investing Archives – Page 4 of 19

What I learnt about Bitcoin?

January 7, 2017 by Vipin Khandelwal

I was late. I rushed to the boarding gate to catch my flight only to be told that it is delayed by 45 minutes.

It was 9 pm and a delay announcement was not a welcome piece of information. It never is.

I looked around to find a place to sit and just a little away, there was – one seat, next to a gentleman. He was a Japanese.

Politely, I asked him if there was someone occupying the seat. He gestured I could sit. I quickly plonked myself.

I had a good amount of time to while away. I first pulled out my phone to check messages.

“Bitcoin is selling at Rs 78k today.” Piyush pinged me.

Central KYC – I updated my KYC, completely online in just 10 minutes

January 5, 2017January 4, 2017 by Vipin Khandelwal

One of the biggest pain points in mutual fund investing has been the KYC or Know your Customer. Most likely you have gone through it. I have certainly.

From just a plain application in a physical to a mandatory In Person Verification or IPV. Then came along, in 2015, FATCA and Additional KYC details.

The worst is you need a KYC with every new service provider including a bank, mutual fund, insurance company, etc. I always wondered why can’t the system use just one KYC. This time probably the policy makers heard it and decided to make financial lives easier.

So, a new initiative called the Central KYC Registry was started in July/August 2016. Now, all KYCs across financial services have to sit in this Central KYC Registry.

Get e-CAN – paperless to transact online in mutual funds

December 21, 2016December 10, 2016 by Vipin Khandelwal

This post was originally published on Unovest.

If you are familiar with online investments in mutual funds, you would know about Common Account Number or CAN and how it gets you a single point access to transact online in direct plans of several mutual funds. The CAN is issued by MFU, a mutual fund industry initiative.

In fact, Unovest too uses MFU’s infrastructure at the backend to process online transactions in direct plans.

However, the creation of CAN was a paper based process till now.

The good news is that CAN has now gone electronic. It means that you can now apply and get your CAN online, completely paperless.

Let’s now quickly dive in and create an e-CAN.

Getting Rich – How to increase your networth to crores?

December 9, 2016 by Vipin Khandelwal

“I want to get rich.”

I turned around to face Ankit, my young cousin, who was visiting me.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I want to see myself with a networth of a few crores.” He said flashing the latest issue of the magazine that has the list of the country’s Richest.

“How should I do it?” he followed up.

“How many crores do you want?” I decided to have some fun.

“Many. 5, 10, 25, even more.”

I was taken aback with the pace of the discussion. Before giving a response, I took a deep breath.

“Ok. Let’s take the easiest option first.

Markets are falling – What should I do with my investments?

November 23, 2016 by Vipin Khandelwal

Markets are volatile. That is their nature. They go up and then they go down, sometime in a small range, sometimes wildly.

Have a look at the following charts with Sensex movements over various time periods.

1 month movement chart

3 months Sensex chart

HDFC Prudence vs HDFC Balanced – A tale of 2 hybrid funds

November 17, 2016November 16, 2016 by Vipin Khandelwal

“Vipin, I am planning to start investing in mutual funds. However, I do not want to go headlong into equity so will start with a balanced fund.”

OK. That sounds good. Balanced funds bring the best of both the worlds to you.

“Now, I was told about one of the most reputed funds – HDFC Prudence. But then I realise that HDFC has another fund – HDFC Balanced. I am confused.”

Why are you confused Vinay?

“Arre bhai! Which one should I invest in? And why are there 2 balanced funds in the same fund house?”

OK, lets begin from the start. What were you told about HDFC Prudence Fund?

“That it has a good track record. Also, that is managed by one Mr. Prashant Jain, who is supposedly one of the best fund managers.”

Hm, anything else?

“I also looked up the site which gives star ratings. It has got 4 stars.”

We both smiled.

“I know it doesn’t matter. OK, now you need to help me decide. Which one?”

Sure Vinay. Let’s get a better understanding of each of the funds. That would automatically bring out the difference between the two.

Hopefully, you will get to decide the right one for yourself.