When to Start Investing ?

moneymaze1Few days back, I received a very interesting email, snippet is as follows “…. I am developing a keen interest in your dividend investing philosophy. The more I read the more I get excited about. The earlier one starts, the better it is and I want to start now……. I am 24 years old and have a full time job for last two years. The earlier I start the better it will be for dividend investing. Can you advise 5 companies where I can invest and forget them…..”.

After exchanging few emails I observed his (I don’t know whether it was his or her, for the sake of this post I will use “his”) parents had taken a low six figure educational loan for him to complete this MBA education. After he started working, in his quest to quickly earn few bucks, he started investing in equity markets and is now under water. Now this reader wants to put his financial house in order.

On a personal note, I have gone through the student debt phase. I can very well understand what it means to be under student loan debt.

I am not a personal finance advisor. So I could not give him any specific advice per se. However, I shared my personal experience and discussed with him a very high level frame which I had followed. This discussion was not directly related to dividend investing. But I think it followed the essence of dividends investing (i.e. strong foundation and small building blocks). I thought of sharing this framework with readers of my blog. Continue reading rest of this article…

It’s a Team Game, Stupid!

investing-forumCricket is a religion in our country. Is there anything else that binds the whole nation together? Is there anything else that generates so much passion within each individual? Right from the street side hawker to five star restaurant, from small work table to corporate corner office, from normal tree side primary schools to world class management institutes, cricket allows us to speak a common language. Everybody understands this language.

And yet, we forget that it’s a team game. It’s a game where every individual has to do its part and perform his role. In our wins, we forget negative, while in loss we demonize individuals. We forget somebody has to score runs, somebody has to catch in the field, and somebody has to take wickets. In this game, we tend to applause showmanship (even when if it is without any substance), while hard work just becomes a regular talk and not celebrated.

Our team had a dream run from middle of 2000 to 2004. In this we all applause certain leader for the team who is takes off his shirt in enemy territory, but we do not seem to remember folks who worked tirelessly to make it happen. We continuously praise this certain leader, without recognizing that he had an excellent team mates who always bailed him out. He had two great batsmen of this era and one great bowler who were always ready to standup and make the contribution. Continue reading rest of this article…



~