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Coming Soon! A "Financial Health Check & Planning Workshop". Stay tuned
Joseph Jude has an interesting blog on Consultancy, Life and India. He asked me pretty interesting questions and has published my answers on his blog. Check the link below:
Technology is Powerful; But Its Not The Panacea – Says Ranjan Varma, a Personal Financial Expert
It feels good that Joseph calls it an interview. It feels odd because I am not really a big guy. Though I aspire to be one. 
Thanks Joseph.
All of us are used to shopping for stuff by looking at the MRP tag. This helps us to identify whether we are getting a good deal or being ripped off. But can we do the same when we buy stocks? Buying or selling stocks at the wrong price can often lead to huge losses. So, how can we ensure that investing is more profitable and not a game of chance for us, retail investors? Is there a way to determine the actual worth of a stock – its MRP?
This is exactly what the guys at MoneyWorks4me have done. They have labeled not only all the stocks but also the benchmark Sensex with an MRP tag. This MRP is driven primarily by the earnings power of a company and hence gives you an indication of the fundamental worth of a stock. Thus, it gives investors the confidence to take sensible buy and sell decisions based on the actual worth of the stock and not just market sentiments. Outlook Profit magazine has published an article on this concept titled ‘The Right Price’. The article also gives you a few stocks that you should be buying or selling at this time. Here is a copy of the article.
Also, MoneyWorks4me.com have written a few blog posts on this concept on their blog Stock Shastra. You can read them here.
Technology is a powerful tool to build an environment of learning. And I am excited about building two simple sites on personal finance.
One, India’s first personal finance search engine
Two, India’s first personal finance ask engine
The search engine will search my own websites and blogs which now comprises of over 900 posts and articles.
If you have a question, you can visit this page. I will attempt to answer your question to the best of my ability.
Another site which I am building is the FAQ. It will consist of very direct answers to 6 compelling questions. How, Why, Where, Who, When and What.
I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
-Rudyard Kipling
I believe there are simple solutions to seemingly complex issues of personal finance. Examples:
1. Become Our Member
2. The 88% Solution
As always, I will be delighted to read your views via comment/email. Thanks.
There are always two perspectives on one topic. But what happens if a single source has two-in-one perspective?
From The 5 Minute Wrapup:
A financial portal has put the fair value of gold at, hold your breath, US$ 52, 381 an ounce! This is a whopping 43 times more than the current price. For an Indian buyer, this is equivalent to nearly Rs 8,00,000 per 10 Gms of gold.
However at the end of the newsletter is another “Investing Mantra”:
“Those who have knowledge don’t predict. Those who predict don’t have knowledge.”
- Lao Tzu, sixth-century B.C. Chinese poet
Okay, good to get both type of intelligence reports. But how do I integrate that into my intellect?
Can you help?
McKinsey research shows that equity analysts have been overoptimistic for the past quarter century.
On average, their earnings-growth estimates—ranging from 10 to 12 percent annually, compared with actual growth of 6 percent—were almost 100 percent too high.
Only in years of strong growth, such as 2003 to 2006, when actual earnings caught up with earlier predictions, do these forecasts hit the mark.
You can read the entire Mckinsey report here. You need to register.
And here’s another study that I wrote about sometime back:
Further, DALBAR’s update of its Quantitative Analysis of Investor Behavior (QAIB) study found that for the 20-year period, equity fund investors averaged 3.17% compared to 8.20% for buy-and-hold stock investors (S&P 500)
How about taking a look at the 88% solution!
