Investing

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How to Survive the Wrong Turns in Life and Markets

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.

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The Stock Market’s Casino Problem

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

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.

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The Psychology of Investing #10: The Seductive Trap of Stories

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.

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

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.

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.

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Letter to A Young Investor #10: The Most Important Thing That Counts in Investing

A quick announcement before I begin today’s post – I am hosting a new online Masterclass, titled “Thinking Clearly in A Market Crisis”, on 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 50 remain. Click here to know more and join.

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.

I wish to start today’s letter with a tragic yet magnificent story from World War II that has stayed with me for years. It’s the story of Anne Frank.

Frank was born in Frankfurt, Germany but moved to the Netherlands for safety in 1934, five years after she was born. The Frank family hid in their basement with four other Jews when Germany took control of the Netherlands.

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Stay the Course

A quick announcement before I begin today’s post –

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

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.

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The Psychology of Investing #9: Don’t Just Do Something, Sit There

A quick announcement before I begin today’s post –

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

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.

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.

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10 Money Revelations in My 40s (An Indian Perspective)

A quick announcement before I begin today’s post – My new book, Boundless, is now available for ordering!

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.

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Letter to A Young Investor #9: Live Your Questions

A quick announcement before I begin today’s post – My new book, Boundless, is now available for ordering!

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.

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.

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The Psychology of Investing #8: The Cost of Holding On

A quick announcement before I begin today’s post –

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

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.

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.

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