How Much Should I Invest in Equities? “How much should I invest in Fixed Deposits (FDs), Stocks, Gold & Real estate?” We encounter this elementary question almost daily while interacting with several salaried and self-employed individuals. Well, if this question has haunted you at some point of time or even worse, if you’ve never thought about your investments in this fashion, then it’s time for you to take charge and read on. In case you are not convinced about investing in equities for ...

Why Should You Invest in Stocks? In India, individuals are generally ‘under-invested’ in stocks and ‘over-invested’ in gold & real estate. Stomach this – A whopping ~67% of an Indian households’ wealth is concentrated in gold and real estate. The merits of investing in gold and real estate are so deeply ingrained in our psyche that we tend to turn a blind eye even to the returns generated by these asset classes vis-à-vis stocks. The fact that only ~2% of Indians invest in stock markets un...

Aspirational Inflation – The Silent Wealth Eroding Machine We have all learnt about demand side and supply side inflation in our college days. But none of the teachers, books or courses taught us about aspirational inflation. It’s pretty simple to understand – our desire for better lifestyle, better gadgets, and better travel keeps on getting better with every passing year. A simple back-of-the envelope calculation suggests that inflation levels for our generation, more so for the ’empowered,...

The Skill Vs. Luck Debate It’s a very common trait observed with most of the successful people we have met or interacted with – they are very proud of their achievements and they attribute their success to some sort of special skill they possess and undermine the role that lady luck plays in their success. On the contrary, most failures are attributed to lady luck or the unfavorable external environment. A tale of two brilliant techies who joined Blackberry and Apple Inc respectively in 20...

Become Your Wealth’s Entrepreneur While Silicon Valley has been the global innovation hub for many years now, India too has witnessed its own version of the technology & e-commerce success. More than 10,000 multi millionaires have been created over the past five years through the start-up / ESOP route. Newspapers are replete with stories of how the Bansals (Flipkart), Arun Mohan (Jabong) and Pranay (QUIKR) made hundreds of crores by selling stakes to private equity investors. Quitting ...

How to Earn Extra Returns in Equity Markets Passively? Here’s a good opportunity for retail investors to earn extra returns in equity markets in the proverbial passive way – Investing in Offer for Sale (OFS) and Follow-On Public Offers (FPOs) which are expected to flood the markets in the next 2 years (FY16 & FY17) courtesy of the Govt’s disinvestment drive (Govt. will be reducing its stake in select Public Sector Units). Past trends suggest that one can earn “passively” anywhere between ...

Is Your Fascination for Home Ownership Hurting Your Progress? The ‘makan’ part of the proverbial ‘roti, kapda, makan’ has got so deeply ingrained in the Indian psyche that owning your house is regarded as one of the biggest milestones of your life. Having seen the plight of many of our friends in their 30s who spend all their savings as well as future earnings (20 year home loan), a slightly unconventional thought passed our mind. Is it really necessary to buy a house when you are in your 30s? ...