Investments

Investing for children: Buy house or opt for MFs?

Financial, Investments, Personal Finance / By /

Meera, a high flying corporate executive, was bent on using the money earned from her ESOPs to buy a second house as an investment which could be passed on to her children later. Her spouse Karan was against it as it would mean postponing their retirement plan. Harsh’s article in Business Standard on how Karan and Harsh managed to convince Meera to invest the money into financial assets instead. “You do not buy a cow today just because you may need milk years later. You make sure you have the money to buy the cow should you require it later” was one of the arguments that helped to convince Meera.

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Lack of central KYC hinders market participation

Investments, Personal Finance, Press / By /

Harsh just spent an idyllic week trekking through south west france. His tour organiser could put this together so well because the basic infrastructure already exists. Things like complete Geo marking of every square meter, availability of licensed hotels and taxi services who actually follow the licensing conditions & general cleanliness allowed them to build and deliver excellent packages on top. His article in the Business Standard drawing an analogy to an investors journey where the lack of a basic infrastructure like a centralized KYC has meant that 20 crore indians are involved with crypto/online gaming platforms with real money, but only half as many have demat accounts, and less than a quarter invest in MF.

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Simplifying nominations can boost financialisation

Financial, Governments, Investments, Personal Finance, Press / By /

Indian securities market regulator SEBI has recently sought public comments on a consultation paper that seeks to comprehensively revamp the entire process of transferring assets to the nominees on the death of the investor. It seeks to remove hurdles and standardise the process so that the transfer to nominees can happen in a few weeks (the dream is the transfer happening in a few days of applying and God willing even that will happen eventually as the system stabilises). The paper also deals with providing access to the investor themselves in case of their incapacitation (unfortunately many such cases are coming up as longevity of Indians increase due to advances in medical science) . This is a giant step towards making Investments in Indian securities market convenient and easy and will aid in spurring the ongoing process of financialisation of household investment assets.

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Weigh the risks of EB-5 citizenship route

Financial, International, Investments, Personal Finance, Press / By /

Originating in Africa, Humans migrated to the remotest corners of the earth primarily to find food, avoid the threat of deadly predators or the danger from domination by other human species or due to dramatic changes in the climate. There is an intriguing scientific theory that unforced migration is motivated by simple curiosity and boredom, what is often called wanderlust. This is credited to a variation in the human DNA (DRD4-7R) now dubbed the “wanderlust gene”. Present in about 20% of the population, it impacts dopamine levels, increasing the person’s tolerance for risk taking including exploring new territories. Those willing for (or seeking) greener pastures in other countries have a larger capacity for risk taking. But can that innate larger risk taking ability justify staking your life savings in an “risky investment for citizenship” plan like US’s EB-5. Harsh’s article in Business Standard today. Your feedback most welcome.

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Appeal to ‘slow mind’ to wean investors off F&O

Financial, Governments, Investments, Press / By /

Can you solve this puzzle : A bat and a ball together cost ₹ 1,100.
The bat costs ₹ 1,000 more than the ball.
How much does the ball cost?

If your answer was ₹ 100, that´s incorrect.
The right answer is ₹ 50.
Nobel Laureate and behavioural economist Daniel Kahneman cites this example in his book, Thinking Fast and Slow, to introduce the concept of the ´fast mind´ (which provides intuitive answers without conscious deliberation), and the ´slow mind´ (which is supposed to deliberate and endorse or reject the fast mind´s intuitive answers).
The fast mind´s immediate answers can be frequently wrong.
The slow mind is lazy and prone to biases.
Yet, with the right training, the slow mind can be tutored to amend the fast mind´s intuitive answers.
So what does this interesting puzzle have to do with weaning Individual Indian investors away from speculating in Futures & Options ? Read Harsh’s article in Business standard to know more..

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Index fund or ETFs? Compare total cost

Financial, Investments / By /

Harsh’s article in Business Standard on how a fixation on expense ratio has led to a preference for exchange traded funds over comparable index funds among some investors. In the case of ETFs the NAV is only of guidance value and the market price paid by investors buying the ETF is higher than the NAV and the investors selling the ETF is lower than the NAV. The difference between market price and the NAV imposes an additional cost. Besides, there is brokerage fee, which amplifies an ETF´s tracking error
Hence the tracking error based on market price is way higher than the tracking error of comparable index funds. The incipient movement towards Fund of Index funds across asset categories has been the inadvertent victim of the hastily introduced tax amendment targeting debt funds in the last budget. Hopefully we should see this corrected in the next full budget and index based FoFs will play a pivotal part in passive investing in the future.

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Disclosing conflict of interest builds trust

Financial, Investments, Press, RIA / By /

Regulations require that Investment Advisers fully disclose any conflict of interests they have while advising their clients. Far from being an hindrance, a transparent disclosure of the conflict can assist in building the trust of clients. Disclosure of “no conflict” in situations where investors have inbuilt perceptions of conflicts of interest such as referral to Insurance specialists/law firms also help in building trust. Harsh’s article in Business Standard…

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Central agency needed to curb mis selling menace

Banking, Investments, Personal Finance, Press / By /

Whilst newage investors require protection from unregulated finfluencers there is an urgent need for a centralised investor grievance redressal agency that will provide protection for older investors to whom financial products are mis-sold and their grievances fall through the regulatory gaps. First mooted by the Financial Sector Legislative Reforms Commission ( FSLRC) the expert committee appointed by the Supreme Court (in the Hindenburg report matter) has reiterated the recommendation. Harsh’s article in the Business Standard.

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Restrictions on foreign spends erode Brand India

Governments, International, Investments, Press / By /

The 20% deposit requirement imposed on overseas remittances inhibits all citizens from spending or investing overseas. The sweeping inhibitory measure is supposedly to catch a few wrong doers who abuse the Liberalised Remittance Scheme who anyways could , with a little dilligence, be identified from the mass of data that the department has. Harsh’s article in Business Standard on the long term costs of inhibiting/restricting our ordinary citizens from spending and/or investing overseas and the impact such measures have on our aspiration to be a Super power.

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Have realistic expectations from your investments

Financial, Investments, Press / By /

Clients are always amazed when we tell them that looking at how the investments have fared for them is not the right way to review their continuance or otherwise. Using cricketing analogy Harsh explain why looking at moving long term performance of the investment vis-a-vis its peers is a much better way to review the continuance of any investment – rather than the performance experienced by them. In fact the focus on reviewing investments (reviewing the performance of the selected batsman) takes the focus away from reviewing the performance of the entire plan itself. Harsh’s article in Business Standard.

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Vigilance Awareness Week 2025 (VAW2025)

Vigilance Awareness Week 2025 is being observed from October 27th to November 2nd, 2025, with the theme:

सतर्कता: हमारी साझा जिम्मेदारी (“Vigilance: Our Shared Responsibility”).

All stakeholders are encouraged to participate in the e-pledge initiative by visiting the CVC portal: https://pledge.cvc.nic.in/.