Nikunj Chhag

માની લો કે કોઈ વ્યક્તિ 21 વર્ષ ની ઉમર થી નોકરીએ લાગે છે. કુલ 50 વર્ષ કરતા વધુ જિંદગી બાકી છે, ઘણા બધા પડાવ બાકી છે. કોલેજ લાઈફ માંથી હમણાં જ બહાર આવ્યા અને બધી જ મસ્તી મજાક ઓફિસ ની ચાર દીવાલો વચ્ચે 9-10 કલાક ની નોકરી માં 40 વર્ષો સુધી નીચોવાઈ જશે!  એક મિડલ ક્લાસ ફેમિલી માં છોકરો કે છોકરી કમાવાનું ચાલુ કરે એ દિવસ બહુ યાદગાર હોય છે. પિતા એ એકલે હાથે ઘર નું પૂરું કર્યું હોય અને હવે એ આવક માં વધારો થાય એની ખુશી જ અલગ હોય છે. પરંતુ, આજથી 15-20 વર્ષ પેહલા જે પરિસ્થિતિ હતી એ હવે ઘણી જ બદલાઈ ગઈ છે.  રોબર્ટ કિયોસાકી નામના અમેરિકન કોર્પોરેટ ગુરુએ એમની પુસ્તક 'Cashflow Quadrant' માં લખેલું છે એ પ્રમાણે અત્યાર સુધી માં કુલ 3 તબક્કા માંથી આપણે પસાર થઇ ગયા છીએ. એમના મુજબ, દ્વિતીય વિશ્વ યુદ્ધ પછી થી ' Industrial Age ' ચાલુ થઇ જેમાં આખા વિશ્વ માં ઔદ્યોગિક ક્રાંતિ આવી. આ એ સમય ગાળો હતો જ્યાં લોકો 40 વર્ષો સુધી એક જ કંપની માં નોકરી કરતા રહેતા, એક જ ઘર માં આખું જીવન નીકળી જતું હતું. નિવૃત્તિ ના સમય માં આખી જિંદગી પેન્શન મળી જતું. Industrial Age 1989 સુધી ચાલી કે જયારે (East-West) Germany ...

Background:  I recently visited one of my existing clients. The aim was to find out how his son's educational goals were progressing and how much money will be needed annually. We talked about a variety of goals in-depth throughout our more than hour-long meeting. Education Goal: Let's call him Mr. Rakesh Shah, and his spouse Mrs. Swati Shah. Rakesh began investing with us more than three years ago.  During our initial conversation, we talked about his only son, who aspires to attend an IIT for graduation. His son, Manan, is in 12th Std right now. In 2021, I suggested Rakesh ji to start SIP of Rs 50k-55k for his son Education goal to reach the target. We agreed to start with 40k at that time.  The goal of my recent visit was to discuss and decide whether any changes to their portfolio were required owing to market conditions.  As we all know, markets are overvalued, and their target was just about a year away.  I will transfer to debt funds for safety if ne...

Background   Today I came across a portfolio which I named as ZOO!! A friend of mine based out of South Gujarat town, told me to study his 15 years old portfolio managed by an uncle. He is currently doing monthly SIP of Rs 1,10,000 and current valuation of portfolio is more than Rs 1 Crore. While I was analysing I found that total of 28 different mutual fund schemes which was a shock for me. So the average SIP per scheme is approx. Rs 4000. The portfolio has multiple flexi cap, multiple small cap, multiple mid cap funds and few sectorial funds. This is what I call a ZOO of schemes portfolio! How not to make a ZOO?: Actually, in markets there are 2-3 investing styles - value, growth & momentum.  Value style: Value investing can be defined as buying stocks trading at a low valuation compared to an estimate of intrinsic value. Growth & Momentum style: Growth investing can be defined as buying highly valued stocks on the expectation that their valuations will continue impr...

  Background Recently a senior citizen contacted my office for arguing that we are not delivering on our promise of assured returns. He took helpline number of my firm from social media. Actual reason of his call was to ask how he got very poor return on his investments in an alternate investments he did on his own in last financial year. What happened? Let us say his name is Mr. Mishra and is from North India. He is a retired central Government officer and he thinks he knows about the finance industry, due to his work profile in the past. So Mishra ji who is 65 now lives happily with his wife and a married son who is working in IT industry and earning well. Mishra ji had total of about Rs 7 Crores of retirement corpus last year. He himself, without taking help from any expert, invested about Rs 1.5 Crore in alternate investment options (invoice discounting) which is comparatively safe as it is for low duration (usually 90 days) and offers 10-12% annualized guarantied returns. I a...

Background I am 38 Years old. When I was young a very popular animation series was Richie Rich. A very young rich boy surrounded by coins and money, spending whole day! This image may help you to recollect: I recalled this series today morning when I read the headlines of today's newspaper, here we go: Divya Bhaskar (Ahmedabad edition) date: 18/01/2022 It is in Gujarati language, basically saying: the Riches got richer in last calendar year and poor got poorer! This is almost repeated headline each year and believe me, this is common across the globe. News media outlets tells you WHAT happened. They don't tell WHY this happened?? In Nutshell, Rich got richer and poor got poorer, yet again! and n ews media not telling poor or middle class why this happened? Here is my thoughts based on my experience in personal finance field and interactions with industry stalwarts over the years. Rich people: - Never speculate means never waste their time in short term trading. - Believe in wea...

Background My recent interactions with few of my friends and (seemingly conservative) clients regarding stocks, IPOs, short-term trading and investing provoked me to write this. The people I am doing business related to Personal Finance since 2017 and have personally interacted with at least 250 persons across age groups, genders, cities or villages and geographies.  Few of these people I had categorized as conservative in nature with reference to their knowledge about financial markets and hence their risk taking ability. But in recent past (after 2nd wave of CoVID-19 pandemic in India), two of such interactions were more than enough to pan out my thoughts (based on my experience into the financial markets and with various asset classes). What was common? Both of these friends are 38+ years of age and earning handsomely from their routine day jobs. In the past, I had suggested both of them to start investing regularly in mutual fund SIP for their long term financial goals. On...