A friend was investing in a company which was listed about 2-3 years back, and he was about to invest Rs. 20 crores. Not a small sum and he just chatted up with me. He mentioned and asked me whether I knew the company. Sadly, I did know and did not know anything good about […]
The average return on equity investments (without reinvestment of dividends) is about 18% over the past 31 years. Does it mean that every year you got 19%? The answer is no. Such ‘zero standard deviation return’ is possible only in CERTAIN debt instruments. In equity investments there have been years of +242% as well […]
There are many companies which have given fantastic, scorching returns. Microsoft, GE, Berkshire Hathway….are some examples. Berkshire Hathway, well er is a fund..or so you thought. Let me tell you, it is not. Mr. Buffet is a brilliant businessman, fantastic stock picker, (fantastic bargain picker – look at the recent offer to pick good bonds […]
Not sure why..but too many kids who meet me (their parents ask them to talk to me, gutsy parents!) tell me ‘I do not want to do CA, sir’. The reasons are: – it is too tough, and the pass percentage is low – compulsory articles for 3 years is too taxing – attending college, […]
Last week I was talking to two CXOs of life insurance companies. They had similar problems – but not really the same one. One CXO was still opening branches for selling life insurance – this kind of surprised me. As he was on the sales side, he was saying that the ‘training’ is too long. […]
Too much is made out of entry load, exit load, ulip, cost of fund management etc. Most of the loss (leakage) in personal finance can be attributed to the inefficiency of execution. Even good advice is lost to poor execution! Let me enumerate (Ripley’s should not use it in their Believe it or Not, please) […]
There are many stories that I have posted over the past 3 years. Alexander the Great…lessons The Yale Goal setting experiment The California story of the death of a scuba driver in a forest fire Arthur Ashe’s attitude Frankly I have not done enough research to see whether these stories are true or false. Neither […]