Ranjan Varma

Changing the way we learn and manage our money

Archive for the ‘Miscellaneous’ category

Dozen Rules For An Economist To Remember

January 20th, 2010

I receive a newsletter from Sundaram BNP Paribas Asset Management Company and it’s worth reading. I guess you need to invest in their funds to get that newsletter.

I found the “Rosenberg Dozen” in that newsletter and I am sharing that with you.

David Rosenberg, Chief Economist at Gluskin Sheff, has the following economist’s dozen of rules :

In order for an economic forecast to be relevant, it must be combined with a market call.
Never be a slave to data, they are no substitute for astute observation of the big picture.
The consensus rarely gets it right and almost always errs on the side of optimism – except at the bottom.
Fall in love with your partner, not your forecast.
No two cycles are ever the same.
Never hide behind your model.
Always seek out corroborating evidence.
Have respect for what the markets are telling you.
Be constantly aware with your forecast horizon – many clients live in the short run.
Of all the market forecasters, Mr. Bond gets it right most often.
Highlight the risks to your forecast.
Get the (US) consumer right and everything will take care of itself.

Interesting, No?

Welcome back! Join me on this journey to improving our financial IQ and sharing what we know. Updates at RSS feed or Email. And spread the word please Thank You!

Coming Soon! A Personal Finance Workshop & Software "RupeeManager". Stay tuned

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Posted in Financial Awareness, Miscellaneous

Indibloggies Award: Vote Please

November 25th, 2009

India’s first (established 2003) and very own desi blog awards, the Indibloggies are publicly-chosen awards conferred on bloggers from India.

A jury sifts through the numerous blogs that are openly nominated by the fellow bloggers, to contend for the title of the Best Indiblog in each of the 17 categories. An open vote is then conducted to pick out the winning blog from the nominations.

This Blog has been nominated in the Best New Indiblog category. It feels special to be nominated and will be really thrilling to win the award.

I write this blog to share what I know with my readers. I attribute the nomination to my readers as they have always motivated me to blog. And I guess, it’s you who should decide the winner too!

Do hop on to the voting page and give me a vote.

Please Vote

I am also happy to see some very interesting blogs on the nomination list that I follow and I also request you to vote for some of them. They are:
Gauravonomics under Business category
The Ideasmithy under Personal category
Digital Inspiration under Technology category
Domain Maximus under Humorous category
Vimoh’s Twitter page under Microblog category

Please Vote. Thanks

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Posted in Miscellaneous

Lights Camera Action: The Three Components of Managing Money

October 31st, 2009

The tag line of this blog is admittedly a bit over ambitious. It says “Changing the way we learn and manage our money”.

I admit that it seems too difficult thing to do. You cannot change the status quo just like that.

And it’s not that the financial services industry is immature or fragmented. It’s a mix of seasoned, professional people as well as snake-oil sellers. There are very good financial advisors as well as the agents mis-selling for their own self interests.

Somehow I get a feeling that we get the financial service we deserve. Part of the blame of getting lousy financial service lies with us.

However there are a few common pain points with the financial services industry which is not being addressed in totality. This brings me to my three components model of managing money. Take a look.

Lights-camera-action

Learn, Focus and Manage

(Click to enlarge)

The Three Components
To my mind, the Financial Services industry is not addressing all the three components of the above model. Let me explain what I mean.

Lights or Learn
The industry has a responsibility to spread greater financial awareness among the buyers. But the information asymmetry present in financial services is huge. Maybe it’s because of the buyers own reluctance or old habits. But I think there’s a good opportunity for someone to come up with a business focused on this education vertical. There doesn’t seem to be any competition (+) or big money making (-) right now. But who knows!!

Camera or Focus
After you get the knowledge, you need to translate it into action. But not before you start using the tools for such actions. Measuring your money would be the first steps towards managing your money or taking concrete action.

In India, the tools available for managing your money are not very popular or easily available. I know a few efforts (including mine). Again, I guess the perceived lack of market/potential or money making opportunity is responsible for not many efforts in this vertical.

Action or Manage
This is where the action (pun intended) lies. It’s a huge market where every Tom, Dick and Harry makes a mark for himself with a little bit of effort. So, as I said earlier you can get a very good advisor and a equally bad one! In any case, everyone is after your cheque and not bothered about your needs (Knowledge, aka Learn) or (Tools, aka Focus).

And as I write out this post, I realize that:

The financial service provider has an incentive to get the cheque out of you. So he’s only bothered about the third component (Manage). That’s a given.
You, as a financial service receiver have an incentive to learn more and use tools to manage your money. This means you must focus on the first and second component (Learn & Focus).

In any case, it takes all the three wheels (Light, Camera, Action!) geared together and work in tandem to manage your money in a holistic manner. Half baked efforts at doing one/two of them at a time wouldn’t make a good picture!!

Reminder to self: कार्य कठिन है , इसलिए करने योग्य है

What do you think? Agree/Disagree?

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Posted in Miscellaneous, Personal Finance Software, Rupee Manager, personal finance websites

HLCC: Committee to Coordinate Regulators to be more Effective

October 5th, 2009

PTI Reports:
The government will hold discussions on a proposal to make the high level committee on financial and capital markets (HLCC) – an informal body comprising representatives of all financial regulators – more effective next month.

“The decision to make HLCC more effective would be deliberated on in the second half of November. The discussion is on whether formalisation of HLCC would be more effective or more bureaucratic,” an official source told PTI.

There is a consensus that HLCC needs to be more effective to tackle any problem speedily and with ease as there are many issues in the financial market that require close coordination and acting together by various regulators, the source said.

As of now, the industry has to deal with many regulators.

See the full PTI Report here

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Posted in Miscellaneous

Thank You, You Are Invited!

September 4th, 2009

I started blogging three years ago. In September 2006, I was googling around for some info on the internet and landed on Amit Agarwal’s Digital Inspiration. I had to subsequently look for the meaning of a “blog”. And I was hooked.

The journey has changed me. Apart from learning a few things about managing my money, the online world has given me a lot of insights on interesting topics like “how to startup”, bootstrapping, use of open source software/technology, etc.

But the most important person accompanying me on this journey is YOU. I am pleasantly surprised to see the number of readers going up. I thank you for the encouragement, the emails and also the brickbats. A comment accused me of being an agent of private Banks. This should remind me that I need to write better, with more clarity.

That’s why if I organize a bash for my three years of blogging, You’ll be invited. To make the party interesting for you, I’ll also invite the following people who have made a difference to my online life.(post inspired by Kapil’s 5 People I would like to invite). I’m sure you’d enjoy meeting them.

1. Amit Agarwal needs no introduction. His blog gets the credit for everything I know about blogging, atleast the technical part of it. He explains how to do things on the internet in a very lucid manner. Lucid enough for non techies like me.

2. Amit Varma is the most popular India blogger. I remember asking him a few question on blogging and his answers really helped me.

3. Amit Ranjan, Country Head, Slideshare, is another guy who responded to my mails with great insights.

4. Gaurav Mishra gave me the idea of starting a personal finance site and designing a training workshop on personal finance quite some time back. (I have been very slow, I know). The seeds of whatever I am doing have been planted by Gaurav.

5. Melody Laila, the sunshine girl, would be the life of any party. Melody wrote a foreword to my website even when it was a little clumsy and really encouraged me to go forward.

6. Shyam Somanadh is the guy to consult for any business on the digital domain. He has patiently answered a lot of questions (dumb ones, too) that I had. I have a feeling that he believes that a non techie like me can deliver and that’s quite reassuring.

7. Vijay Anand, the Startup Guy, also has a lot of patience with my dumb questions. He has helped me sort out my thoughts on how to execute my plans.

Well, Kapil had 5 people joining his party and I already have 7 now. Okay, 7 is my lucky number.

There are a whole lot of people who have helped me in my online world. But, the most important person is YOU.

So whenever I’ll have a party, it’ll be an honour for me if you come. You, along with friends and family!

Unfortunately the party has to wait, I’m neck deep with the RupeeManager

Btw, I was wondering that if I had to invite a bollywood/media/sports celebrity (like Kapil), whom would I invite? Afterall, I am not really a fan of anybody out there.

But, how can I ever forget her ? (my only infatuation, which refuses to fade away!)