When it comes to buying any asset – I am using the word loosely there is a tendency to borrow. Borrowing actually helps you immediately by allowing you to buy beyond your means. The problem with most things we buy is that once we buy it, it ceases to hold any attraction for us. That […]
 If you are a shareholder who started an asset management company and /or a life insurance company hoping to make money, God bless you! For those of us who are shareholders with the Birla, Hdfc, Tata groups – remember we are all funding the insurance and mutual fund businesses indirectly. Kotak bank, Hdfc ltd, […]
small investor, financial literacy, financial awareness, financial inclusion….what an amazing array of words we have created for bureaucrats, politicians, businessmen, capital market pundits to meet and eat! Frankly if you want to climb the Himalayas you need to join a Gym get into good shape and then climb the Himalayas. In the investment arena you […]
It is funny that to be in any business you need to have some qualification. Let us take the mutual fund business for example. To be the Asset management company – you need to have 5 years of track record of some financial business. You need to have a networth of Rs. 10 crores (to […]
Many of our regulators – IRDA, TRAI and now SEBI may all be having good intentions, but the way it is being expressed is rather amusing. Now SEBI is saying that an Asset Management Company should have a net-worth of Rs. 50 crores. This means pushing the small funds out of the market. One has […]
I was reading somewhere (sadly do not remember where) that saving money is very difficult in primitive economies. In one such economy in Africa, the banker CHARGES (yes you read right) charges interest for taking money from you and keeping it safe. And people are used to PAYING interest to have their money safeguarded. There […]
There is an old story of 2 cats getting a piece of bread to be shared amongst themselves. Since the cats did not know how to share it, they decided to go to a monkey. The monkey agreed to play the arbitrator. He breaks the bread into two pieces – then he finds one is […]