Understanding Call Options using Ramlal the Kirana Store Owner’s example After Ramlal, the Kirana Store Owner signed up a contract with his customer, Seema he realized the power of such contracts. Now he has another idea which he believes is called Call Option by Stock...
Understanding Derivatives the Simply Simple way. 1) There is a shopkeeper Ramlal selling Maggi. 2) Seema loves her Maggi & daily visits the shop to buy her packet of Maggi for Rs 10. 3) She is obviously very money conscious. 4) One day while gossiping...
Understanding the most difficult formula of Debt Funds Most are confused by the Debt Funds formula that “When interest rates rise debt funds NAV drops and when interest rates fall debt funds NAV rise”. How this happens perplexes most. As they say Ghee jab seedhi...
The market is like the engine of a car or the operation theatre of a hospital. The customer prefers the engine covered by the bonnet. The engineer may love his engine, the carburetor, the spark plug, the crank shaft and the heart of the car;...
Marketing is nothing but product communication through a “fun” or “entertaining” lens Now the challenge is that hardworking students of marketing feel a kind of loyalty towards numbers and math and somewhere deep down believe that “fun” isn’t meant for good people. What most people...
Understanding the difference between REVIEW and RELIVE ***** Anchoring bias paralyses decision making on account of some unpleasant past experience. Let’s say somebody experienced a loss during a past market meltdown and walked out of equity investing never to step in again. This is anchoring...
Market Value While you toil along, you are bound to find the envy kinds who will talk badly about you and spoil your market value. So despite your good work, the market will not value you. This always happens and will continue to be so....
Beautiful piece by our Pathshala member Pradip Chinnakonda. He comes to the Pathshala all the way from Valsad Gujarat because learning is a way of life and means to ultimate success and happiness. The title that he has given the article is *WHY PEOPLE FEEL...
Akbar once put a question to his court that left everyone puzzled. As they all tried to figure out the answer, Birbal walked and asked what the matter was. And so they told him the question. ‘How many crows are there in the city?’ Birbal...
There are some IFAs who succeed and some who don’t. The reasons behind their success isn’t much to do with their investment knowledge or intelligence. To a large extent the ability to demonstrate discipline and follow systems and processes plays a very big role in...
Sunday Humour… The little sexy housewife was built so well the TV repairman couldn’t keep his eyes off her. Every time she came in the room, He’d near about jerk his neck right out of joint looking at her. When he’d finished she paid him...
The Volatility Show Imagine if a movie was being released only for one show and you missed the first 25 minutes of the movie. How would you feel? Wouldn’t you feel extremely deprived because you’re unable to enjoy the full value of the movie. But...
Learning from the trees? Are thick forests good? For most people a thick forest with several trees stacked besides each other would seem like a very good thing. After all we have always understood that a thick forest cover is divine. However, that is far...
Niraj : Hey Anurag, why do you look so tensed and depressed ? Is everything alright? Anurag : What to say Niraj !! There is no humanity left in this world. Niraj : Really ?? Why do you say so ? Anurag : As you...
Actually market says nothing to investors…मारकेट कुछ नहीं कहता है निवेशकों से In the 1990s it seemed everyone was reaping huge profits by investing in dot com companies. This got even ordinary people to borrow money against their home equity and they ended up investing...
Ravi worked in the same organisation for a decade. He wanted stability in his life. He wanted to be in control of himself and of things around him. He did not wish to keep changing his job. He wanted stability in his life. However, in...
Imagine a large taxi company has 20 percent yellow cabs and 80 percent red cabs. That means the base rate for yellow taxi cabs is 20 percent and the base rate for red cabs is 80 percent. If you order a cab and want to guess...
We overvalue what we own. When we own something, we fall in love with it. We think warmly of all the things we have done with it or could do with it (such as experiencing the safety of regular returns with never an unpleasant surprise),...
One of the most important quality of a Financial Advisor is to have a sense of humour and the ability to laugh at himself or herself. Humour and Humility act like a lubricant during a client meeting that brings the temperature down and creates a...
Piqued by curiosity after seeing a Tejas Consultancy flyer 25 years ago, Aarti, a homemaker approached Ritesh Sheth, Advisor, Tejas Consultancy. Ritesh made her realise the significance of investments in mutual funds. She started investing a small amount in mutual funds through SIP —money that...
One of the most important quality of a Financial Advisor is to have a sense of humour and the ability to laugh at himself or herself. Humour and Humility act like a lubricant during a client meeting that brings the temperature down and creates a...
How a Password Changed my Life! …Inspired from a true story from the Reader’s Digest … I was having an average morning until I sat down in front of my office computer “your password has expired”, a server message flashed on my screen, with instructions...
As a financial advisor, it is essential to learn the art of communication. And who else to emulate than the great communicator, Warren Buffett. Some of his timeless lessons are:- Talk with simplicity. Keep it plain. Keep it simple. Don’t complicate. Don’t make it complex....
A few years ago, a famous American designer began to advertise her new fragrance for women in the Latin American market. The advertising campaign emphasised on the perfume’s fresh camellia scent. The fragrance did not move from the shelves of stores in Latin America at...
Mutual Funds Sahi Hai has become perhaps the most successful financial campaign in recent times: a great example of the right campaign for the right product at the right time. At Vista, we always complete this pitch line as follows: , “Mutual Funds Sahi Hai,...
Knowledge is good but why knowing in excess isn’t that great Knowledge is good to have but the financial advisory profession is more than the display of knowledge. Knowledge is good as long as it is “need to know”. Knowledge provides diminishing marginal utility ifaà...
When you go out to dine in a fine restaurant you usually have two options. 1) Buffet where you pay and eat all that you want. Usually one over eats and lands up being stuffed. Also greed of eating makes you select food that you...
In cases of ‘Fire’, most victims die of suffocation caused by the fumes and not by burns caused by the flame. Our problem is we don’t understand wherein lies the real ‘risk’. As per our perception ‘risk’ is in the flames but truth is quite...
We form perceptions about our investments largely based on experience ...
The word risk strikes fear right at the centre of the heart. It casts a very eery spell upon your conscience. Many Investors have been bitten by this bug; the bug called risk, the bug that instills fear in the heart and loss in the...
If you avoid the wrong things in investing the right things will happen to you1) Don”t delay your investing2) Don”t invest for short periods3) Don”t be greedy when markets rock4) Don”t be fearful when markets suck5) Don”t check your returns too oftern6) Don”t listen to...
The story goes that it was a particularly harrowing time in porcupine land. The winter was severe and the porcupines were finding survival difficult. They were freezing to death. That’s when they held a meeting to decide on a course of action. As they got...
Simple rules of investing 1) Start investing and just don’t think about it. Starting is the biggest step 2) Imagine the goals. Think about them. Goals are the inspiration that helps you sustain the efforts and keeps taking you forward. 3) Commit yourself to the...
It all started one lazy Sunday afternoon in a small town near Toronto in Canada. Two school-going friends had a crazy idea. They rounded up three goats from the neighbourhood and painted the numbers 1, 2 and 4 on their sides. That night they let...
Ricky Ponting said that while batting, he never visualised any of the fielders around him. Instead be visualised the gaps around him. A Financial Advisor too has many obstacles in his business; taxes, regulations, disclosures, reduced margins. These are all the obstacles that can slow down business. ...
Vinayak Sapre is a financial coach, who empowers both IFAs as well as retail investors, with the knowledge of successful investing habits and other values, that one should cultivate in one’s financial life. He has been writing regularly on various digital platforms, and has been...
The bulls are on fire. The markets are rocking. People have made stupendous returns. Like always some people seem to believe the party will never end. Like always those who shunned away from the market, are dying to invest. For any Financial Advisor, these are good...
How to Grow the Investment Business ****** This story is about a farmer who grew award-winning corn. Each year he entered his corn in the State fair, it won a prize. One year, a newspaper reporter interviewed him and learned something interesting about how he grew...
I have always believed that Financial Advisory is a very evolved business. Just like medicine, it is an evolved business. An evolved business is one having the potential to help society at large. Whether we practice the profession from an ethical perspective...
As per from CAMs data, in a six months period from Jan to June 2017, about 24% of equity sales is attributed to the “Direct Channel” as against 20% from the “IFA Channel”. This is a significant indicator and cannot be simply brush under the...
The threat of technology is quite real. If you look around it isn’t difficult to see that many professions have vanished from the surface of the planet we live in. The travel agent has disappeared, the music and book retailer is sitting idle, the postman...
Many people in our lives contribute towards our success and we should never forget their contribution. MSD’s friends, family, his bosses etc all were a part of his success. He couldn’t have reached his pinnacle without their selfless support. Amongst them was one very key...
It was a stormy night. an elderly couple looking for a room for a night, came to Bellevue Hotel, Philadelphia. The young clerk at the desk informed the couple that all rooms of his hotel were booked and also that not a single hotel room...
The road to Shimla on a typical weekend is jammed by cars bumper to bumper. The cost of hotels shoots up. Mall road is overflowing with people. It is no longer fun and this demand no longer seems sustainable.The infrastructure is on the verge of...
At a restaurant, a cockroach suddenly flew from somewhere and sat on a lady. She started screaming with fear! With a panic stricken face and a trembling voice, she started jumping, trying to get rid of the cockroach with both her hands desperately. Her reaction...
The Irrational Investor ****** Apple owes much of its success to Steve Jobs’s understanding that the way a product makes users “feel” is the most important consideration; more important than even “price”. If Steve Jobs had seen people as rational beings, he might have followed...
1) Even when chips are down, never give up. Don’t redeem if the market experiences a longish bear phase 2) Don’t play too safe. FD investing make look safe but ultimately makes you the loser. 3) Believe in your team. Likewise believe in your economy...
Investing itself is a great investment. Investing besides helping you create wealth does more....
Ravi worked in the same organisation for a decade. He wanted stability in his life. He wanted to be in control of himself and of things around him. He did not wish to keep changing his job. He wanted stability in his life. However, in...
There was a man who would every day buy apples on his way back from office. And all through the night he would talk about the lovely apples that he bought. He believed those apples would make the family healthy and thereby make...
Warren Buffett is a great story teller. He brings a Will Rogers like delivery of irony, humour, simplicity and common sense to bear upon the complex jargon manufactured by economists and analysts. Mr Buffet understands that a bridge has to built between jargon and explanation....
The marketer, the manufacturer / the producer are neck deep in thinking product, thinking features, thinking advantages. But the customer /investor live in their world of dreams, beauty, gardens, nature, movies, sports, dance, music, songs, books, stories, poetry, love, romance etc etc etc. The communicator...
As a financial advisor, it is essential to learn the art of communication. And who else to emulate than the great communicator, Warren Buffett. Some of his timeless lessons are:- 1) Talk with simplicity. Keep it plain. Keep it simple. Don’t complicate. Don’t make it...
In a ZERO inflation economy, ...
He was depressed. It seemed to him his life would come to an end. Everything would be destroyed. Dooms day was approaching. I tried to explain that these were his unfounded fears. But he grew even more animated. He claimed he knew it and I...
The perceived fear of flying is always more than traveling by train. Still we take that perceived risk because of the payout of reaching early and comfortably. Hence risk reward is a key life equation that needs more understanding. Risk of investing in equities has...
The greatest mistake we make in selling is not learning enough about our potential customer. In our excitement of telling our story, we fail to hear our clients’ story. The real secrets to our sale reside inside his stories. It takes ears, empathy and patience to...
Knowing about the client, his needs, his fears, his emotions, his likes, his dislikes, his beliefs, his views, his misconceptions, his nature is more important than knowing everything about the product you are selling. While it is easy to master the few features of every...
One of the most important quality of a Financial Advisor is to have a sense of humour and the ability to laugh at himself or herself. Humour and Humility act like a lubricant during a client meeting that brings the temperature down and creates a...
With Demonetisation, Narendra Modi took a bold step for the betterment of Indian economy, for the interest of the people of this great nation. He stopped the tap that was leaking black money into the economy. The people loved the move. They could understand it’s...
