The best advice could be the simplest one. However most people giving that piece of advice would be afraid. Afraid that the client will not pay for the same.

First is generic advice which is free. Great. Like the following:

• In the long run equities will make money for you
• SIP is such a great form of investing that you can never lose money in a balanced fund invested over 5 years
• In India all actively managed funds will always beat the benchmark indices
• Equities will give you 30% return( this keeps changing from 30 to 12 depending on your adviser’s current mood)
• You may be brilliant but your MF’s fund manager will outperform you

blah blah

I can write a post on each of these ‘myths’ or pieces of ‘advice’. That is not the purpose of this article. The purpose is for you to know which adviser of blogger to trust.

If I were to run an investment publication (print) at least I would have a team, a permission, some sense of what I am doing. If i did not have all this who would invest in me? Who would give me credit for paper, equipment, etc? So there was some competency check, if not sanity!

Come to 2017, anybody and everybody talks about all personal finance topics and of course equity markets. I have been embarrassed enough number of times, but let me enumerate a few:

I spoke about asset allocation and said how ‘without equity you will not be able to retire’. As soon as I finished one entrepreneur who had no business talking about asset allocation said “I have no investments in equity”. Worse, in another case was followed by a fund manager who said “I have all my money in equity”. Both of them were partially right.

The entrepreneur was a failed businessman whose wife was earning very well and had invested in equities. This guy was just earning enough to run his business, and pay for his own expenses including a car and a foreign trip once in a while. He had NO INVESTMENTS AT ALL – so saying ‘I hav no investments in equity’ was A LIE. He had no investments at all. All he had was a struggling business – which had (has) no chance of being sold. In other words, he was bankrupt, and needs oxygen – paid for by either his rich father or rich wife who had a fantastic career.

The fund manager who said ‘all his money was in equity’ has a father who has about Rs. 5 crores in debt instruments! Just imagine. He had 2/3 houses which he sold and consolidated that into debt instruments. Wait a minute, the FM himself has in the past collected US $ 1 million as a bonus. When he said he has no investment in debt he forgot the Rs. 4-5 crores in endowment insurance. He had a 3 digit (crores) net worth, was a top paid employee, and had a real HUGE dividend income. His wife puts all her money in debt instruments because SHE SPOKE TO ME ABOUT ASSET ALLOCATION.

Both these gentlemen had no business talking about asset allocation AND TELLING THE AUDIENCE A LIE.

Now come to bloggers. Most bloggers are uni dimensional people with zero practical implementation experience. This is like being a dietician or swimming instructor. As long as you are doing it only for yourself, you are great. However, when you come on to the public platform any assumption is WRONG. Investors are NOT rational. They will pretend to listen but do something else. There will be MEN who buy gold – and the wife saying she does not want.

Yesterday I was asked to ‘nominate’ myself as the ‘best financial blogger’. I knew against whom I was going to be playing this game! Some of them I do not even consider as bloggers. Many of them are ‘sales points’ for the blogger, not blogs. Anyway when I am clear that for me content is fun – not a source of making money or getting famous, so I declined the offer to perhaps becoming the 29th best blogger in a field of 45,644 personal finance blog. Hey I have not seen them all!

I have seen personal financial bloggers distort facts and sentiments to argue how a) you should have all your investments in direct equity and b) how equity is only for gamblers. Both these blogs get lotsa hits and both have their fan following. Since both the blogs are popular there are (my gut feel), many people who come to their blogs and get advice.

more to follow for sure…………..