LEARNING


Moneylife Digital Team 27 March 2015
Be wary of hidden commissions behind ‘advice’   If you are seeking financial advice, make sure you are not being nudged towards products from which advisers benefit by getting commissions. If you submit your existing portfolio for advice, chances are that the adviser will ask you to...

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Beware of Budget proposals that mean only a short-term pop   By the time you read this piece, the first full Budget of the Narendra Modi government presented by Arun Jaitley would have left its impact. Should it change the way we invest in stocks? To answer this question, I have to...

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Moneylife Digital Team 27 February 2015
Not just financial literacy but numeric skills are required for individuals to make informed financial decisions   Financial literacy is a buzzword around the world. While modern technology, investments and liberalisation have made new financial products and services widely available,...

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What is the temperament of a successful investor?    To be a successful investor, one does not need a high IQ. You need not be a wizard at mathematics or finance. One of the most important attributes of a successful investor is ‘temperament’. I understand that the word is being...

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Crores being blown up, while aggrieved investors don’t get redress   Financial literacy is as much a fad today as corporate governance was after the global accounting fraud had engulfed top multinationals, at the turn of the century. In the past decade, we have seen regulators pooling...

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Moneylife Digital Team 13 February 2015
Why do people fall short of their retirement goals?   There are numerous research studies and surveys which have highlighted the retirement crisis in America. In April 2014, a poll by Gallup, an American survey company, found that having enough money in retirement is the biggest worry...

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There are times when they are worth buying. Here is a guide   Globally, commodity prices are on a sharp decline. Prices of metals, like copper, are at multi-year lows. Oil prices have more than halved from their peak. Is this good or bad? If prices are falling because there are new...

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Moneylife Digital Team 30 January 2015
Market conditions may change, but the basics of financial planning remain the same   The basics of planning your finances and investing do not change all that much, over time. What you see in the financial media on personal finance is a re-hash of this advice which is not bad. But...

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Moneylife Digital Team 30 January 2015
A large number of investors made just 4% in 2014 when S&P 500 was up 14%, while the top quartile made 16.5%. What differentiates the good investor from the average?   Most people are poor at investing. Several studies highlight this misfortune of investors time and again. The...

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How to select fast-growing emerging companies? Here are some guidelines   In the last issue of the year gone by, Moneylife had a Cover Story on the ‘wealth creators’ of a decade. It was a point-to-point measure—from 2004 to 2014. The article mentioned the near impossibility of anyone...

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Moneylife Digital Team 16 January 2015
It is time to force the mutual funds away from their fixed-income model and make them pay for underperformance!   The US has led the world in developing the mutual fund industry. Unfortunately, in that country, financial services companies like mutual funds always manage to get into a...

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Moneylife Digital Team 02 January 2015
That would be against conventional wisdom   Conventional wisdom, in the investing world, dictates that one should follow a strict asset-allocation strategy, always. Fixed amounts should be allocated to different asset classes such as debt, equity, gold, etc. If exposure to one asset...

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Selling a stock is much harder than buying. Here are some tips that will help you   Selling stocks is not an easy decision. Sometimes, I think that selling is far harder than buying. I am not one who believes in trading on my inventory. I know people who will have a large holding of,...

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Moneylife Digital Team 19 December 2014
How reliable is published investment research?   “Bonds beat stocks over 30 years”; “Bank fixed deposits beat stocks”; “Investing in debt funds better than fixed deposits”. One may have come across several articles with such titles. How reliable are they? Tim Harford, an economist,...

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Moneylife Digital Team 05 December 2014
Know and manage your emotions, to be a better investor, says a new study   Successful investing is not just about understanding businesses or financial data. The better you can understand and manage your emotions, the more likely you are to take good investment decisions. Behavioural...

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Moneylife Digital Team 21 November 2014
Rober Durand’s research pins investment behaviour on the ‘Big Five’ personality traits   If you invest regularly, you’ve probably made investment mistakes. Either you sold a winning stock too early or held on to a losing stock too long. Mistakes are common but certain mistakes are...

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Moneylife Digital Team 21 November 2014
Once more, research points to poor stock - selection skills of retail investors   A recurring observation on the behaviour of retail investors is that they tend to buy high and sell low. They get carried away when the market is running up and are scared stiff and sell out when the...

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Here is a beginner’s guide   Often, people ask me for a list of books to read on the topic of investments with a view to being able to pick up stocks. I casually mention a few books and they write the titles down. Maybe they buy and read those books; maybe they do...

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Moneylife Digital Team 07 November 2014
Why people miss their goals and how to deal with it   Why do government projects, more often than not, suffer time and cost over-runs?   Consider the most recent project that comes to mind—Phase-I of the Mumbai Metro project. The construction of the first line of metro began...

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Moneylife Digital Team 21 October 2014
Remember, these investments have their own unseen set of risks   Investing only in stocks and bonds seems to be old-fashioned for some investors, or it is made out to be so by advisors and investment banking firms. They are pushing loads of ‘alternative investment’ products, such as...

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