Vishal Khandelwal

A couple of quick announcements before I begin today’s post.

1. My new book, Boundless, is now available for ordering: After a wonderful response during the pre-order phase, I finally have the book in my hands and am shipping it out quickly. If you’d like to get your copy, click here to order now at a special discount (available till 10th May). Plus, I’m offering a special combo discount if you order Boundless along with my first book, The Sketchbook of Wisdom. Click here to order your set.

2. Relaunch of Value Investing Almanack: I have relaunched my premium newsletter, the Value Investing Almanack (VIA), which subscribers have called “…the best source in India on Value Investing, for both beginners and experts.” Click here to read more and subscribe to VIA at a special launch price (available only for the first 100 subscribers). Also, if you wish to check out the March 2025 VIA issue before deciding to rejoin, click here to download.

The Price of Freedom

There’s something uniquely tormenting about looking back at a decision you made years ago, one that you made with good intentions and maybe even a little excitement, and realising that today, you’d choose differently.

I’d been wrestling with that feeling a year ago, every time I entered an apartment I bought in 2018. It was my second apartment in the same building, just a floor below the first one where we lived. At the time, it seemed like a sensible and exciting step. Our kids were growing up, space was always tight in Mumbai’s famously matchbox-sized homes, and I imagined this second apartment as a seamless extension of our current one. It had a beautiful view too: a big garden and a hill in the distance, which is a rare sight of calm in this noisy and cluttered city.

A couple of quick announcements before I begin today’s post.

1. My new book, Boundless, is now available for ordering: After a wonderful response during the pre-order phase, I finally have the book in my hands and am shipping it out quickly. If you’d like to get your copy, click here to order now. You can also enjoy lower prices on multiple-copy orders. Plus, I’m offering a special combo discount if you order Boundless along with my first book, The Sketchbook of Wisdom. Click here to order your set.

2. Relaunch of Value Investing Almanack: I have relaunched my premium newsletter, the Value Investing Almanack (VIA), which subscribers have called “…the best source in India on Value Investing, for both beginners and experts.” Click here to read more and subscribe to VIA at a special launch price (available only for the first 100 subscribers). Also, if you wish to check out the March 2025 VIA issue before deciding to rejoin, click here to download.

How to Survive the Wrong Turns in Life and the Markets

It’s been a few years, but I still remember that day with unusual clarity.

A phone call came in the morning. A cousin of mine had met with an accident. I assumed he was in the hospital, down with a few injuries. That’s how the mind protects itself, by assuming the best.

But the next statement in the call took my breath away.

He didn’t make it.

He was just in his thirties. Riding to work on a regular weekday morning. Same road and same routine. But that day he took a wrong turn. He wasn’t wearing a helmet. Maybe he thought he didn’t need to. It wasn’t a long ride. It never is, until it is.

A couple of quick announcements before I begin today’s post.

1. My new book, Boundless, is now available for ordering: After a wonderful response during the pre-order phase, I finally have the book in my hands and am shipping it out quickly. If you’d like to get your copy, click here to order now. You can also enjoy lower prices on multiple-copy orders. Plus, I’m offering a special combo discount if you order Boundless along with my first book, The Sketchbook of Wisdom. Click here to order your set.

2. Relaunch of Value Investing Almanack: I have relaunched my premium newsletter, the Value Investing Almanack (VIA), which subscribers have called “…the best source in India on Value Investing, for both beginners and experts.” Click here to read more and subscribe to VIA at a special launch price (available only for the first 100 subscribers). Also, if you wish to check out the March 2025 VIA issue before deciding to rejoin, click here to download.

The Stock Market’s Casino Problem

Casinos have long known a simple truth: if you want people to gamble more, just add a subtle unpredictability. Just enough to keep people guessing. Make the lights flash. Add a few near-misses. Let them win once in a while so they feel like they’re on the edge of something big.

A quick announcement before I begin today’s post – 

My new book, Boundless, is now available for ordering!

After a wonderful response during the pre-order phase, I finally have the book in my hands and am shipping it out quickly. If you’d like to get your copy, click here to order now. You can also enjoy lower prices on multiple-copy orders.

Plus, I’m offering a special combo discount if you order Boundless along with my first book, The Sketchbook of Wisdom. Click here to order your set.

The Internet is brimming with resources that proclaim, “nearly everything you believed about investing is incorrect.” However, there are far fewer that aim to help you become a better investor by revealing that “much of what you think you know about yourself is inaccurate.” In this series of posts on the psychology of investing, I will take you through the journey of the biggest psychological flaws we suffer from that causes us to make dumb mistakes in investing. This series is part of a joint investor education initiative between Safal Niveshak and DSP Mutual Fund.

The world is an uncertain place. A country’s economy grows at 7% and yet the stock market crashes. A company you’ve never heard of suddenly becomes a 20-bagger, and another you followed religiously disappears. Interest rates rise, but the markets rally. Crude oil falls, and inflation doesn’t move. Predictions fail, but still new ones are made with remarkable confidence.

Despite this randomness, and maybe because of this, we are constantly in search for order. We tell ourselves, “There must be a reason.” And when we can’t find one, we make one up.

A couple of quick announcements before I begin today’s post.

1. Masterclass – Thinking Clearly in A Market Crisis: I am hosting this Masterclass tomorrow, Saturday, 19th April 2025, 7 PM IST Onwards. The underlying idea is to help you deal with the messiness of market panics and crises, so you can protect your wealth, peace of mind, and long-term goals. I had 100 seats available for the Masterclass, and now just 20 remain. Click here to know more and join.

2. Relaunch of Value Investing Almanack: I have relaunched my premium newsletter, the Value Investing Almanack (VIA), which subscribers have called “…the best source in India on Value Investing, for both beginners and experts.” Click here to read more and subscribe to VIA at a special launch price (available only for the first 100 subscribers). Also, if you wish to check out the March 2025 VIA issue before deciding to rejoin, click here to download.

The Investor’s Guide to Spotting Bad Promoters Before It’s Too Late

We Indians love stories. From Ramayana to Reliance, we’re a country moved by narratives. And when it comes to investing, perhaps no story sells better than that of the visionary promoter — the larger-than-life figure who claims to be solving big problems and creating generational wealth for shareholders (don’t ask, which) in the process.

Now, I don’t mean here that all such stories that Indian promoters tell us are bad. Some are genuine. But most are just well-packaged, and a few are designed to do just one thing — take you for a ride. And when you peel back the layers of some of these stories, what you often find is not innovation or integrity, but obfuscation, opportunism, and in some cases, outright fraud.

A quick announcement before I begin today’s post – 

My new book, Boundless, is now available for ordering!

After a wonderful response during the pre-order phase, I finally have the book in my hands and am shipping it out quickly. If you’d like to get your copy, click here to order now. You can also enjoy lower prices on multiple-copy orders.

Plus, I’m offering a special combo discount if you order Boundless along with my first book, The Sketchbook of Wisdom. Click here to order your set.

I was obsessed with cricket during my school days. There was a chance to represent my school in a match against a visiting South African U-19 side, and I was pushing hard to secure a place in the final eleven for our team.

I played as a leg spinner. And if you’ve ever bowled leg spin, you know it’s a bowling style that dances on the edge of brilliance and disaster. I often struggled during practice matches and net sessions. One delivery would turn sharply, the next would land halfway down the pitch and disappear into the trees. Some days I felt unstoppable. On most others, I felt like I didn’t belong.

After one particularly frustrating session, I told my coach I was thinking of giving it up. “Maybe I’m just not cut out for this,” I said.