My readership in 2017 is likely to be less than it was in 2016. Mind you, 2016 was much higher than it was in 2015. Should I be happy or sad? I am neither. I am doing this blogging for fun – and it only has a cost implication for me. I spend at least 2 hours on these posts, and I have done it every day since 2008. That means 9 years of 365 posts AT LEAST. –

When I started out in 2008 – ‘To Make Smart People Richer’ my aim was to get people to read sensibly for investing. This meant books and some websites – Motley Fool, Morningstar (while not using their star rating), Pragcap, Charlie Munger, etc. I also wanted people not to second guess their portfolios based on television noise, and most of our pink papers. I have completely lost hope on MSM (24×7) channels ever worrying about quality. Their obsession for quantity keeps them away from quality. There are fellow trainers like Amit Trivedi, Harish Rao, etc. who try to talk sense. There is Deepak Shenoy who talks sense, Vivek Kaul who rubbishes common thought, Larissa Fernand who goes beyond the Quarterly numbers…and a few others, but I guess we are lost in the cacophony. Then of course there is MFcritic – may his tribe increase – whose understanding of the MF industry is uncanny. There are some good writers who write ONLY in the MSM so I have not included them here. They are drowned in the mad rush for quantity.

I would love to read Vallabh Bhansali, Chetan Parikh, E A Sundaram, Prashant Jain, Naren, Anand Radhakrishnan, Bala (Birla), …to pen their thoughts but I am not so sure about that happening regularly.

Oh I did digress. Sorry.

For most people their lack of confidence in their portfolio selection is a major issue. When I bought Coromandel International in 1986 (green kid just passed CA, not understanding promoters are more imp than balance sheets!) one very big investor – now with at least a 5 digit crore portfolio told  me ENOUGH reasons not to buy it. HE WAS RIGHT TOO. But hey, I was a value investor and I WANTED THOSE LOVELY 10% dividends – even if I assumed that I would have to wait for a couple of years.

Oh I did digress. Sorry.

So if you are getting confused by reading too much and hurting your portfolio, it is time you stopped reading. Reading anything including this blog.

If you are addicted to the ticker channels, and get all your buy and sell ideas from the lovely people who appear on it, you should stop reading this blog.

If you are capable of creating and running a low cost portfolio for yourself, you should stop reading this blog….and also stop reading pink papers and the noise machines at home.

If you have listened to me (or learnt from somewhere else) and you have stopped looking at your portfolio / investment on a daily (or worse hourly basis), you may have out grown this blog….perhaps.

Remember, it is costing me time to write – and YOU are paying for it with your time.

Ah, some of the newer readers click on the Google ads – and that puts some money into my bank account. Sounds good? well it will not if you hear the amount  It takes care of my cell phone bill, conveyance bill and electricity bill. My Coro dividend does that and more.