In everyday life, you face only one-way prices, either to buy or to sell. Be it buying groceries, or selling old newspapers, you get just one price.    You can haggle on the price, but you cannot sell groceries to the kirana shop or buy old newspapers. Yes, you might find both buy and...

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Investment activity, which plays a major role in boosting the country's current and medium-term growth prospects, has seen an upturn since 2016-17 and is likely to last till 2022-23, a working paper by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said on Tuesday.   "The upturn in the current...

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It is difficult to be happy and easy to be sad. If you don’t believe me, then try being happy when you do not invest in the stock market and it goes up; or when you invest in the stock markets and the markets go down. Money is a very strange thing. Human beings make rational decisions while...

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Whether one accepts the answer to this question or not: What is the single most important thing in this world, which will shape your dreams, your time, your freedom and your identity? It’s money. And what is the most misunderstood, under-explained, mis-explained concept? That is also money....

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Innumeracy is extremely common in India. From our childhood, our parents and peer group seem to think that if we do not know mathematics, we are useless. This, gradually, develops into a kind of hatred for mathematics and we dislike doing anything with numbers. I have seen many bright people...

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From childhood, we endeavour to teach our children the importance of savings and how to open and operate a bank account. When we get our first salary or earn our first income, we are likely to invest in bank deposits. This is fine for a start; but it is not a good idea to continue for all...

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We all are social animals and we remain the same social animals while thinking about money and investments. Let me discuss the common financial mistakes that we, human beings, make as social animals; to understand that, we have to turn to Behavioural Economics. This combines twin disciplines...

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Do you want to be a slave—wage slave of your employer, tax slave of the government and loan slave of a bank? Why are you adamant about working for money when money is willingly ready to work for you? Once you move from financial slavery to financial freedom, you will be able to fulfil your...

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Most people don’t think; some people wrongly think that they are thinking; while very rare people actually think.     I was recently invited as the chief guest at a chess competition. As it is customary for the chief guest to deliver a talk, while preparing my talk for the event and...

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If you assume that saving is equal to investing, you might be in for a nasty surprise. You are also living with a big delusion because you don’t understand the ‘rules of money’. The rules of money permanently changed in 1971 when the then US president Richard Nixon took the US off the gold...

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Equity researchers, employed by stockbrokers, are an important component of financial markets. Research analysts are supposed to know a lot about the companies and sectors they track. Some of them turn very influential; when they recommend a buy, investors act on their recommendation. When...

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Investors generally consider the future growth potential of a company, valuation and other parameters, while evaluating investments. It’s all about the upside. Savvy investors think of the downside. That is, they evaluate the risk, first. Academics quantify risk as volatility. Most...

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Are they really smart? Research firm Morningstar estimates that there were more than 450 US-listed smart-beta products on 30 September 2015. Assets under management (AUM) with smart-beta strategies have grown rapidly, to $616 billion (bn) in 2015 from $103bn in 2008. What is a smart-beta...

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But the financial industry is least bothered    There are over 650,000 registered financial advisers in the US who help manage nearly $30 trillion of investible assets. In 2010, more than half of American households sought advice from a financial professional. Yet, despite the ethical...

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  The Moneylife columnist shared his four decades of experience in financial markets   Decoding annual reports and getting behind the numbers of a company is not an easy task. R Balakrishnan, who has four decades of experience in financial markets and having been among the...

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US firms with CEOs or CFOs who golf frequently are associated with poor financial performance    Researchers in two separate studies have highlighted that playing of golf more frequently by chief executive officers (CEOs) and chief financial officers (CFOs) is associated with less...

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...to the extent decided by the builders   The government is supposed to be ‘of’ the people, ‘for’ the people, and ‘by’ the people. I believe in the last part. I am not sure about the first one; and I am very sure that the middle one, ‘for’, is a lie. The government is never ‘for’ the...

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Is investing in Islamic stocks profitable?   Islamic finance refers to financial activities undertaken that are consistent with Shariah Law. This is an alternative investment option that has gained much traction in recent years. In India, too, many investors track Shariah-compliant...

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US consumers are strongly attracted to schemes highlighted by the media   Several studies have established a relationship between performance and flows into mutual fund (MF) schemes. Schemes that report a good past performance are rewarded with higher fund flows. However, media...

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Wedding-related debt stress may be leading to shorter marriages in the US   In 2014, wedding industry revenues were projected to exceed $50 billion in the United States. According to a nation-wide survey conducted annually by the top wedding website, TheKnot.com, the average wedding...

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