Though I do not claim to help in reducing investor ignorance or awakening the investor…somewhere I guess it must be happening. Other blog writers like Ranjan Verma, Deepak Shenoy, and Manish Chauhan are all people with whom I have had conversations from time to time, and frankly there seems to be no ‘business model’ in blogging.

One dangerous trend noticeable is many people are offering generic advice and are charging a fee for this. Using half baked knowledge by reading websites or books to harm your own wealth is bad, but to s*&^ew other people’s money is criminal.

Beware of the ‘financial planner’ who makes the following statement (if you drill down and ask him to explain it further the machine will say

‘page not found’.

Such statements are

Equities give the best returns in the long run

You should invest 1oo minus your age in equities

You can never lose money if you do a SIP

First repay your loans then you can start investing

Give up your old policy, then we will buy you a new life insurance plan

Do not invest in debt instruments, it gives bad returns

Invest in gold – every body is buying it

do not take a medical insurance – you have a company cover

Make sure that the financial planner has experience in investing, in risk management, etc. before you choose him. Just reading a few websites, getting an investment degree in 45 minutes, does not make him a financial planner – be careful about complicated solutions. I can generate a 200 page report – to justify a 30,ooo fees, but it may not mean a thing to the client!! So ask around, see if you really need a planner – check how much of it you can do it yourself….and then go for it.

Sure the first set of people who will HATE me for this is the planning community 🙂