Skip to main content

Unbiased Financial Advice

Early this week, on Monday, Josh, a dear friend called me and asked me for some investment advice. He has just become a father and wants to create a fund so that it takes care of his daughter's education. Now, this is a kind of call that I keep getting regularly. Most of my friends (and friends' friends) ask me for investment advice thinking that I am an expert in the field!! I have got numerous offers to start a private (equity) fund from a few of my friends where they will "outsource" their headache of managing their savings. What I fail to explain to them is that there are no experts in the world of investments. Everyone is as good (0r bad) as the next person.

But this call got me thinking about investment advice and advisers in general. Apparently, my friend had been approached my a few financial advisers who had advised him to buy into certain mutual funds. Typically, these advisers are associated with financial brokerages and make money from commissions when people buy into funds. So, their incentive is to make people continuously churn their portfolios (because thats the only way they make any money).

I think its important that people stop taking their financial advice from their brokers. If you are seriously ill, do you go to a chemist? No. You go to a doctor. A doctor does not have (or atleast should not have) any incentive for selling medicines. The doctor would want to see you get better so that next time you fall ill you consult him. Similarly, for financial advice you should go to an independent financial adviser who charges you money for his advice and not from commissions for selling financial products. That is the only way can hope to get an unbiased financial advice.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Indian Markets - Crystal ball gazing

Here is what I came yup with by crystal-ball gazing (the crystal ball is now pretty cloudy and filled with dust, but what-the-heck...it sure is some fun to look at it once in a while... Sensex/Nifty will make a dash for the all-time high sometime soon (maybe as early as October end) Either breach it or turn back just short of it. A bout of profit booking follows. Indices go down 10%-15% (back to around 18K-18.5K) Main indices remain sideways for the next couple of quarters. Mid caps move up from now as the last few weeks the valuation gap has widened. Sometime after 2-3 quarters, the next up move starts for the main indices. By that time, PE is down to about 22 (which is still high but certainly not hitting the roof). One point to consider is that the 2008 debacle is still fresh in the minds of most people, and as long as it remains, the sentiment of fear will be there. That will prevent the markets from having a runaway rally or a breakneck fall. I sure hope I am right!!!
Post a Comment
Read more

Final days in Chengdu

We made our presentation to the Big Shoe Company. I thought it went pretty well. I presented strategy for online marketing to them. That is what I thought what they wanted to know the most. But selling shoes online is going to be fairly tough for an unknown brand. Once we were done with the presentation, we were back to the hotel and started working on our consolidated SME report. By Wednesday we had completed the SME report and also the final presentation that we were planning to give Madam Bao Hui, a member of Chengdu Municipal CPC committee, and Chairman of General Labour Union. Loren did not want to present because he had one more presentation that day, so we egged on Vandana  to do the job. The final meeting with the chamber of commerce was in a swanky 5-star hotel. There was local media coverage as well. The President of the Chengdu Chamber of Commerce was there to greet us. We had four presentations on general themes which was concluded by the final SME report. Madam Bao then
Post a Comment
Read more

Supreme Industries - Interesting Play on plastics and Real-Estate

Notes from Annual Report 2010 * The company expects to achieve 20%+ volume growth per year in medium term * No significant change in product wise share of revenue * Crisil has upgraded the rating outlook from A+Stable to A+Positive * 1, 3 and 5 year sales growths are: 20%, 17.76% and 18.45% respectively * 1, 3 and 5 year PAT growths are: 48.6%, 42.39% and 43.66% respectively * Last 3 years average RoCE is 33% * Last 3 years average RoE is 34% * Long term Debt-Equity ratio has reduced from 1.02 to .49. This should reduce even more with the increased sale of the commercial building space. PLASTIC PIPING SYSTEMS * India's capacity for PVC resin is 67% of demand. Rest is imported. * Kanpur plant's capacity to be expanded from 8000 tons p.a to 15000 tons p.a. Plant is to be commissioned by Dec'10 * Newly launched Lifeline CPVC grew more than 120% * "Aqua Gold" plumbing system for cold water has grown by over 50%. It is successfully replacing GI pipes. * Expects the ren
Post a Comment
Read more