Subra..may I have your advice please?
Caller: Mr. Subra I am happy you have taken my call…I am 73 years of age and have about 98% of my net worth in equity..
Me: My GOD! Sir I am aghast ..how can you have all your net worth in equities alone..it is too risky do you not know?
Caller: Sir I did not say equities, I said equity. I have almost all my networth in one companies share.
Me: Sir I am an expert on asset allocation, markets, retirement planning, AND I KNOW EVERYTHING. You are telling ME..??
Caller: Sir my Relationship manager had advised me to sell a part of my holding continually and invest in SIPs like Reliance and Icici Prudential, bu I did not listen to them.
Me: Sir it is difficult to give advise to a stubborn man who at 73 has so much money in equity and does not listen to nice qualified people in bank who wish to help you.
Caller: I have some money now…what should I do?
Me: How much? and how long do you keep it invested?
Caller: About Rs. 2oo…
Me: You got to be joking..such a small amount cannot be invested..
Caller: Sorry sir, you got it a little wrong..I have Rs. 200 crores to invest for 4 months..
Me: OOps. Sorry sir, by the way ..what is your name Sir? I forgot to take down your name..
Caller: Azim Premji
Doctor: Subra, Subra…wake up..Mr. Premji has already put the phone down..
Lesson: It is a little difficult to do financial planning without knowing the clients name – even though people are trying it on various media channels. Of course this is my view….there may be some people with a different view..
Muthu
True. Still in professional curriculum it is taught that hundred minus one’s age should be invested in equity. Such generalization is meaningless. One can learn more from reading and observing the actions of legends like Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, Peter Lynch, Benjamin Graham, John C.Bogle etc.
If some one knows basics of personal finance, then the best place to begin is reading all the annual letters written by Warren Buffett, which are freely available for reading in http://www.berkshirehathaway.com .
On one side we have professionals with shallow knowledge and on the other side we’ve clients who are unwilling to pay for knowledge, as ‘advice’ is the most freely available commodity in our country. Who cares whether the advice is right or wrong, as long as it is free?
Venshu
Muthu seems to be treating ‘Subramoney’ as an extension of his own blog!
Ashal Jauhari
Dear Subra, This was one of the most hilarious & a naughty one. I really enjoyed it. 🙂
Thanks
Ashal
Rahul
Guys leave Muthu alone, there is nothing wrong his comments. Length of comments should not matter , if its relevant to the post.
Muthu
Venshu, I’m unable to understand why I’m repeatedly targeted by some of the regular visitors of Mr.Subra’s blog. Atleast treat me as your equal. What is wrong in posting my perspective of what Mr.Subra has written? Nothing wrong in Mr.Subra’s blog being interactive unless he feels otherwise. I can assure you that neither I would write something which is self promoting nor piggy back on Mr.Subra’s popularity.
Jai
[:)]
good one!
Srinivas Muthadi
@Subra
Excellent! You have kept the tempo going till the end with a nice twist. I think the message from the blog is loud and clear apart from the humour.
Free advice (esp. from TV) is expensive and as usual unwarranted.
I think I got addicted to your blog, and cannot stay normal without a daily dose. 🙂
venshu
Muthu, Please do not take offense. What I have said above is that your comments here are similar to your blog posts i.e. quite detailed. No need to take my comments negatively. My observation is that while some of us write short comments you are writing detailed comments probably due to your understanding of the Personal Finance Subject. Cheers!!
venshu
Subra, both my wife and I are regular readers of your blog. In fact I start my day reading your blog along with Deccan Herald on the web. I too can confirm that we are addicted to your blog and look forward to read it every morning.
Raja
ha ha ha… that was a really good one!
I like your style of writing. Your one para makes me think more about my personal finance mgmt. than voluminous documents available on other platforms.
Thanks for all the good work!
Regards
Raja
Ravinder Makhaik
Subra,
If not as a financial educator/planner, you could even try your hand at being a play writer.
Surely you will be able to write good tragedies.
The drama created is intense.
Suresh
Hi Subra,
The message in this post is quite different than what we hear in personal finance maganizes. This is definetly an eye opener.
Till now I enjoyed your posts and have become addicted 🙂
Thanks for making us learn,
Suresh
pravin
though i get the gist of the story (dont use a cookie cutter method of planning), its ofcourse a big exxageration to imagine a wealthy entrepreneur seeking the help of a CFP or a planner to er,handle their wealth. entrepreneurs are pretty self driven achievers and portfolio theory doesnt apply to them. they are the outliers that proves the case that others need planning.
am i wrong?
Diwakar
Subra, whether you are a successful financial planner or not, you certainly make people look eagerly forward to reading your blog and have the knack of keeping up the suspense till the last possible moment.
It is becoming a sort of addiction to read your blog and the comments that follow.
Muthu
Pravin- Aziz Premji has an exclusive wealth manager managing his portfolio.
subra
Pravin
beyond a particular stage (say Rs. 100 crores) you create your own team of CAs, broker, a custodian,…and ensure that your wealth gets managed. A lot of conflicts, family fights, removing money for functions are all handled by an expert teams. This is called ‘family office’. Mr.Premji has one..and I know a few others who have one.
Asoke
Subra:
you share not only Narasimha Rao’s initials but also his style. The way you handled ‘Muthu’ is great. You just said I have not visited your blog – did not get into whether he writes well, or does not write well. Then your well wishers and friends are bashing him time and again. That is fantastic conflict management which many managers lack as a skill. Just by staying at the sidelines (while not taking your eyes off the matter) many issues are resolved.
Pravin –
every body needs a financial ‘manager’ or at least a financial ‘administrator’. In case of people like Mr. Premji he surely needs a team to identify, invest, ensure good governance (for example a company in which Mr. P invests should not be caught employing child labor or in an income tax raid case), administratively ensure that the dividends have come, tax has been deducted at source…so like Subra said ‘a family office’ is A MUST.
MG
Now a days I am more interested to read comments than the actual post 🙂
Marshal
ha ha very funny.. 🙂