Are equity oriented balanced fund safer bets??

Based on valueresearchonline screener, I filtered the top  "Equity oriented balanced funds" and top "Equity funds excluding sectoral funds" based on last 10 year returns as on 15oct2015. Here are the results.

Considering the risk reward proposition, I think Balanced funds are safer bets ( as they are should supposedly be a able to give a better downside protection, apart from automatic asset allocation benefits between debt and equity plus same tax treatment as equity funds).

The returns from equity funds don't seem extremely superior to balanced funds. My take- unless we see a 2003-7 kind of a bull run, the performance differential between these two categories may be minimal. In a downward/ side ward market, balanced funds might even do better!

# Note:- This is not a recommendation to buy balanced funds. Investors are supposed to consult a financial advisor or do their own research before investing. Past performance of funds cannot be extrapolated to the future ! :-)

Thank God it's Monday #TGIF

Yes, you read it right - Do you thank God on mondays??.

I attended a talk in a professional forum today, it was on the topic "Holistic workplace".During the presentation, the speaker quoted some survey that said 66% of the employees around the world are "disengaged" and are not happy to go to work.( Rest 34% ,would be those who had miserable lives outside office and would have preferred devil over the deep shit, I thought :-) )

Coming back to the topic,I have had at least 10 -15 people who had told me over the  last couple of years  that they hated the job like hell. At least 60% of them had HUGE portion of their net pay being paid as EMI ( Car loan, Home loan, EMI for the latest gadget, personal loan to buy an unapproved plot, etc,etc). The latest conversation I had on EMI ...

(EMI = Easy Money from Idiots for the business people)

Ms. J: Hi IM

Me: Hi, How are you doing

Ms.J: Just finished a meeting with the CFO, he was all rude. Once I complete the Home loan EMI ( around 60 lakhs) outstanding, I would quit this job and mostly stop working thereafter.My husband's income is more than enough for us ( except for the loan)

Me: Oh is it??

Ms. J: True

Me: How much is the house worth?

Ms. J: 1 crore 

Me: Then why don't you sell that house ( where Ms J doesn't stay and it was fetching 15k ( EMI  > 60 Kpm) as rent per month- she never ever plans to get there), Short close your loan, Invest 40L which will provide you a monthly income if you need or let it compound.

Ms. J : Oh no! that sounds like a stupid idea. I will loose rental income, tax benefits, appreciation, blah,blah, blah...

Me; Fine , then why you feel that EMI and loan is a burden then?

Ms. J: Oh shit, I forgot ... I need to run to a meeting.

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If you are a shareholder of a GOOD bank that lends to retail, you can very happily proclaim- "Thank God , it's Monday" . #TGIF. 

What constitutes a GOOD bank is a bigger story :-) and would need to write a book on that!!

Things I wish I had known 15 years back!

( Warning :- This article is loaded with  "Hindsight bias")


I have been an avid saver and investor over the last decade. I have immensely benefited from my saving and investment habit. Looking back, I think I could have done better in these areas. ( Not an exhaustive list but the things that are on top of my mind at this point of time)

1. I should have "fully loaded" my  PPF  account from first year.

I opened a PPF account 15 years ago( good decision). But I didn't fully invest into it every year. During the initial years, I kept PPF account active by doing some minimum investment. NSC or ELSS was my preferred choice for parking the money. The reason being "15 years in PPF" looked "too long " for me.

I probably didn't understand the power of compounding and also that PPF is more tax efficient than NSC.

This mistake was corrected a few years back and now the PPF account is extended for the next 5 years :-).

2. Choosing growth option in Equity fund.

During initial investment years I thought , Dividends from equity funds was the most efficient way of "profit booking"  a.k.a risk mitigation and it was better than growth plan. But didn't realize that in effect , dividends also broke compounding and selling units of growth option was the best way to book profits , if at all needed.

Now, most of my Equity MF investments are under growth option ( Direct plan- learn more)

3. Should have avoided more money in tax inefficient FD.

Bank FDs were my favourite investment to start with.

FDs are the least efficient way of investing for people in higher tax bracket. It doesn't help to beat inflation and no indexation benefit is available for FD investments.Having all your debt investments in FD is tax inefficient.

Of late, I use debt vehicles that defer taxation till withdrawal.

4. Having too many accounts.

I  used to open one SB account whenever I switched jobs and wanted to hold all the five star funds ! Attractive bank FD rate hoardings led to many banks for opening FDs.

Having too many accounts eother it be SB, FD, demat or MF folio makes life difficult for you. Simple is always better!

Realising this, started closing  many accounts and consolidating folios. Still some more work left here!.

Real estate debt levels #simply_scary

Real estate euphoria is slowly dying and the developers are facing some sort of difficulty- Most of us know this from the reports that we read.

Today, I happened to have a conversation with a person with a RE insider during my train journey and it was nothing less than scary!

• One of the RE company is having debt up to Rs 1000 crores while the paid up capital as per books is below 20 crores( the actual capital got in by the promoter is far far less --- :-( , that should be another story)
• The company has been using one bank debt to pay another cyclically and so on and they are managing this through their "contacts".
• One famous private sector bank which is the darling of the stock market is keen on re-financing one of their loans on the condition that they will be the preferred partner for retail loans if and when they sell the flats. The logic being that retail loans seldom go bad!
• Also got to know that the company had previously "pleased" a lot of people to get the loans.
• Even if the company manages to sell all their existing stock and WIP at current prices, they will be able to manage only 50% repayment of the debt. 

Not sure what if the RE bubble burst, a few banks may actually go bust. ( But for all retail investors,Fixed deposit seems the safest investment ;-) )

NPAs from real estate and infrastructure sector can play out more differently than what we can predict.

Fingers crossed on what will happen and how stock market would play out eventually.

At least, I feel very very scared!!

Multibagger stocks of tomorrow

1.Which is a good stock to buy?. 

2. I want to do SIP in quality stocks as a long term investment, which are the good stocks to choose from?

3. Please help me identify some good stocks to buy.

These are some of the commonly asked questions that is being asked in some of the  web forums that I have been visiting.

There are many enthusiastic people who reply with answers like 

1. Choose L&T, HDFC bank, Asian paints , etc. These stocks have multiplied many times over the past decade, so they will continue to grow

2. Buy Eicher Motors, this stock has been a multibagger and Vanguard or someone has recently bought a stake in this company 

3. Buy Company XX because ace investor YY has acquired stakes in it.....

such answers go on!....

This takes me to some discussion a few years back (2006- 2007/08) like

1. Reliance power IPO is a great investment because the stock of the group companies have always made investors wealthy.

2. Unitech has yielded X times return in short span of time. That has been a jackpot!.

I am not trying to say that the answers mentioned above  are correct or wrong. The post is  not to compare the quality of stocks mentioned here and do a performance analysis of the past or prediction for the future.

The message is to say that nobody knows how any stock will perform in the future. Saying that investment in a particular company "can never go wrong" is foolish .

Making an investment decision purely based on suggestions from a web forum can prove to be disastrous. If stock picking was so easy, then you would have had billionaires all over!

Return of capital is more important than return on capital. So, please make right choices with your money.

If you ask me " How to make the right choices"... my answer is " I don't know the perfect answer" :-) !

Disclaimer:  

If you make any decision to buy or not buy any of the stocks that are mentioned in this post, it will be " your decision" and you cannot blame this post for any losses or loss of  profit.:-)

 I am not a SEBI registered analyst. While writing this post, I do not own any of the shares (direct equity investment) that are mentioned in this post.This is not a recommendation to Buy-Sell-Hold any of the stocks mentioned above.