M. Pattabiraman's Blog, page 14

Is AI emerging as a low-cost, conflict-free, fee-only advisor?

AI, particularly AI with deep research options (e.g., Perplexity, Gemini, Grok, etc.), can handle the most complex questions and provide amazing answers.  Perplexity Pro (free for iitm users) even has an option to search from only academic sources, which I use if I ask it health-related questions. Please note: I fully understand that AI can...

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Advisor Suggests Shifting Large MF Corpus to Direct Plan Funds: What should I do?

Often, clients and advisors have conflicting views that result in friction and typically a break in the relationship. This can easily be avoided if both parties clearly explain their viewpoint and meet on common ground. Take, for example, a situation we encountered recently. The client has more than Rs. one crore in regular plan funds....

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How to Become a SEBI Registered Investment Adviser in India

In India, not everyone can offer investment advice. They must first be registered as an investment adviser (RIA) with SEBI. Once registered, they must act as a fiduciary – meaning they must always put the client first. In other words, prescribe only commission-free products (those that come under SEBI) if the adviser charges fixed fees...

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Is AI rapidly killing attention to detail?

The growth of AI-based tools is astounding and alarming. I was recently sent a CT report of a hospitalised relative with multiple findings that seemed to require medical attention. I was curious to learn more. It is inadvisable to do this, but some of us have a curious itch to scratch (and suffer the consequences)....

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Stocks with low volatility and momentum for May 2025

We publish a list of stocks with low volatility and momentum each month. We provide data for BSE 500 and BSE 100 stocks. There are now three different screener files available. (1) Stocks with low volatility and momentum from the BSE 100 large cap universe are available as a separate file (2) Stocks with low...

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Should I redeem investments and reduce my home loan burden as much as possible?

A 32-year-old reader asks, “Should I redeem investments and reduce my home loan burden as much as possible?” This is the comparison he sent us. “Cost of land: Rs. 70 Lakhs (including registration). Cash in hand: Rs. 50 lakhs. If I get a home loan for Rs. 50 Lakhs, I would be left with Rs....

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Steps to minimize risk in your investment portfolio

Last Updated on April 29, 2025 at 10:19 am Investors get jittery and unsure what to do when the stock market is overheated or when the stock market goes nowhere. Here is a simple market-independent strategy via systematic risk reduction that would be far more productive. Why? We have no control over market returns. Yes,...

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Analyzing the growth of my 15-year-old NPS portfolio

I have invested in the National Pension Scheme (NPS) since 8 March 2010. This is a performance report showing how the NPS has fared over the last 15+ years. We also compare the returns with the EPF. Note 1 For government employees: We have extensively written about the Unified Pension Scheme vs the National Pension...

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How Sahil aims to achieve a 30-40X corpus in the next 10 years

This is the third in the series of my finance audits. Focus is again on how I track my personal finance related metrics. This should be helpful for DIY investors and should help them to focus on what and how to measure. I am using the same format and adding a FY25 v/s FY24 section....

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Investment Options for Senior Citizens in India – 2025 edition

Let’s take the example of 2 Senior Citizen friends who have the same amount of corpus in their retirement kitty. The retirement corpus is around 1.4 Crores. Let us name them Mr. Ram and Mr. Sham for better understanding. Both friends are 60 years old and have retired from their respective professions. Since Mr. Ram...

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