The interest rates have been going down over the last year. If you are an investor who relies on interest income to meet expenses, this is not a happy scenario. In this post, I will demonstrate how you can smartly use annuity plans to increase your income without risk even in this low-interest rate regime. This is more applicable to retirement portfolios. Before we move … [Read more...] about How Retirees can generate high income without taking much risk?
Product Review
LIC New Jeevan Shanti (Plan 858): A New Deferred Annuity plan from LIC: Review
LIC has launched a new deferred annuity plan, LIC New Jeevan Shanti (Plan 858). This replaces their existing deferred annuity plan, LIC Jeevan Shanti (Plan 850). A brief background. LIC Jeevan Shanti had started as both immediate and deferred annuity plan in 2018. Its immediate annuity variant was withdrawn in August 2020 with the launch of LIC Jeevan Akshay VII. Now, … [Read more...] about LIC New Jeevan Shanti (Plan 858): A New Deferred Annuity plan from LIC: Review
SEBI Mutual Fund Risk Ratings: Is Risk-o-Meter useful?
How risky is your mutual fund scheme? How do you answer the above question? If you ask an investor, the answer will vary depending on, among other things, investor risk profile, investor mood, market sentiment and market outlook. If you ask a mutual fund house, an underappreciation of risk in the investment is guaranteed. As an investor, what should you do? What … [Read more...] about SEBI Mutual Fund Risk Ratings: Is Risk-o-Meter useful?
Nifty Factor Indices (Value, Momentum, Quality, Low Volatility, Alpha): Performance Comparison
In some of the earlier posts, I have written about momentum and low volatility investing. In this post, I compare the performance of various factor-based indices. What is Factor Investing? This blog post from S&P gives an interesting analogy. Consider Factors as nutrients and food items as stock returns. Now, different food items (pulses, milk, bread, vegetables, … [Read more...] about Nifty Factor Indices (Value, Momentum, Quality, Low Volatility, Alpha): Performance Comparison
Tax-Free ULIPs vs. Mutual Funds with LTCG tax: Which is better?
In Budget 2018, Long term capital gains tax on equity mutual funds was introduced. Prior to the change, the LTCG on sale of equity mutual funds was exempt from tax. This change brought an interesting taxation arbitrage. Taxation of maturity proceeds from Unit Linked Insurance Plans (ULIPs), offered by insurance companies, was left untouched and the maturity amount from ULIPs … [Read more...] about Tax-Free ULIPs vs. Mutual Funds with LTCG tax: Which is better?
Nifty 200 Momentum 30 Index: Review & Performance Comparison
I have written about momentum investing before. I compared the performance of S&P BSE Momentum Index TRI with Nifty 50, Nifty Next 50 and Nifty Midcap 150 indices in an earlier post (Does momentum investing work in India?). The findings were in favour of S&P BSE Momentum Index, which outperformed all 3 indices by a wide margin at only slightly higher … [Read more...] about Nifty 200 Momentum 30 Index: Review & Performance Comparison
LIC Jeevan Akshay VII (857): Review: New Immediate Plan from LIC
LIC has launched a new immediate annuity plan LIC Jeevan Akshay VII (Plan 857). Moreover, the immediate annuity variants of LIC Jeevan Shanti (Plan 850) have been withdrawn. Thus, LIC Jeevan Shanti becomes a pure deferred annuity product. In this post, let us find out about LIC Jeevan Akshay VII in detail. While I have covered the basics of an annuity plan in another … [Read more...] about LIC Jeevan Akshay VII (857): Review: New Immediate Plan from LIC
Does Low Volatility Investing beat Nifty and Sensex?
Risk and Reward go hand in hand. Higher the risk, greater the reward. So, if you are looking for higher returns, you just need to load up on risk. At least, that’s what the Capital Asset Pricing model (CAPM) used to calculate expected stock returns tells us. However, the experience has been completely different in various markets. Low volatility stocks have … [Read more...] about Does Low Volatility Investing beat Nifty and Sensex?
Does Momentum Investing work in India?
If you are a value investor, your investment philosophy must be to buy beaten-down stocks that are trading below their value. However, not everyone thinks alike. There is another school of thought that does not bother about struggling stocks. Quite the reverse in fact. Welcome to the world of Momentum investing. The motto: Buy High and Sell Higher. The practitioners of … [Read more...] about Does Momentum Investing work in India?
Planning to buy Sovereign Gold Bonds in the Secondary market? Keep this in mind
Gold has done very well over the past couple of years. If you want to invest in gold, there are many ways to take exposure. You can buy physical gold or gold jewellery. You can in gold ETFs, gold mutual funds and Sovereign Gold Bonds. Investing in Sovereign Gold Bonds (SGB) has certain limitations but SGBs are my preferred way to invest in Gold. Do note this is not a … [Read more...] about Planning to buy Sovereign Gold Bonds in the Secondary market? Keep this in mind
