On vacation earlier this month my wife and I visited a casino during an evening with friends. We were clearly the poorest of our group. We started setting a limit to the amount we would lose that evening. Like all our friends, we lost. The difference in amounts lost was just a matter of decimals.

The losses showed us who paid for plush setting of the casino, good liquor and food, served “free.”

The capital markets are in some ways akin to a casino. Large advertisements by merchant bankers, stockbrokers and mutual funds are paid for - by the person in your mirror.

I have written earlier about methods of analysis. At the risk of repeating them, then: they are fundamental, technical, and logical. Call them the three guides to making money.

Three ways of losing money would be:

1. Gambling on horses, cards or at the casino - the fastest

2. Women - the most pleasant

3. Speculating on the stock market - the most certain and definitely the most boring

Add to these, a fourth - watching too much TV or reading too many expert opinions, mine included. Rewind to the beginning of the last boom and early April 2003 when the jokers on TV suggested a drop to 2,200 for the Sensex from 2,800. Less than a fortnight later, this same bunch was speaking of the Sensex going up to 6,000. There had been no fundamental change during those two weeks.

Fast forward to January 2008: 25,000 was almost the overnight target, 40,000 in the rather near future, for the Sensex (which was then at 21,000). During a meeting with a brilliant fund manager recently, he showed me a clip from a TV channel. It had a number of the most respected names in the capital markets providing sound bites on the Sensex crossing 20,000. Everyone was advocating a buying spree. There was to be no end to the boom.

Now the same purveyors of garbage suggest 6,000 and lower. The difference is that we have a fundamental change in lower earning forecasts, which was obvious even before Diwali 2007 when the index was around 20,000. Will the experts be correct in their bearish forecast? Unlikely for an extended period, would be my guess.

Yes, they will be for a few days, or weeks. Fear and the memory of recent losses will ensure the investor will refrain from committing fresh money to the markets. But the smart money that exited the markets in January, close to their peak PE of 30 on the Sensex will nibble at choice stocks on offer, now at a market PE of about 10. Along the way will be opportunities to grab at the feast table - opportunities such as a payment crisis, the failure of a large institution, announcement of elections or formation of a Government, when shrill loudmouths, only distinguishable by their shrillness, from Mayavathi, Jayalalitha, Mamta Banerjee, Yechury, and the Karats confirm their idiocy on TV. Each occasion such as the ones mentioned above that causes a temporarily sinking Sensex, the smart money will refill its pockets with the crème de la crème of the equity markets.

Start loosening your purse strings in bits and build a quality portfolio. Take a couple of years doing that, for the opportunity cost of money in a stagnant market would mean an erosion of 50% of your money’s risk-adjusted value in 3 or 4 years. At 10%, the current bank FD rates, your money doubles in about 7 years. Expecting double that rate of return on equity investments is fair considering the market risk, thus leading to my above assumption. However, the markets might just surprise and double next year or stay flat till 2015. I am not gambling on the time frame!

Getting into an SIP in mutual funds, or directly in a personal portfolio is a good idea now. This will likely be a good sum in 10 years, if not sooner.

Meanwhile, if you decide to visit that casino carry just as much cash as you believe you’d pay for a nice evening. You will also find that it’s a lot more fun losing it yourself, than on the advise of an expert.

Naveen Fernandes is Vice President - Sales at Orbis Financial Corporation Ltd., a SEBI approved custodian. He is a Certified Financial Planner. On good days, he fancies himself an investment expert.

Imagine buying a stock at Rs 100, probably on the suggestion of a friend, neighbor, aunt, girlfriend, hoping to double, triple your money, touching the lunar surface in no time…

And then,

80,70,50,25,10,5 …..What the hell is happening? You question all deities you pray to as to why this is happening to you. And the final stage: investor and advisor resort to desperate measures as panic sets in quick and fast.

Sitting in front of their computer screens pressing that F5 key again and again believing against hope, hoping against hope, investors dig for some divine intervention that will move their stocks price up. The friend’s stock is up; the aunt’s stock is up, while our pal is still pressing that Refresh button hoping to make a killing. Let’s put him out of his misery, what?

It’s not going to happen.

It’s never going to happen

Unless you realize that you have made a wrong stock pick without knowing if that company makes pajamas or refines crude oil.

In times like these, when 15000 levels on the BSE Sensex seems folklore, your broker is pressing you to put money in a new rising star company, which might be a shooting star very soon. You don’t know. Fact is, nobody does. In markets like these, you don’t know what stock to buy at what levels because the benchmark index is at 9-10 PE on FY09 earning (PE is prices to earning ratio, which gauges how expensive it is to buy index stocks in comparison to other markets in the world, on the basis of earning). The best option is to be sold and stay put. The advisories and advocates of the stock markets burp out levels at which you should buy, hold, go long, go short,  specific stocks,… They are as clueless as you are as soon as one variable changes, be it interest rates, earnings of the company, and so on.

The Indian economy is not running away anywhere. Neither is the stock market. Having grown by near 9% average for the last 5 years in a row to reach $1 trillion in GDP (It’s about $700 billion now, due to FII money exit and rupee devaluation), the economy cannot and will not sink like the Titanic. It has a mass of over 1.3 billion people and with 240 million households, demand surely exists - for consumer durable and FMCG companies, for roads, bridges, dams, power, and what not. So consumption spending is surely there. What is missing is investment spending; this will take sometime from an individual’s point of view as the current interest regime is too high.

All the above-mentioned demand areas requires $100 billion of investments annually for the next 5 years. Let’s say FIIs might be able to pullout about $20 billion ($12 billion has already been pulled out this year so far). The numbers are still more than sufficiently optimistic to drive our economic growth.

To fuel all this government will surely relax investment norms in key critical sectors like railways, telecom, banking, airlines. So our growth story is still visible and we will surely see a ray of light at the end of the tunnel.

So all investors, new or old! Stop pressing that Refresh button and dig in a little deeper when you invest.

The author is working as Research Associate at Padmakshi Financial Services Ltd.

Most of us spend more than half of our lives working and saving money. However, most of us spend almost no time planning to make that hard-earned money work more effectively for us. Your success as an investor depends upon your ability to choose the right investment options. This, in turn, depends on your needs, wants and dreams.

I would like to discuss some investment basics that every investor should know while planning their investments. Investment planning isn’t a way to get rich quick, but is a disciplined execution of your lifetime plans.

Investment - Consumption Cycle

By making an investment, you are using money that could otherwise have been consumed. You are sacrificing the pleasures of buying a car, taking a vacation, renovating your home etc. There ought to be some reward for this sacrifice. The reward is that you expect to get back more than what you have put in. You can then consume the amount that you get back. Thus investment refers to a commitment of funds to one or more assets that will be held over some future time period. In simple words, anything not consumed today and saved for future use with some risk can be considered an investment. Thus future consumption is the main motivation of an investment made today. Investing creates wealth and wealth is a driver of consumption. More wealth means more consumption, while less wealth leads to less consumption. Thus all the three: investment, wealth, and consumption are interrelated. This is the investment consumption cycle.

Why do you invest?

You invest for your future well-being and to meet future financial requirements. Anticipated future cash outflows may be in different ways like: children’s education, children’s marriage, buying a home to retire in, etc. There can also be unanticipated cash outflows like: critical disease, accident, natural calamity etc. Thus, investments are made to protect the family against all these anticipated and unexpected cash outflows. The funds for investment comes from assets already owned or borrowed money or savings.

How do you invest?

If you make an investment decision today that will directly affect your future wealth, it would make sense that you make a plan to guide your decisions. Surprisingly, the majority of people do not have in place any type of formalized investment plan. Taking some time to put together an investment plan can reap tremendous benefits. You must have a strategy for your investments backed by a sound reason for investing.

Where do you invest?

Investment can be made into different financial and non-financial asset classes. Financial asset class includes paper assets like:

• Equity shares
• Mutual funds
• Bonds
• Cash equivalent, such as gold, or other precious metals

And the non-financial asset class includes investments in:

• Land and buildings
• Plant and machinery
• Business

And finally, “Be an investor, not a speculator!”…

Investors are defined as: Individuals who purchase assets for the conservation of wealth and the increase of wealth, with the emphasis on the conservation of wealth.

There is another breed of people, speculators, often mistaken as investors. Let us understand speculators - They are individuals who purchase assets for the conservation of wealth and the increase of wealth, with the emphasis on the increase of wealth.

In simple words, ‘Investment is safe speculation and speculation is hazardous investment’. There is a saying in equity markets that, “Those individuals, who invest, make money for themselves and those who speculate make money for their brokers.”

Priyesh Shah is Chief Financial Planner, working with SRE Financial Planners.

Reverse mortgage is the loan given to senior citizens who posses a self-occupied property. As per the reverse mortgage the senior citizens (borrowers) can mortgage their house to the bank (lender). The bank in turn gives a lump sum amount or pays periodic installments to the borrower. This product enables the borrower to get a regular source of income while they continue to stay in their house.

In spite of being a very useful product for retirement planning it has not picked up in our country, the reason being as of last year the tax treatment on reverse mortgage was unclear. In the Union Budget 2008-2009, the Finance Minister P. Chidambaram explained the tax treatment on reverse mortgage.

As per Budget 2008-2009 the reverse mortgage will not amount to a transfer. This means that mortgaging of the property by the senior citizens to the bank will not be considered as transfer of an asset and therefore it will not attract any capital gains tax.

Secondly, the stream of revenue received by the senior citizen will not be income. This implies that the lump sum amount or the amount received in installments by the senior citizens for mortgaging the house to the lender is not taxed as income.

However in case the senior citizen or his/her legal heir (s) want to repay, the loan amount will not be eligible for tax deduction on the interest repaid and will have to pay capital gains tax on the sale of the property.

Reverse mortgage can prove to be very helpful for those senior citizens who do not have any source of income and do not plan to leave behind an estate for their legal heirs.

I have some queries regarding income tax deductions based on housing loan. I have taken a housing loan for a house that will be completed by February 2008 end. I have paid Ppre-EMI till November 2007 and EMI has started from December 2007 onwards. I will be letting the house on rent from March 2008 onwards. That means I am eligible for the deductions based on the interest paid on my housing loan this year. There is no limit for this deduction i.e. I can claim deductions beyond Rs.1,50,000. Pre-EMI interest comes to around Rs.1,72,000 in current year and Interest component in EMI comes to around Rs.51,000. That means, I can claim deduction up to Rs.2,23,000. Also I can claim deduction on HRA. Please correct me if I am wrong.

I have taken a loan of Rs 20 lakh from ICICI home finance. I want to insure my property and my life. Kindly suggest me which insurance company shall I look at for property and life insurance. Currently ICICI Prudential is offering me Life insurance which they claim is especially for the home loan applicant. Should I go for it?

I had taken a home loan from ICICI Bank in December 2007 at the rate of 9.25%, for 228 months. In April 2008, interest rate changed to 10.75% which again changed to 11.75% in May 2008. Earlier when the bank sent repayment schedule it showed - for Rs. 7463 paid as EMI - Rs. 1296 paid towards the principal component of the loan and Rs. 6167 paid towards interest. Now the bank repayment schedule shows a principal payment of Rs. 539 and Rs. 7780 as interest. I don’t understand how principal can be less than interest. For financial year 08-09, the total interest paid comes as Rs. 92,468 and principal is only Rs. 6504.

Is this correct or is the bank fooling me? If it is correct, then please explain me how.

Inflation is a money eater that reduces your purchasing power. For instance if the average rate of inflation is 8%, you need to make sure that your investments are earning a minimum of 8% or more, post-tax. Let us assume an investment portfolio of Rs. 1, 00,000, earning returns at 10% and inflation at 8%. The returns in this case would be Rs. 10,000 gross annually, with the net after income tax Rs. 7000 (Assuming you are in the highest tax bracket of 30%). Now if you account for the 8% inflation specified (8000, or 8% of Rs. 100,000), you are left with Rs. -1000 (Return of 7000 minus inflation of 8000)! The best way to grow a retirement corpus is to have a diversified investment portfolio according to the asset allocation designed for your risk profile. An ideal one would be 40% equity (blue chip), 50% debt, 5% gold, and 5% cash. Equity would help appreciate the retirement corpus. Debt investments would provide for regular income and gold would act as a hedge to inflation and equity turmoil. The recent equity market downturn was the perfect example for gold to stand out as a surge. Selective equity investments made for the long term are more often than not investments with high returns.

Equity: Do not sell blue chip stocks when the value increases. This should not be done when you planning for retirement. These stocks provide for the regular incomes by the way of dividends. At the same time if the dividends paid by the companies increase, it will reflect positively on the stock price too. The most crucial aspect that we never consider in an investment is the dividend that companies pay. We always look at just the capital appreciation. Dividend income in India is tax-free. The dividend payouts by all good companies grow proportionate to the growth in the net profit. It means that if you stay invested, your equity dividend income will keep growing year after year, compounded. If you think that the return on your capital is tiny compared to your investments, just be patient and watch out for a few years. Lets assume that your company’s dividend payout grows 20% year on year, in 10 years your dividend income will jump by more than 6 times and in 20 years it will go up by nearly 40 times. And if you consider the occupational windfall gains like rights and bonus issues, your dividend income goes up in compounding multiples over a period of time.

Your Investments should perform better than the market: Is it easy? Yes quite possible. The Bombay Stock Exchange has approximately 3000 shares listed on it but its index, the Sensex, is a weighted average representation of just 30 stocks. So, if the Sensex falls it is an indication that the heavy weights from the 30 stocks fell; not all the 3000 stocks. If your investment portfolio is to beat the Sensex, they will need to have a Beta more than 1. The Beta is a measure of sensitivity of a scrip movement relative to the movement of the benchmark index (in this case, the Sensex). A Beta of 1 means that for every 1% change in the index, your scrip moves by 1%. The caution here is that when you have a Beta of more than 1, your investments will also fall faster than the Sensex fall. Investments in stocks can be very rewarding but with high risk.

If you lack knowledge let mutual funds take care of it: I believe most of you investors who lack knowledge should rely on mutual funds, not individual common stocks. This is not because I think your performance will not be better; rather I think it will be easier for you to operate and will allow less potential for a catastrophe. Investments in mutual funds are managed by professionals who understand and study all the critical aspects before investing your money. This will help in proper diversification, but be sure of you choosing the right scheme to invest in as per your risk profile and aspirations.

Let your debt investments comprise of Government securities and highly-rated bonds (AAA): The most important component in a diversified portfolio is investment-grade fixed income. High-grade bonds and full-faith-and-credit-pledge government securities are the most reliable fixed-income counter balancers.

The balance between debt and equities is a function of (1) your age - the younger you are, the larger your equities percentage; (2) your financial resources; and (3) your need for current income. No two investors have exactly the same risk/reward profile.

Once your debt investments are in place, you need to make adjustments and additions from time to time depending on your changing needs and available new cash for investment. But you should keep rebalancing the portfolio according to your asset allocation strategy once a year.

Biggest mistake is investing based on events: You should never make investment decisions reacting to short term economic indicators or performance. You should build long-term wealth by investing in good companies with strong balance sheets and a history of paying and increasing dividends, and then you remain patient. You don’t jump in and out of stocks based on quarterly earnings reports. Base your investment program on business cycle trends, not market noise created by events.

You should not make many changes to your portfolio in the course of an average year. You should add money to some positions and tinker with others. You should not run from one idea to the next each time the economic wind changes direction.

I would like to urge all the investors reading this to begin weeding out your portfolio’s deadwood. Simplify and organize your investing, and practice the basic rules. As you start to see the profits rolling your way, you’ll be glad that you took the time to read this article to lay a solid investment foundation.

Kirtan Shah, a Certified Financial Planner, is a partner at AmbestinQ Consultancy Services.

No doubt that investing in equity seems to be very attractive option for investment. Why it so? We hear many stories, some true, some fictitious, of people who have become millionaire overnight. But the fact is, earning money is not at all easy on the stock market. Let’s accept this simple fact that it is not everybody’s cup of tea. So, we have to be very objective about it.

It is well understood universally that a diversified portfolio is less risky and much safe than a concentrated portfolio.

In India, small-time investors usually have a very limited capital for investment. Therefore, it follows that it is a lot more difficult for this investor with limited capital to have a diversified portfolio. In other words it is not possible for small-time investors to invest directly in the market and to make their portfolio diverse.

So, how can small investors get the opportunity to make their portfolio diverse? The only option left is investing in mutual fund. Mutual funds offer a well-diversified portfolio even with just Rs 100.

A concentrated portfolio, also, could deliver high or low returns. This means that, again, it is against the small investors’ investment appetite normally. It would suit only selected expert investors with high net-worth.

One more thing to notice is that with limited capital it is difficult for small investors to buy shares with high prices like ICICI Bank, Infosys, Reliance, L&T, and other blue chip shares.
Again mutual funds seem to be the better route.
Let’s now discuss equity and mutual funds from a different perspective keeping in mind the common man’s objective.

Let us be honest as far as possible. Ask yourself the following Yes/No questions:

• Reading balance sheet of the company as a fund manager might do
• Identifying up-coming sectors
• Knowledge about companies, market, economics, and politics as a well-experienced professional fund manager might have
• Identifying the risk elements in an investment
• Predicting the future of the market as per any given scenario

If you have all of the above capabilities, go on and make wealth! In most cases, however, the answers would be “No.” Most of us do not have time to learn all these aspects of investment. Even if we do, we may not be able to do it regularly. Mutual funds are well-equipped with fund managers to do all the above activities.
Let us just concentrate on our jobs and leave our wealth management to the pros.

It is said that “If we all perform our duties meticulously then we are surely on the path of prosperity.” Every individual should be aware about his or her duties towards family members, relatives, friends, and society. In addition to social responsibilities, it is imperative that every individual should also have basic financial literacy.

To take the fist step towards financial literacy, following is a financial check list that you should prepare in consultation with your family members and professionals. This activity will make you more aware about your personal finance documents and will get you motivated towards knowing more about your finances.

Preparing this document will go a long way in enhancing your financial literacy. Do make a resolution to sit with your family members this weekend itself and prepare this important document.

Priyesh Shah is Chief Financial Planner, working with SRE Financial Planners.