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Year In Review - 2018
A happy new year to you! The year 2018 has been exceptionally exciting for me. The last such eventful year has been 2002 when I took a flight for the first time in my life to a country half way around the globe, to pursue my Master's degree. Back in 2002, there were a lot of new things that I have never experienced before -- the culture shock, self reliance, clean roads, every shop, house and office having air condition, tons of cars and almost no people on roads, huge university campus, and much much more. Every day was like a new experience and exciting in its own way. Fast forward to 2018, and I had a similar kind of exciting year after a long time.
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Health Insurance
Like life insurance, everyone needs a health insurance too. It is especially important to start one when you are young, so you can lock into lower premiums. However unlike life insurance, health insurance is useful both pre and post retirement. If you have not yet retired, the risk of not having a health insurance is that, in case of an emergency, your investments and savings will take a hit and will delay your retirement. If you are already retired, your corpus will take a substantial hit and will reduce your income stream.
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Life Insurance
Everybody needs a life insurance to protect their loved ones from financial hardships in the event that your time on the planet has unexpectedly come to an end. So I wanted to write a post about life insurance. The recommendations made in this post are for people who are planning early retirement. For others, it may not work. You requirements of life insurance will be different pre and post retirement.
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How to Choose a Financial Planner
If planning your finances in minute detail and researching investments that fit your goals and risk appetite is not your cup of tea, then it is better to hire a financial planner who will do the work for you. But how does one find a good adviser? What attributes make up a good financial planner? Here are some tips to help you get started.
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Invest Across Market-caps for Better Returns
If you want better returns for your investments, choose to invest across market caps. Generally, choosing 2-3 good multi-cap funds is sufficient for most investors. However, if you want to be a bit more aggressive with your investments, add some small-cap and mid-cap funds. But how much? That is the question I will try to answer in today's post.
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How to Choose a Mutual Fund
We've all heard it -- don't choose a mutual fund just based on past performance or star rating. Then, how does one go about choosing a good fund? That is the question I want to answer today. While I am not expert at picking a good mutual fund, I did have my share of bad pickings and hence have had some wisdom knocked into me. So here are some tips on how to choose a good mutual fund based on my experience.
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Are Index Funds Better Than Active Funds?
In the US, index investing is all the rage. John Bogle who started the first index fund, contends that an index fund beats almost all actively managed mutual funds (after accounting for fees) in the long run. But does it work in India? That was the experiment I set out to conduct in early 2012.
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The Gilt Experiment
You've probably heard about the inverse relationship between bond prices and interest rates. When interest rates rise, bond prices fall and vice-versa. How can we use this information to make some money without a lot of volatility? Read along about my experiment with interest rate cycles.
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My Asset Allocation
I have discussed the 70:30 asset allocation in my previous 2 posts. However, I did not really follow the rule, not because it did not work for me, but for the simple reason that I wanted to learn market cycles and take risk while doing my investments. I would not suggest anyone play with investments like I did (unless you know what your are doing) and risk losing money. Instead follow the boring simple rule of 70:30 and it works. This is more of a case study of my investing style.
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The 70:30 Asset Allocation
In my previous post, I talked about about allocating 70% to equity and 30% to fixed income and just keep that ratio irrespective of which stage you are in your life. But does it really work? Lets work out some examples to see how it might work under various conditions.
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