Posts tagged with "fixed-income"


  • Don't Be Fully Invested

    While I encourage everyone to invest as much as possible, I’d also like to advice you to not be fully invested. I know this sounds a bit contradictory, but it actually makes sense if you analyze it. Some of us are excellent savers and investors to that point that any amount that we can save, we immediately think of investing. This is as much of a problem as people having trouble controlling their spending. If you optimize your investments to the point that you no longer have any buffer or flexibility left for unexpected expenses, you are in trouble. I have seen this happen to a couple of friends in the recent past and thought I’d pass on the advice so you can avoid similar mistakes.

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  • Reducing My Asset Allocation Swings

    Ever since I started investing back in 2011, I have always wanted to do tactical asset allocation. The idea was not to maximize returns, but to minimize volatility. Tactical asset allocation is different from the general advice which you receive from many people including me which is to keep a fixed asset allocation and rebalance once in a while to make sure that the asset allocation difference remains within a small range. That advice applies for any long term goal like retirement. For shorter goals you may receive advice to reduce equity allocation as you near the goal. If I did not make any sense there, then let me explain with an example.

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  • Year In Review – 2022 Net Worth

    The last post in the year in review series for the year is on my net worth. I am doing the net worth calculations using the very basic formula for net-worth which is basically assets - liabilities. Some don’t agree with that formula, but I will continue to use it since that is what I have used in the past. If I change the formula now, then there will be discontinuity in the numbers. Moreover, since I don’t publish any numbers, it does not matter what my net worth really is. It is only to show how it has grown or fallen over the years. My retirement is in no way dependent on my net worth. It is only dependent on my corpus of investments (debt MFs and equity MFs).

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  • Year In Review – 2021 Net Worth

    It has been a while but I just realized that I did not do my net worth analysis as part of my year in review series. So here we go. I am doing the net worth calculations using the very basic formula for net-worth which is basically assets - liabilities. Some don’t agree with that formula, but I will continue to use it since that is what I have used in the past. If I change the formula now, then there will be discontinuity in the numbers. Moreover, since I don’t publish any numbers, it does not matter what my net worth really is. It is only to show how it has grown over the years. My retirement is in no way dependent on my net worth. It is only dependant on my corpus of investments (debt MFs and equity MFs). Real estate is not an investment since I live in it.

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  • Asset Allocation After Retirement

    What asset allocation should you go for after retirement? That is not a common question I hear from readers of my blog because most of them are still in the accumulation phase and don’t have to worry too much about retirement yet. But it is something that I struggle with myself from time to time since I am already retired. If you are close to retirement or are already retired, maybe this post will help. In case you don’t already know what an asset allocation means, please read my post on it.

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  • A Simple Investment Plan

    It has been 10 years since I first started investing. When I look back at how I invested back in the day, it looks so simple. No complicated planning or exotic products. I always believe in starting with something simple. Whether it be investments, work, hobbies, nutrition, exercise, you name it. There are several advantages of this approach.

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  • Year In Review – 2020 Net Worth

    Continuing on with the year in review series, next up is net worth. This year I wanted to make a small change to my net worth calculations. For the last 2 years I have included my US stocks (employee stocks) as part of my net worth. That has caused a lot of confusion to my readers. While my company stocks in the US are worth something, I am planning to keep it out of the reviews. That corpus is supposed to be used for my international (mostly US) vacation. So no point dragging it into net worth calculations.

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  • Interest Rates On Govt. Schemes Have Been Cut

    Finally some good news that I have been waiting for. The interest rates for the governments schemes have come down. Just in yesterday's post I have been complaining about the high interest rates of many of these schemes have been the barrier for the rate cut transmissions.

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  • Year In Review – 2019 Net Worth

    The final post in 2020 Year in Review series, is my net worth. Like last year, I took stock of my investments and asset allocation. As a reminder to the readers, the idea is not to know how much I am worth, but mainly to understand my asset allocation. Even so, it is fun to check out the net worth, so here it goes.

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  • Year In Review - 2018 Net Worth

    The final chapter in the Year in Review series, is reviewing my net worth. At the end of every year, in addition to reviewing my returns and expenses, I also take stock of my net worth. It is an exercise not to check how much I am worth, but more to get an understanding of my asset allocation, and see if it is converging towards my planned allocation. Lets take a look at the constituents of my net worth first.

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