author of the article. you will realize this by the end of the post)

The answer is simple. The world of investment advice is full of such contradictions and this article  is no exemption. Every advice is valid from one perspective and stupid from another perspective.

Equity market is not a casino!

Recently, I received a query from a person

The query ~ I have withdrawn rs 50,000 from my GPF (General provident fund- provident fund for government employees), How can i double it within one or two years .

This is the attitude that most of us carry towards equity markets. It's treated like a casino which can make you rich over night. Once  you loose your money and burn your fingers , the episode of bad mouthing that equity " investing " starts.

ET wealth

Economic times has come up with a new paper starting this week ( Every Monday as far as I remember).

I was going through the web edition of the paper. Nice articles and looks good. Let's hope to see it getting better over time.

The publication of a paper focusing on Individual wealth creation talks volumes about the growing need for personal finance education inn India.

As the disposable income is increasing at  a rapid phase, knowledge of managing the money in a right way to create long term wealth becomes absolutely essential for Individuals.

For those of you who haven't got the opportunity to read the paper yet, here's the link

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/etwealth.cms

One small step - part 2

One small step  part -1

Was talking to one of my new colleague about personal finance, SIP , blog and specifically about the 'one small step' post....

This guy got damn excited and decided to start of with an SIP in equity fund to use his age to advantage and  to leverage the power of compounding. At last I was happy about it ( Please note: - I don't earn any commission by selling mutual funds. it's just a sense of happiness that some one is going to start investing in the right direction at the right age.)

Two blogs that I read everyday

Subramoney and Capital mind. These are the blogs I read almost everyday.

I think subramoney was introduced to me through a post in capital mind. From that time I am hanging on to it. The author's profound experience in personal finance and training is reflected very clearly on his posts.

The greatest attractions of this blog is regular posting, simplicity of posts ( I think even novices can understand and there are not too many jargons), real life examples  and variety of topics covered. the author has also been promoting his book on personal finance through the blog. I haven't got a chance to read the book yet. But a must read blog for all those who are interested in personal finance.

Capital mind is again a good read. The author of the blog also writes a column on yahoo. He is also versatile with his topics . Some topics with detailed technical analysis may only interest those who are used to that world.

Good to see such great content available on the web and that too for free :-). Who said that there is no free lunch?

Here are the urls:-

subramoney.com and capitalmind.in

It's discipline that fetches money

What it takes to earn big from equities. try to choose from the following :-

1. Extra -ordinary skills in stock market

2. Information updates from time to time on what's happening ( from say a paper, TV or a blog!)

3. Skills in technical and fundamental analysis

4. Ability to time the market ( when it will reach high and when it will reach a low)

5. Gift to spot multi bagger when they are small caps/ mid caps

None of the skills listed above are absolutely essential to make money form equities.

Health is wealth

We all have been hearing this from childhood. How many of us really understand the importance of health in India?. Very less as far as I see. We do not have time ( actually, bother to find :-)) even for any simple work out everyday.

A spate of small sickness, visit to the doctor and a big bill that followed made me look at my routine. I wasn't really doing any regular exercise or have any planned food habit. So, this sickness could have been probably avoided if I had been taking care of my health regularly.

In pursuit of wealth , one shouldn't ignore a regular and healthy routine. We definitely need to take time for ourselves and importantly maintain nutritious/ healthy food habits. Else we may be throwing away our hard earned money to doctors/ pharmacy cos unnecessarily.

It's definitely not only a question of money , there is nothing like being and feeling hale and healthy.When I say healthy its only not being free from diseases, but feeling good and enthusiastic about what we  do everyday.

Health is the greatest wealth , of course!

( Hopefully this gyan remains with me and I do some implementation of my advice!. Thought of sharing this as I felt there a lot of people who are like me   :-) )

IDFC infrastructure bonds - Not seen in your demat account?

I had applied for IDFC infrastructure bond in October 2010. My bank account got debited long back. I was waiting to see the bond credited in my demat account.

Finally got the information letter on allotment last  week but still the demat account wasn't reflecting IDFC  bonds credit.

The bonds are not seen in the 'holdings' section in my demat account ( India infoline). I figured it out in the transactions details.