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.
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Below are some updated thoughts on potential integrations, improvements, and innovations for Saffron moving forward. ⬇️
1/11 @saffronfinance_ ($SFI) is DeFi's new kid on the block with its tranched yield product that is already live with DAI on @compoundfinance. https://t.co/JpqnxhwrDw
— Benjamin Simon (@benjaminsimon97) November 19, 2020
2/18 First, if you haven't seen @Privatechad_'s alpha-leaking introductory thread, you should check it out.
I agree that @AlphaFinanceLab and @CreamdotFinance, specifically the Iron Bank, would be ideal targets for SFI risk tranches.
15/. 3. Though not the focus atm, interest from various projects and integrations are happening.
— Private Chad (@Privatechad_) February 1, 2021
* Chainlink reached out (props to the amazing $LINK team).
* Talks with $ALPHA and rumored upon V2 releases there will be a collaboration.
*Cream integrations in v2
* $COMP tranches pic.twitter.com/IXCtzvSkw7
3/18 Speaking more broadly, Saffron is primarily integrated with @compoundfinance, which has served as a MVP of sorts.
The thing is, Compound is one of the safest (but also lowest yield) protocols in DeFi, so it's not surprising that there isn't much demand for the sen. tranche.

4/18 Expanding beyond Compound to higher-risk/higher-return protocols has always been key.
These protocols are the bread-and-butter target market for Saffron, and I would expect to see a surge in demand for senior tranche staking in these
4/11 Imo, the golden egg will be vault platforms like @iearnfinance, @picklefinance, etc.
— Benjamin Simon (@benjaminsimon97) November 19, 2020
Recently, some of these higher risk platforms (e.g. @harvest_finance) have been hit with a wave of attacks.
Saffron will enable cautious investors to use these products with peace of mind.
5/18 Additionally, @DeFiGod1 convinced me that Senior Tranche pools would be more appealing if they offered fixed yield.
Essentially, Saffron would augment the product offerings of @Barn_Bridge by also offering senior stakers insurance in the form of junior tranche collateral.