You are on this forum to learn more about money, investments and behaviour.
I am sure you have done a great job so far. You have made investment decisions based on your reading and understanding. And most of them have been ‘so far, so good’.
However, you would not mind an opportunity to learn more, right? Great!
It will be important to note here that the process of learning is powered by practice and reflection.
While practice is the art of perfecting, it is reflection which provides for insights through serious evaluation of the practice and principles.
Today, I intend to take you down the path of ‘reflection‘.
Reflection starts with questions.
I am offering you 10 very simple questions you can use to reflect on your investment portfolio.
One thing I can promise is that you will get substantial clarity after this exercise. So, here we go.
10 questions to help you reflect on your investment portfolio
- Do my investments have a purpose? Are their specific goals that I want to achieve?
- What were the selection criteria for these investments? Was it only returns / performance or any other criteria too?
- What is the overall composition (asset allocation) of my portfolio? Is it adequately diversified?
- Do I know the return of the entire portfolio and not just of each investment?
- What is the benchmark against which I will evaluate the performance of my portfolio? What return is required to help you assess if the portfolio is meeting your expectations?
- Do I know the costs of these investments? Transaction costs, Advice costs – One-time or ongoing; How will they affect the performance of the portfolio?
- How often do I review the portfolio? Daily, monthly, quarterly, half-yearly or yearly? What’s the purpose of the review?
- When will I make an exit (basically sell) from any investment in the portfolio? Why?
- What will I do when the markets go wild – like a yo-yo?
- Who’s my investment advisor? A bank relationship manager, mutual fund distributor, life insurance agent, SEBI Registered Investment Advisor or your uncle, friend, colleague?
Feel free to add your own. There are some links of my posts within these questions, in case you feel like reading up more.
I believe it would help you prepare yourself better to handle your investment portfolio.
What to do?
I recommend that you take a screenshot of the questions screen on your mobile/desktop or maybe just print these questions on paper. Take some time out, whenever you can and think about each of the questions. Write down your answers.
Additional tip: There is great power in learning with others – peers, friends or family. Use these questions to sit down with your group and think and reflect.
You also have the option to use this blog for the same. The comments section is an opportunity to interact with other readers including me.
I eagerly await a healthy discussion through reflection.
Vipin, great post!!!
These are the questions that (even as a new comer in this area) came in to my mind, but since I did not have clue, went to internet to search for them. Now problem with internet is, it is full of experts which will answer you less, and confuse you more.
I understood, asking these questions to our self is very important, but the same time I feel, validating the answers for these questions is equally important. So let’s say, I will ask the question to my self that how often I review my portfolio, then as a answer I would say, per day. Now, the real problem is, from where I can compare my answer to see if I am going in the right path or not, whether it is good to review portfolio daily or not…etc etc.
Would appreciate if you could elaborate on these areas as well.
Absolutely Umesh. You do need a sounding board where you can always check if your line of thought is in the right direction. Having said that there are no perfect answers. As we evolve as individuals, our answers and actions also evolve.
My effort is to NOT give you direct answers. Else how would one think for oneself. My purpose is to provide you with guidelines and questions that you can use to make yourself a self sufficient individual.
Now, with ref to the questions, do send in what’s on your mind. we can then see if there needs to be any fine tuning. Cheers.
Yet another gem of post!
I am debating a lot on these questions with my wife. On that part, a comprehensive post on “Dummies on fin planning for couples” would be a great read 🙂 Pls do write on the subject as and when you get time.
Regards,
Abhinav
Thanks Abhinav. Here is something for married couples, to start with…https://vipinkhandelwal.com/5-financial-must-dos-for-married-couples/
Wowsome stuff.
This could be a great group exercise or a presentation or a meetup topic.
Ashish,
I am Kollectifying, would you.
Yes. it is a good idea. 🙂