World Environment Day

Well, I am a firm believer that we don’t require special days to use our common sense. However, general perception is that unless a fancy is attached with a cause, no one will notice. Given this premise, on this august occasion of world environment day, I have a few thoughts / suggestions on how we can do our bit to the environment, which in turn feeds back into us.

Proposals:
1. Thou SHALL enable e-statements for all Bank, Credit Card, Mutual Fund and any other financial transactions.

2. Thou SHALL NOT take a print of transaction in an ATM unless absolutely necessary (like an outstation different bank ATM just for safety)

3. Thou SHALL plant atleast 2 plants in a pot whether it’s an independent / rented house or apartment. A small amount of water and 2 mins of time is all that’s required.

4. Thou SHALL CARRY cloth bags / jute bags / Old plastic bags when you go for shopping and shall avoid buying new plastic bags.

5. Thou SHALL walk close distances or cycle if you can and avoid taking out the car especially for shorter distances.

6. Thou SHALL try and maximize the use of public transport or METRO or company provided transport as applicable.

7. Thou SHALL segregate waste i.e. separate bio-degradable and plastic/paper/cardboard waste. The latter waste can be recycled and what’s more you get paid for the same.

8. Thou SHALL maximize the use of LED bulbs and avoid older bulbs to the maximum possible extent.

9. Thou SHALL buy appliances with good power rating with minimal impact on environment

and lastly..

10. Thou SHALL pass on this message or add to the same..

Happy World Environment Day !!!

Mutual Fund Portfolio: May 15 2016

Continuing from the other updates on stocks, I would like to present my current mutual fund portfolio.I have added 2 new funds into my list viz., HDFC Balanced Fund and ICICI Pru Value Discovery Fund as the vehicles to build up my retirement corpus. Till the end of last financial year, we were investing into VPF.

However, with the given confusions and subsequent signals from different authorities, I felt it was best to be invested into equities and manage my risks than to depend on VPF which may get taxed at later point of time or requires one to take annuity.

Given this situation, we decided to invest our VPF contribution into these mutual funds as part of retirement planning.

Without much further ado, presenting the updated MF portfolios:

Self:

• Axis Long Term Equity Fund 9.38%
• Franklin India Prima Plus 9.22%
• Franklin India Smaller Companies Fund 3.18%
• HDFC Balanced Fund 3.58%
• ICICI Pru Focussed Bluechip Fund 18.88%
• IDFC Premier Equity Fund 21.93%
• PPFAS Long Term Value fund 5.56%

Spouse:

• HDFC Mid-cap Opportunities Fund 2.70%
• Mirae Asset India Opportunities Fund 4.29%
• Motilal Oswal Multicap 35 4.29%
• Tata Balanced 14.93%
• ICICI Pru Value Discovery Fund 2.07%

Feedback/thoughts/suggestions are most welcome

Stocks Portfolio: May 15, 2016

Well, it has been sometime since I last blogged about my stocks portfolio. In this time gap, multiple IPOs have hit the market, which have been bumper issues, both in terms of subscription and subsequent listing. I was lucky enough to get allocation in only one of them, but at least one I got right.

I did rejig my portfolio to add onto my current positions and added a new counter Caplin Labs, something I was waiting to do for some time. Along with this investment, I finally managed to buy some stocks of Aurobindo Pharma, something I was waiting for sometime to add. This is one stock which I am very bullish about and shall be adding more in days to come.  This rejig meant I sold some of my existing investments in Indag Rubber, Sharda Cropchem and skewed my percentages a little, but I am still trying to be true to older philosophy.

Without much further ado, this is my current stock portfolio:

New Beginning

Well.. to be loved is the foremost of human’s emotions and it was overwhelming that there were a lot of comments on my blogs which I have missed last few months..

This is really bad which I hope to correct in this new year.. So, first, an apology is in order for all those whose messages were not responded for a long time. am really really SORRY..

Happy New Year, 2015 !!!

What’s new in 2015?? Well for starters, I plan to consolidate (word also used by another very good friend) my FP collection.. However, I am planning to move beyond FP and include GEL, Roller ball pens along with marketing pens from my travel across the world.

I would leave this forum open for other suggestions and recommendations on what I could cover this year. Please do drop in your thoughts and I promise to do better this time around..am all ears !!!