Author: animeshjmathur

Asset Allocation – key to balancing your investments

Affirmative action, asset allocation, compounding, Financial Independence

Yesterday I wrote about continuing with your Systematic Investment Plans if you have your job and avoind encashing your investments.

My wife and I were discussing on our own situation given that the market has gone down substantially and she was bothered her own investments would be totally messed up.

That’s when I explained to her the philosophy of Asset Allocation and why she need not be so worried about her investments.

While you will see that most of the articles I write are about investments in some form of equity where you own part of business, especially if don’t have one of your own. However I have mentioned this earlier and I will mention again that the way to financial freedom has to do with an asset allocation based on your risk profile.

In simple terms asset allocation is distribution of your investments in such a way that irrespective of the direction the equity markets take or the interest rates take you have your principal amount protected and growing at a steady state. In the picture above if the lady in the picture happens to see a dog come at her suddenly and drops the basket, all her eggs will break and all her effort in building her dish would get destroyed

So if you have $100 to invest and you have put all the money in equity, while in the long run it may give you around 12% or so, in the short run – like it happened in the last 3 months – it would have gone negative by more than 30%. By putting some of your $100 in term deposits of even 5% you would have ensured that your overall hit was averaged better. Its all about ensuring that “all your eggs are not in the same basket”.

No doubt that equity gives the nest returns in the long run and is also the most tax efficient in most countries, however not everyone has the risk profile to do the roller coaster ride that the equity markets go through. This would be true whether you have invested directly in stock yourself or if you have invested via ETFs or mutual funds. With mutual funds and ETFs the ride down could be less severe while the rise upwards could also be slower.

Its always better to have some amount of allocation of your money in debt like in term deposits or bonds. How much can better be judged by your personal financial advisor but have some portion of your total investments in some kind of debt. Fixed term bonds or deposits will ensure that you get a fixed return on the money invested irrespective of the situation in the equity markets. Even though the returns will be lower, an it may not be so tax efficient, the fact that it is a guaranteed amount makes your portfolio a lot more resilient.

There is a very good explanation on Asset Management in the book Money Master the Game by Tony Robbins. He has interviewed multiple fund managers on how they do the fund management of billions of dollars. Some of them also invest in things like commodities and precious metals and real estate. So its always better to consult a financial advisor before deciding on the type of asset allocation you want to do and the risk profile you have.

Yes bond markets also go through tough times and the bank, in which you had your term deposit, can also shut down, but the probability that all the things will go wrong at the same time is remote. Hence the concept of asset allocation becomes even more critical.

Government owned securities obviously are the most secure but they give the lowest interest, then come the bank term deposits and the highest would be the bonds in terms of interest rates. However as the interest rates climb, the risk also goes up.

Spread your risk by consulting with your financial advisor and move towrds your financial independence.

Till next time.

Carpe Diem!!!

Keep your Systematic Investments Plans (SIPs)

compounding, Financial Independence, Human Brain

The market has gone down and rebounded. That’s the way the market behaves. You don’t know which way it will decide to turn. However the pandemic is real. People losing jobs is real. But more than anything else is the fear psychosis that things will never come back to normal. The media keeps bombarding you with news about the number of cases of Covid 19 which have grown by the hour.

Fact is that the media earns its money by playing on people’s fears. The pandemic is real there’s no doubt. But the human race has always found solutions to the toughest of problems. Ingenuity of human beings is directly proportional to the number of human beings (Julian Simon the Ultimate Resource). Today when we are more than 7 billion people on earth, we have much better lives than when there were 1 billion people on the earth. Sometimes it takes a little longer sometimes not so much.

This virus has been playing games for sometime, and the vaccine is still seeming elusive, so yes there is a lot of uncertainty. But already in most countries we have been able to now reach numbers of people getting cured and getting reported at almost similar levels. A lot of pharma companies are talking about having a vaccine ready by September this year (2020).

So now let’s get to you. If you still have a job – congratulations. You may have the job with reduced salary or normal salary. I don’t know your exact situation. I hope you and your family are safe and healthy.

If you don’t need the money immediately don’t encash your investments – the world will not come to an end. If you can somehow last these next few months without encashing your investments, then you would reap tremendous benefits because compounding will always play a role – Covid or no-Covid. If you let the compounding equation work uninterrupted you will have created a base to hit your financial freedom. If you have just started your investment journey over the last few years, you may not think that there is too much you have been able to accumulate. That is the way of any exponential equation as you will see from the graph above. Its only after the 15-20th period that the numbers suddenly explode. So staying the course till you hit that 15th period or near about is the key to your financial freedom.

In the long run the stock market in India has given 12-15%. So if you have SIPs going on – then when the stock market crashed couple of months back you would have been able to buy a higher number of units with the same amount of money, which means you would now have a higher number of units on which appreciation will happen when the market goes up. And markets in the long run have always gone up. In India because of higher inflation they have been at 12-15% average while in the US it is lower because of lower inflation.

The same logic would hold even if you have Fixed(term ) deposits. If you have a recurring amount getting deducted to invest in a term deposit, please continue similarly. Don’t let the compounding equation break. You may think you will restart later, but the later never comes…..that’s pure human nature.

So whatever investments you have been able to make, keep them as far as possible so that you are on the continuum to take advantage of the compounding equation

Till next time.

Carpe Diem!!!