Investing

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.

If there’s one thing the stock market is good at, it’s making us restless. When prices go up, we worry that we’re missing out. When prices fall, we fear we’re losing everything. And when prices do nothing at all, we grow impatient, wondering if we should be doing something to “make our money work harder.”

This constant swing between fear, greed, and boredom creates a discomfort and a nagging itch that tells us we shouldn’t just sit and watch. That maybe we need to act or intervene to feel in control of what’s happening.

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.

Growing up in India, we’re taught early that money is serious business. Whether it’s our elders chanting “paise ped pe nahi ugte” (money doesn’t grow on trees), or the unspoken pressure to earn well, save religiously, and buy a house before 35, financial responsibility is part of our DNA.

By the time you hit your 40s, you’ve likely made some of life’s biggest financial decisions. You’ve taken a home loan, invested in gold, started saving for your children’s education, maybe even planned your retirement.  

But this decade also brings reflection. You start questioning old money habits. You revisit long-held beliefs. You move from just “accumulating” to wondering what it all means. 

So, if you are in your 40s, or about to reach there, here are 10 money revelations I’ve come to embrace in my 40s. I’ve tried to draw these from Indian realities, our cultural quirks, and a growing desire to lead not just a financially stable life, but a meaningful one.

Let’s go.

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 am writing this series of letters on the art of investing, addressed to a young investor, with the aim to provide timeless wisdom and practical advice that helped me when I was starting out. My goal is to help young investors navigate the complexities of the financial world, avoid misinformation, and harness the power of compounding by starting early with the right principles and actions. This series is part of a joint investor education initiative between Safal Niveshak and DSP Mutual Fund.

Dear Young Investor,

I hope you are doing well, and that the lessons we have covered so far have helped you in guiding you through the early stages of your investing journey.

In today’s letter, I want to share with you something no one told me when I was starting out more than 20 years ago, and that I learned the hard way, by faltering and making mistakes.

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.

There’s a peculiar thing about human nature—we struggle to let go. We hold on to old clothes that no longer fit, relationships that have long since lost their warmth, and ideas that no longer serve us. We tell ourselves that we’ve already invested too much—maybe time, or money, or ourselves—to simply walk away. 

And like all of our quirkiness, even this reluctance to let go is deeply wired into us. Behavioural psychologists call it ‘loss aversion‘, which is the tendency to fear losses far more than we appreciate gains. It explains why people stay in jobs they dislike, why gamblers keep doubling down, and why investors often refuse to accept the obvious.

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 claim a special discount if you order before 20th Feb. 2025.

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.

Let me start with a simple truth today, and it is that investing is not easy. Not because the math is complicated, but because it tests your mind (and keeps testing). It pushes your emotions to the limit and forces you to battle your instincts.

And so, today, I want to share with you 13 thoughts that I am thinking about in the current market fall. These thoughts have evolved over my experience of being an investor over the past 20+ years and seeing several such and even worse market downturns. And, to say the least, these have shaped the way I approach investing at all times.

If you’re just starting out as an investor, these reflections could be even more valuable. They may help you avoid the costly mistakes that many of us learn the hard way.

Let’s start.

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 claim a special discount if you order before 20th Feb. 2025.

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.

A lot has been written about the turmoil in the Indian stock markets over the past few months. To be precise, the BSE-Sensex has dropped by 11% in the last five months, while the small-cap and mid-cap indices are down around 18% each.

Social media is full of panic posts, and your WhatsApp groups probably have more ‘expert advice’ than a financial conference.

But the thing is that this fall, like any, is not just a financial event. It’s an emotional stress test. And today, I share ways you can pass it.

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 am writing this series of letters on the art of investing, addressed to a young investor, with the aim to provide timeless wisdom and practical advice that helped me when I was starting out. My goal is to help young investors navigate the complexities of the financial world, avoid misinformation, and harness the power of compounding by starting early with the right principles and actions. This series is part of a joint investor education initiative between Safal Niveshak and DSP Mutual Fund.

Dear Young Investor,

I hope you are doing well, and that the lessons we have covered so far have helped you in guiding you through the early stages of your investing journey.

In today’s letter, I wanted to take a bit of a detour and talk about something you might not expect to hear from someone who writes about investing.

It’s that money is a trap.

Of course, not a trap that keeps you poor, but one that gets hold of you after you have enough. The one that convinces you that more is always better, that financial success is the ultimate goal, that the next zero in your bank account will finally make you feel complete.

It’s a cruel joke.

One that many only realize too late—when they have everything they ever wanted, and yet, somehow, it’s still not enough.

You see, we’re sold this idea from childhood—study hard, work smart, climb the ladder, and one day, you’ll have enough money to be free. 

Free from stress, free from obligations, free from anything that feels like work.

But what happens when you reach that point and still feel empty?

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.

There’s an old, tattered shirt in my wardrobe. It has five holes in it. The fabric is thinning, and its white colour has turned into cream. My wife has threatened to throw it away multiple times. But I refuse to let it go. To me, it isn’t just a shirt—it’s the shirt that I wore the first time I picked up my daughter in 2004, on the first day of my first international trip in 2008, and also on my last day at job and the first when I felt really free, in 2011. The shirt has somehow survived years of wear and tear. Rationally, it should be in a dustbin. Emotionally, it’s priceless.

If you empathise with me because you also own one such shirt, or a pen, a bag, or something that you don’t want to part ways with despite it now being in tatters, but just because it was there on your big days, then you are not alone! But know that, like I do, you suffer from Endowment Bias or Endowment Effect.

A couple of announcements before I begin today’s post – 

1. Two “Life-Changing” Books, One Exclusive Offer: I have been running a special offer on the combo of my first book The Sketchbook of Wisdom and the new one Boundless. Click here to order your set. Also, check out Boundless, which releases soon, and is available for pre-order.

2. Classroom Course in Value Investing: Admission is now open to the February 2025 batch of my most comprehensive classroom course in Value Investing, titled – Value Investing Blueprint. This residential course is scheduled to be held from 27th February to 2nd March 2025 at the campus of Pune-based FLAME University. The last date to apply is 15th January 2025. Click here to read more and apply if you are interested in joining this course. Since it’s a classroom course, seats are limited.

I recently received a call from a school friend, who, after much convincing had started investing his money through SIPs around two years back. He sounded panicky when we spoke.

“The markets are falling, Vishal!” he said.