Worldwide, there is a lot of hue and cry over high expense ratio that investment management firms charge for generating better than market return. Globally, funds are moving out of active strategies to low cost passive investing. The logic for these flows is often cited that value addition done by active mutual funds is small and uncertain vs the fees charged by them.

Talking in the Indian Context, The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) wants to review whether Indian mutual funds are overcharging their customers by imposing a high total expense ratio (TER).

Stock investing is all about the future, you invest today with the expectation of a return tomorrow. And when it comes to anything about the future, we are prone to believe in predictions and predictors. Our belief may range from mild interest to staunch conviction; so much so that we may not do anything significant without consulting the stars and the astrologer/forecaster. So, how do we differentiate anything said in stock investing as an act of prediction (a forecaster approach) or sound analysis (an Analyst approach)?

The biggest challenge for anyone with a day job and wanting to invest in stocks directly is lack of time. The chief culprit, which makes Retail Investors feel that they have lost even before they begin, is the large and ever-changing amount of information.

Most people dont know what they want in their life, want to own, to achieve, to do, to become before they die, kick the bucket. In short they dont have a Bucket List. I just love the movie with this title and  how my two favourite actors Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman bring out the insights about what one values in life. But both were old men in the movie and meet in a hospital before they decide to have a Bucket List for the rest of their life. My question is why do we wait for so long and for a harsh reminder to focus on what’s important in our lives.

Markets have once again started correcting. This time it appears that correction is happening at much faster rate. This could be because there are real concerns on marco-economics side.Rising Crude Oil prices have always been a pain point for India as we are net importers (oil and Gold). This leads to pressure on dollar reserves and hence currency weakness. This increases cost of capital in the country and leads to fall in asset prices, in stocks and bonds.