Cheating! This title was just to get you here.

The best investments in your life too have been made in school, college, home, ….you invested in education, health, relationships, NOT MONEY.

When Azim Premji or Bill Gates look back they too must be realizing that their biggest investments or their best was in people, relationships, technology, customers, training…..do you think they thought in terms of money?

When I think of the best films that I have seen and say ‘Do Bhiga Zameen’ to ‘Taare zameen par’ do I really think or know how much it grossed? Do I know how much Brian Lara or a Sachin earned?

The best investments happens outside the financial world. So you start a business you invest in people, customers, machines,…THAT IS YOUR BEST INVESTMENT. At a later date you might take he company public – that is the time when somebody else will buy the share AND HELP you monetize it. That is not investing. That is just asset allocation – you had money in the savings account and you decided to buy Tata Motor DVR…or shares of Sun Pharma – it is just REALLOCATING. When  you “invest” you actually finance investment spending i.e. reallocate your savings in a different way than what you are currently have your assets.  So, for instance, if I have excess cash in my savings account, I might take that and reallocate it into broad financial markets like the stock and bond markets. Or I might find an agent and ask him to invest it on my behalf in a mutual fund. These are simply big pools of assets where companies have financed their investment spending.  When you buy a share / stock or bond on a secondary market you are not financing investment spending. You are just reallocating your savings.

Anyhow, I hope you get the story!