A fund does well. You fall in love with the fund house. You have a large mid and small cap scheme from them. They all tank together! Diversify. And remember being good at one thing doesn’t make you good at the other.
Ten MF mistakes I recommend you avoid...
A fund does well. You fall in love with the fund house. You have a large mid and small cap scheme from them. They all tank together! Diversify. And remember being good at one thing doesn’t make you good at the other.
Applying the same metrics to judge different asset classes. What matters to equity funds doesn’t matter to debt funds. Arb funds are fully hedged - the individual stocks don’t matter, they do in equities. Understand what matters for each asset class.
Assuming all passive funds are good because they are cheap. There are terrible passive funds out there too. They track bad indices. Or they track good ones but have a lot of tracking error. Passive requires its own set of research.
We have categories in MF but sadly all funds in a category are not comparable. Just because a website compares them doesn’t mean you should look beneath. BAF categories have funds that are static, dynamic bond funds have rolldowns. Just an example.
Everyone publishes 1y/3y/5y returns but they mean little. They matter only if you invested on this day 1/3/5 years ago. And one good month can make the entire 1/3/5 series look good. Rolling returns indicate the average investor experience.
The single most badly used statistic in MF. And the single most published. It indicates nothing about the future returns of a fund. In debt, in fact, it indicates the opposite. Ignore it.
What works for the globe should work for India. Different market, different rules. For instance ETFs have huge structural benefits in the US but in India index funds are a better structure because we don’t have a great market making infra.
Read fund manager commentary. Read market views. Read twitter blogs. But don’t open your portfolio. The single most important thing to check, is what do you hold. And it’s disclosed monthly. See it.
Buy because someone is buying, sell because a WhatsApp group says so. Personal finance is personal. 100 - age doesn’t work. Two 26 year olds may have diff liabilities, family backgrounds, professions. How can their portfolio be the same.
Lots of talk about MF fees. Do you know how much you pay in switching costs between taxes and exit loads? Every churn costs us more than we estimate, so think hard about it before you hit redeem or switch.
More from Finance
THREAD: Who are the rising stars of Chinese elite politics in the central Party-State bureaucracy?
For @MacroPoloChina I analyzed last year's ministerial-level promotions to posts in Beijing
TLDR: Ties to Xi Jinping—or a Xi ally—are very helpful! (1/14)
https://t.co/kO2A0Efyq2
Seven politicians were promoted to ministerial-level positions in central Party agencies last year
All are likely to feature on the next Central Committee selected at the 2022 Party Congress
Some could make the CCP's elite 25-person Politburo (2/14)
https://t.co/kO2A0Efyq2
Likeliest for the Politburo is Meng Xiangfeng, new Executive Deputy Director of the CCP General Office
He would replace Xi ally Ding Xuexiang as CCP chief-of-staff if Ding is promoted further in 2022
Meng worked under Xi allies Cai Qi in Hangzhou and Chen Xi in Liaoning (3/14)
Less likely for the Politburo but still important is Jiang Jinquan, new Director of the CCP Policy Research Office
He replaces 5th-ranked leader Wang Huning who led the Party's brains trust for 18 years
Wang remains prominent and will be <68 in 2022, so he'll stay around (4/14)
Other notable central Party promotions include Li Shulei and Liang Yanshun, who both assisted Xi when he led the Central Party School from 2007-2012
Li is a political conservative who is said to be quite close with Xi, even drafting his 2014 speech on culture and art (5/14)
For @MacroPoloChina I analyzed last year's ministerial-level promotions to posts in Beijing
TLDR: Ties to Xi Jinping—or a Xi ally—are very helpful! (1/14)
https://t.co/kO2A0Efyq2
![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EuXLnkqXYAAmLHM.jpg)
Seven politicians were promoted to ministerial-level positions in central Party agencies last year
All are likely to feature on the next Central Committee selected at the 2022 Party Congress
Some could make the CCP's elite 25-person Politburo (2/14)
https://t.co/kO2A0Efyq2
![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EuXMxh0WgAESstu.jpg)
Likeliest for the Politburo is Meng Xiangfeng, new Executive Deputy Director of the CCP General Office
He would replace Xi ally Ding Xuexiang as CCP chief-of-staff if Ding is promoted further in 2022
Meng worked under Xi allies Cai Qi in Hangzhou and Chen Xi in Liaoning (3/14)
![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EuXNBFjXIAE2gIJ.jpg)
Less likely for the Politburo but still important is Jiang Jinquan, new Director of the CCP Policy Research Office
He replaces 5th-ranked leader Wang Huning who led the Party's brains trust for 18 years
Wang remains prominent and will be <68 in 2022, so he'll stay around (4/14)
![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EuXNl6KXMAEWD2t.jpg)
Other notable central Party promotions include Li Shulei and Liang Yanshun, who both assisted Xi when he led the Central Party School from 2007-2012
Li is a political conservative who is said to be quite close with Xi, even drafting his 2014 speech on culture and art (5/14)
![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EuXOZnuXcAUMh0y.jpg)