Conviction of Mind

Wish you all a very happy new year 2012. Have a good health and may all your wishes come true. Always have a goal and work towards it. It should be specific and also measurable. Otherwise, it becomes a wish. Goals for 2012: (1) Maintain personal health. (2) Learn new things in varied topics through khanacademy , wikipedia  and investopedia . (3) Spend enough time with the family. (4) Manage time more effectively. What are your goals for the year 2012?

RBI has de-regulated the savings bank interest rates. It really means that now any bank can give any interest rate in the savings bank account. Because of this, banks are reacting in different ways. Using this in positive manner and giving more interest for the customers to attract more depositors and others increasing the rates to avoid people moving away from them and few others doing nothing. Yes Bank - Raised the interest rate from 4% to 6% and recently to 7% now. For those having amount less than 1 Lakh, it is 6% and more than that it is 7%. Kotak Bank - Raised the interest rate from 4% to 6% For those having amount less than 1 Lakh it is 5.5% and more than that it is 6%. They also have the sweep in account, which is nothing to do with this RBI step. HDFC Bank - Introduced many charges. Particularly Rs. 500/- for closing down your account. Most other banks (ICICI, Axis, SBI) - Hasn't done anything. Remains with the 4%. First, It is not recommended to just move yo...

To know what is NPS and basic introductory details on the same, go to the previous post using the link given  here . Okay. I will be getting more than (at least risk-free?) 8% always right? Simply, What are the benefits and returns in NPS? Short Answer. No. There are many Pension Fund Management companies which will be managing your money on your behalf to get you returns for your Pension. It is again your choice to select the Pension Fund Management Companies. Based on the choice of the fund (Auto-Choice/Active Choice),                     the returns has historically varied from 4% -26% . But this cannot guarantee this will always give positive returns, as it have some equity exposure (for Active Choice, Asset Class E). But in the long run certainly, equities tend to outperform the debt and is always better. Charges: Remember this rule: If you invest more in NPS, you will end up having less charges as the char...

New Pension Scheme is introduced by the Govt. of India to provide pension for all the salaried and self-employed citizens of India. This has several useful features and benefits backed by the Government of India. How to open an NPS Account? What is the procedure? Simple. There are many POPs (Point of Presence). Almost all the public banks and some of the private banks are involved in here. You can ask the procedure through the toll free number before going there. All the State Banks, Muthoot and private banks like Axis bank, ICICI bank are some of the famous POPs available. Go to the nearest POP. Get your address proof and Id proof along with you. (PAN card and Ration card works best) If ration card is not available, get your telephone bill. Minimum Investment: Rs.6000 in a year. In installments, at least Rs. 500/- in a month. What are the advantages of NPS? * Primarily to have the planning for your retirement pension, if you are salaried/self-employed. * Good lock-in peri...

One Minute Manager is all about finding the manager with perfect managing and leading skills and the 'secrets' behind his managing style in his own words. The first and important secret: - Setting Goals - One Minute Goals It is important to know what the person really is behind to know whether he is performing well. In the marketing world, it is targets set. In the programming world, it is the success of the project or the component that the client want within the deadline. It is important to set the goals upfront in all the means in a broad way to understand what are the requirements of him/her in this role as a responsibility. The Second and Third Secret go hand in hand. - One Minute Praising (Second Secret) This involves catching people doing something RIGHT towards their assigned task. Once they find, praise them honestly and give your opinion as how important he is to your organization. This praising re-assure him to do well in future. Make sure not to praise him f...

Jagoinvestor has come up with ' Action Month ', for making real difference in your financial life. This will be really beneficial if you are procrastinating something for long. Just do it and clear the financial mess around you and be happy. You can do either one or all of the following: - Start an SIP with one or more Mutual funds (according to your requirement) (I did it, I already had one) - Create a new Term life insurance. - I already have one and plan to increase it next year. - Create a new health insurance - I have it already - Surrender useless policies - I checked the policies that I have but none of them have to be surrendered. - Organize your financial life - I have all of the financial documents in digital format. This will certainly help your financial life and don't forget to register for Action month in Jagoinvestor website. There is very nice article on Stop loss in Understanding the Stop loss . Its a very good read and this explains ...

we saw the importance and benefits of Health insurance here . Now, we will see practical examples and for whom it will save their life. Scenario 1: Person A depends on his daily income for his living. He saves around 2 lakhs in 3 years and goes in a two-wheeler to his office daily. He is a acting driver and his aim to become a owner of his vehicle and run it under a call taxi company for the next few years before starting a company like that (probably). But, all of a sudden, he met with a road accident, when he was driving his two wheeler and his hospital bill came to 1.8 Lakhs. The worst part he didn't have any health insurance but had bike insurance which covered his bike and his bike was covered in his insurance and he had lot of ENDOWMENT policies from LIC. If he had term insurance policies, he would have used the some part of money towards health insurance and remaining money towards mutual funds. Scenario 2: Person B is working in a private concern. He is a consulta...

Investing is the best way to tackle inflation and get good returns with passive investment style is Mutual funds. Mutual funds gives you instant diversification with ZERO entry load. There are numerous types of mutual funds according to each and everyone's requirements and one can choose which one choose their investment style best. Best site to choose the Mutual funds is: http://valueresearchonline.com/ one can choose a good rated fund from value research online and invest according to their asset allocation style. As Mutual funds gives instant diversification, risk is diversified and one needn't have to worry about putting all eggs in single basket. Also, it will be maintained by a financial professional, a fund manager and he would involve himself in getting good returns to the fund. This would mean certainly, Mutual funds are less riskier than direct investment in Stocks. SIP (Systematic Investment Planning), Keeping yourself invested in every month in the fund with small a...

Its yellow everywhere. And its Dhoni magic working so well these days! This year's IPL was not so encouraging for many people around India. Reasons being, (1) Players shifting from one team to another team (2) Too much cricket (3) Cricket Fans Fatigue (Yeah!! We too are tired) Probably, Because of the amount of turnout for watching Sachin and Dhoni in all the matches they are playing, they are asked to play even if they are tired. Now, they are expected to take rest in the upcoming WI series, giving way to the youngsters. Yes! Dhoni has the golden charm to do it again and has repeated it for Chennai. Good to see them win all their 8 matches this time and coming good this convincingly this year. Happy for Chennai :)

ELSS is Equity Linked Savings Scheme and is tax-saving mutual fund that invests in equity and equity-related products. These schemes directly involve in investing in stock markets and carry a inherent amount of risk and can give handsome returns as well. Top 5 ELSS funds The above is the screenshot from the http://valueresearchonline.com/ for analysing all type of mutual funds. I took up a look on the currently available ELSS funds in the market and did some analysis to get this list. This is based on their past performance and this can be well be a probable indication of their future but not their future. To quote the top 5 ELSS funds for this FY 2011-2012, 1. Fidelity Tax Advantage 2. Canara Robeco Equity Tax Saver 3. Tauras Tax Shield 4. HDFC Tax Saver 5. Sahara Tax Gain In the case of ELSS, you get up to 30% returns (because of saving tax) before hand and even if you get 2-3% less after 3 years, it would have beaten any well managed fund by leaps and bounds. So, its always...

And its April and yet another start of the new financial year. If you are a salaried employee of a company, you all would have come across this every year and this is nothing very new. Even if you are not salaried, it is better to have your investments planned before hand for this Financial year before hand and plan accordingly. Why is disclosing the investments important in the month of April? Its nothing to do with the month of April. But its better to disclose in the month of April itself to get the full advantage. For the salaried class of people, who worry about the tax, this marks an important event. This is because TDS (Tax deduction at Source) is based on the investments disclosed and better to disclose the right figure to get the proper cash flow right from the beginning. How I can make this disclosure to my benefit? Understand each and every section that has to be disclosed and the advantages and dis-advantages in detail. Section 80C: Identify how much is already covered by y...

This is a universal question that can be answered with a simple answer: YES and a detailed answer below. SIP is Systematic Investment Planning and it is designed for people who want to be involved in market during all the time, thereby minimizing the risk involved in the volatility of the market. There are many mutual funds currently providing with SIP for the investors and almost all the funds have either the online agents or the agents directly collecting the cheques from your doorstep for investing in your favored fund. Check out Are agents your friends? before deciding and investing on their suggestions. There are no entry load for most of the mutual funds now but still all the agents would still get the Trial commissions which would differ from each fund house to fund house. So, its better to be aware rather to cry later. Coming back to the SIP fundas, You invest a constant sum of amount irrespective of the market condition. It works best for the equity mutual fund and I am going...

Indians are primarily more on the saving side because of the environment surrounding it. They see everyone around them are saving and are doing the same! There is a big difference between Saving and investing and it will be a hard fought truth. Setting a goal and standing by it is pretty hard. The commitment is easy to come by if you are working and set by your peers and your managers (some of them don't get it even under the supervision of strong managers.. :-) ) and its also the inherent nature of the entrepreneur and he has it in his veins. But, to see through a goal that is set as a part of retirement or getting a house is very hard to come by and its hard to come even for an entrepreneur. Let us see a simple example. You need a house. First house. Absolute need. Alteration for rent. Everything. Fine. It should be understood that how much you are currently having in hand and how much you need as a loan and it should be a neatly laid out plan. How many of them who have bought th...

It seems Dhoni has a special feeling towards the golden urn. Suddenly, all is well when it ends well. Dhoni had a dream run in World T20 to secure that he has world renowned leadership and the nerve within him to secure the gold. And then, much fame came to him as a captain of CSK (Chennai Super Kings) in IPL 3 and it moved leaps and bounds within India and won the cup for CSK against Sachin. People even accepted it with a smile. Then, even in Champions League gold followed him. Now, he was in with much renowned batting line-up as the favorites for the world cup 2011 and everyone chipped in bits and parts at some part of the game to MAKE IT HAPPEN. In the league games, there were some hiccups and they proved themselves champions after they beat all the much famed teams in Quarters to Finals. Some of the decisions were breath-taking and has to be taken at that level. Dhoni knows what he is doing when he took three seamers against Pakistan and Sri Lanka in Semi Finals and Finals of such...

Not very long back, It was Tendulkar who took India on his shoulders right through for more than 20 years. There was some days when Opposition team will get control over team India completely once Sachin Tendulkar gets out. But its never the case anymore. It doesn't mean we don't need the master anymore in our team. We do need him for his strokes and occasional mastery words. But our batting order has reached more resilient with him and looks good even without him as well. Its good for the future of the Indian cricket. Is it the time for Sachin to retire? Its never the time to retire for the master unless he himself calls it for. Its not for the media or Greg Chappell to predict but leave it to the great man. Let him play until he enjoys playing and he will call it a day when he think its right! Tendulkar has been part of 33 winnning matches in his 48 centuries. Even though, one would say, 13 on 48 centuries were on the losing cause, it was for establishing pride for the countr...

As predicted in my last post , India came out good and performed well in all its final three stages of the World Cup tournament. It was great to watch all of them chipping in at the right time and contributing for the success of the team. Even though the stats was against you when you were playing against Australia and Sri Lanka, it was really very important to be calm and composed and hit the right chords at the right time. Everyone came good and the best team exhibiting good command over all the other teams won the WORLD CUP that really counts... Happy for TEAM INDIA and proud to be an Indian.

In WC 2011, Just finished watching Sri Lanka Vs NewZealand and Srilanka was all over Newzealand and they were never in the game. Even though, Most of them expect Pakistan and Australia to be a close contest, I don't think it would be one. Lets wait and watch. By the way, I want to predict the results of WC 2011 Quarters- Group A Australia Sri Lanka NewZealand Pakistan England had all their nail-biting close matches and managed to pull off a draw against the mighty (:)) ) Indians and win against WI and SA and lost against two minnows they faced. Group B South Africa India England West Indies Results - India would win against West Indies. South Africa would win against Bangladesh. So, Now into the Quarter results to identify the Semi-Finalists. Australia vs WestIndies - Australia India Vs Newzealand - India England Vs Sri Lanka - Sri Lanka South Africa Vs Pakistan - South Africa Now the Semi-Finals to identify the Finalists. Australia Vs India - India (Of course, I am an Indian :) ) ...

Its a catchy title to click on the contents of the post. If you have 2 Laks, Great! Already you have double of 1 Lak :) Okay, coming to the point, you are expecting 100% returns in a year. I have few important questions to ask you!? (1) How much risk averse are you? Do you know risk and returns join hand in hand? (2) If you are willing to take risk, Are you sure "You will not feel anything if you completely lose this 2 Laks" In the order of High returns, if you are great at trading and making returns. (1) Derivatives (Options and Futures) - Highest risk - You can lose all your money in one day as well. Gain the same in one day as well. (2) Intraday - High risk - you will lose comparably less money. But trading will lead to lose all your 5 days profit in the 6th day. Do you really want that. If you know what you do and confident doing that, and have the stomach for doing that, please carry on with it. (3) Equity - High risk - you will lose comparably less money. Again depends ...

Real Estate - General Perception: An asset that always appreciates in value. Demand will always be there as land is of limited availability. Rental Income is like interest to your principal and Land appreciation is capital appreciation. Real Estate - My thoughts: An asset that can appreciate in value, but not always. People are not selling in loss. Remember, if it stands at the same price for over an year, you are at loss. The demand and supply nature of real estate is for those who are usually dealing with it and who are well versed with it. Its a very big investment and your first house is not your asset as it doesn't give you income and you don't see it in the investment perspective Its a very illiquid instrument and its very hard to find the client to sell the asset at the desired price at the required time. When you are investing in real estate, most of the people are highly leveraged, and boosting their returns. You know that its a risky investment and if you are ready to...