How to restraint from being a member of CLUB 99

​Once upon a time, there lived a King who, despite his luxurious lifestyle, was neither happy nor content.

One day, the King came upon a servant who was singing happily while he worked. This fascinated the King; why was he, the Supreme Ruler of the Land, unhappy and gloomy, while a lowly servant had so much joy.

The King asked the servant, 'Why are you so happy?'

The man replied, 'Your Majesty, I am nothing but a servant, but my family and I don't need too much - just a roof over our heads and warm food to fill our tummies.'

The king was not satisfied with that reply. Later in the day, he sought the advice of his most trusted advisor. After hearing the King's woes and the servant's story, the advisor said, 'Your Majesty, I believe that the servant Has not been made part of The 99 Club.'

'The 99 Club? And what exactly is that?' the King inquired.

The advisor replied, 'Your Majesty, to truly know what The 99 Club is, place 99 Gold coins in a bag and leave it at this servant's doorstep.'

When the servant saw the bag, he took it into his house. When he opened the bag, he let out a great shout of joy... So many gold coins!

He began to count them. After several counts, he was at last convinced that there were 99 coins. He wondered, 'What could've happened to that last gold coin? Surely, no one would leave 99 coins!'

He looked everywhere he could, but that final coin was elusive. Finally, exhausted he decided that he was going to have to work harder than ever to earn that gold coin and complete his collection.

From that day, the servant's life was changed. He was overworked, horribly grumpy, and castigated his family for not helping him make that 100th gold coin. He stopped singing while he worked.

Witnessing this drastic transformation, the King was puzzled. When he sought his advisor's help, the advisor said, 'Your Majesty, the servant has now officially joined The 99 Club.'

He continued, 'The 99 Club is a name given to those people who have enough to be happy but are never contented, because they're always yearning and Striving for that extra 1, saying to themselves: 'Let me get that one final thing and then I will be happy for life.' We can be happy, even with very little in our lives, but the minute we're given something bigger and better, we want even more! We lose our sleep, our happiness, we hurt the people around us; all these as a price for our growing needs and desires.

Same is the situation with most of the investors, they are also engaged in converting 99 to hundred, without knowing they might need much lesser then that.

Financial planning is a big eye opener and will help you to avoid being an member of CLUB 99 and help you to live your life happily.

True example of WEALTH Creation

We are optimistic about "ACCHE DIN AANE WAALE HAIN.".

If last 20 years were not good then going by above phrase next 10 years are going to be extraordinary.Last almost 20 years have been the best days an investor can wish for but the problem is we ourselves are not confident of our economy and power of Young India.

Investors confidently invest in Gold, Corporate Fixed Deposit, FD of Co-operative bank and above all real estate.But when it comes to equity they shy away from it.

Demonstrating herewith how equity mutual funds in real life can create wealth for the investors.

"Reliance Growth Fund is an Equity Diversified fund launched 19 years back wherein its NAV has moved from Rs.10 to Rs.615.59 that means investor has multiplied his money 62 times.

It is evident that there is no other asset class which can beat performance of Equity and specially investments made through Mutual fund route. Many a times investor do compare returns of equity with real estate. 

Let's see the comparison - 

If one had invested Rs.10 lacs in this fund 19 years back it would have grown to 6.2 crores that too TAX FREE and to add some other benefit is liquidity, daily valuation,transparency, diversification, part redeemable, no legal cost or hurdles, well regulated etc etc...

I leave it to the real estate investor to evaluate that how much of them can confidently claim similar returns for their real estate portfolio as a whole.

Disclaimer : Performance of fund taken only for demonstration purpose, should not be considered as our recommendation. Please consult you adviser before investing.

Undoubtedly investor should allocate funds to different assets  according to time horizon and goals.But, Investors are very comfortable with investment in FD, Gold and Real estate but when it comes to Equities every one thinks that it is a speculative asset class. History has proved that you can speculate anything for a short period, but in long term fundamental works.

Many a times the excuse given for not investing in equity is of lower risk profile, but we forget that risk profile is evaluated on 3 aspect i.e Willingness,Ability and Need. The most important aspect with most of the individuals is Need, may be they are not willing to take risk and might not have ability as well. But in today's high inflationary scenario everyone's NEED should make them a equity investor. For today's investor equity is not an option but a necessity.

So evaluate your future needs, make equity mutual funds your friend for wealth creation,but in consultation with your financial advisor.

Avoid investing only on the basis of past performance

It is a common practice that we invest in a best performing funds and the day we invest its under performance starts. It seems that bad luck was just waiting for us to invest. Fact is lot of other factors are also involved in selecting a good fund apart from the luck or past performance.

Let's see the other factors which plays important role in performance of your fund :

1) Fund House - First of all we need to assess the fund management team, to ensure that the money we are investing is in safe hands. Need to check that how stable is fund management team,Experience of Fund Management Team (Across Cycles),Does fund manager instill a high level of confidence in communication. How seriously fund house takes their fund management business..

2) Investment Philosophy - How clearly the fund philosophy is defined, e.g fund would be managed in growth style, value style, dynamic, thematic etc... Also understand advantages and disadvantages of particular philosophy.

3) Process - Most important aspect in life to achieve anything with minimum error is to adopt a process. Whenever you follow a process things move systematically and achieving goals become easy. 

Similarly for investment  we need to check that fund house is strictly following some process or not. Many a times in past it has happened that fund house leaves everything on a STAR fund manager instead of following a process.It does work in favour in a particular market condition but when situation changes the fund becomes the worst performer. So need to check on following points

Is there a well laid down , comprehensive process in place ?

How much flexibility does the fund manager has in decision making?

How are stocks researched?

How adequate and effective is the risk management process?

4) Portfolio - Whatever is described in above three points should reflect in the portfolio formed by a fund manager.

The stocks/Sectors selected and portfolio turnover is true to its mandate?

What is concentration risk in the portfolio?

Sufficient rationale for areas of concern?

5) Performance - The last but not the least important is Past performance. I believe that performance is the product of above 4 steps. If any fund house/fund has got them in place performance is going to follow. May be in short term other fund might take over but in long term it would emerge as a star. 

Next time whenever you select a fund do proper homework or hire a Financial planner who can do it on your behalf.