S&P BSE Sensex*	Re/US $	Gold Rs/10g	Crude ($/barrel)	FD Rates (1-Yr)
35,535.79 |620.41 1.78%	67.25 |-0.58 -0.87%	31,261.00 | 356.00 1.15%	77.47 |3.85 5.23%	5.00% - 6.90%

 

Why?

It gives sellers a larger scale of operations and buyers, the convenience.

Tea growers also benefit indirectly as they stand to gain from the improved business of a manufacturer.

Who’s affected negatively then?

The middleman facilitating offline trades.

Imagine, every tea manufacturer selling tea online one day.

Wouldn’t this become counterproductive?

Buyers would be confused which ones to buy.

Connoisseurs could see this as a business opportunity and start offering buyers advice on the variety of  teas. Since their passion for quality and love for taste is eternal, they start charging a small fee for their advice. For them, receiving money from the tea manufacturer or seller is simply compromising on taste and quality.

Sensing online sales as a significant opportunity, some middlemen shut their offline business and open online shops. They have no qualms in receiving commissions from tea manufacturers.

Some of them are intelligent. Since they have been selling tea for years, they know a thing or two about taste as well. They too start offering advice on which teas to buy.

But they have no ‘passion’ for taste, just money. So they write a positive review about a tea if the manufacturer compensates them for this ‘favour’.

Guess what?

Companies facilitating online trades—mainly tech firms—too get excited about this ‘mouth-watering’ business opportunity. They have no sense of taste nor do they have any passion for teas.

But one thing they know is which tea sells more!

And they also draw conclusions on what is each tea connoisseurs’ favourite tea.

Using advanced analytics, they are trying to overcome the difficulty they face — the lack of knowledge about teas.         

And when it comes to facilitating transactions using technology, nobody can really beat them.

Similarly, connoisseurs try to up their game by upgrading their online presence.  

Now as a buyer, whom would you approach first:

1. A middleman who newly started an online store?

2. A tech platform that believes tech is the answer to taste?

3. A connoisseur whose passion is tea?

If you decided to go with the option 3, you’ve most likely made the right choice.

What you just read about tea, is actually right about mutual funds as well.

Mutual funds always lacked the reach. And online platforms are helping them overcome this difficulty.

But you know who made the real difference to increasing the popularity of mutual funds?

Unbiased investor education campaigns by increasing the awareness of options and instruments.

Unbiased research-oriented companies like PersonalFN made incessant efforts to dispersing information about mutual funds, creating awareness among masses and guiding them on making the right choices. They are the real ‘connoisseurs.’

Distributors are slowly losing their market share. But there’s a brand new business mushrooming.

Robo Advisory!

If you ‘Google’ the word ‘Robo Advisor’ you will get some 37.7 lakh results.

Robo advisors are certainly in vogue.

What’s robo advisory all about?

Robo-advisory platforms enable you to save and invest in mutual funds in an automated manner. What’s more, there is no need to visit a branch or send physical documents to enact transactions. Everything can be done online through the internet. 

Robo advisory business can offer scale, comfort, and economies of scale to all parties involved — mutual funds, investors, and the robo-advisors themselves.

Here are four criteria that make a good robo-advisory platform:

1. Service

   Some robo-platforms may offer you only transactional services, while others may provide you with a host of offline and online personal finance offerings.

   But in addition, a good robo-advisory platform should also have advanced tracking and portfolio rebalancing services. Those that offer a mix of services should be worthy of your long-term financial commitment.

   Also, the platform should be backed by a team of experienced customer service associates.

   If you have any query related to the investments you make or if you are facing issues when transacting, it should be resolved quickly and professionally.
    

2. Unbiased and research-backed advice

   A robo-advisory platform backed by astute and comprehensive research processes help you select the right mutual fund schemes. Research plays a vital role; the fund’s performance should not be the only criteria.
    

3. Established and reputed company

   As mentioned before, there is no dearth of robo-advisory platforms as the barriers to entre the market is low. While the competition is immense, you need to choose wisely and entrust your money to the best robo-advisor.

   Opt for a robo-advisory platform backed by established companies in the financial services space, who have been unbiased in their approach and serving investors diligently for decades.

   Robo advisory platform should be fee-based to ensure that the commissions do not influence their advice. And sound and ethical research-backed investment recommendations are imperative.
    

4. Costs

   Costs play a crucial role when you are planning your investments. Different robo-advisory platforms may charge you through one of the methods below:

   • An advisory or subscription fee (monthly, quarterly or yearly)

   •  A transaction fee (each time you execute a transaction through them, they charge you a fee)

   • A percentage of the amount invested. (Popular in the US)

   • Commissions earned from fund houses of recommended funds

But like in case of teas, the only problem here is when a distributor-turned robo-advisor or a tech-platform starts advising you on mutual fund investing.

Tech-firms will keep talking data, data, more data, and only data.

Analytics can also throw deceptive conclusions if parameters applied for the purpose of analysis are inaccurate or unsound.

So are tech-startups perhaps misguiding when it comes to mutual fund advisory?

A blunt answer is yes!

For tech firms, robo-advisory is just another ‘use-case’ in their lingo.

Distributors are experienced and some of them understand even the nitty-gritties of mutual funds. But then, being biased has always been a part-and-parcel of their business. “You give me commissions and I will do you a favour”, “You stop my commissions and the favours I do for you will stop. “

What’s a connoisseur real asset…

Trueness of advice and passion for taste.

That’s the bread-butter of a connoisseur.

Therefore, robo advisory platform of PersonalFN which is soon to be launched, can survive only if investors benefit from its advice.

It works ONLY in the interest of its investors.

Like any other tech-startup promoted robo-advisory platform, PersonalFN’s robo advisory platform too offers you ease and convenience of investing.

But its real strength, as highlighted earlier, is its unmatched competence in choosing the best mutual funds for your portfolio. Read about its research methodology here.

PersonalFN‘s robo advisory platform isn’t focused on aesthetics.

It concentrates rather more on functionality and ease of use.

It believes a Robo Advisor is not expected to be aesthetically pleasing.

It is simply expected to do the job intended.

A Robo Advisor’s job is to make technology work for an investor.

Robo advisory platform of PersonalFN will help you;

• Save for your child’s educational expenses

• Save for your international vacation

• Save for future wedding expenses

• Save for anything you like

Investing on PersonalFN’s robo advisory platform will be  an easy 5-step process…

1. Complete the registration

2. Submit necessary documents to activate your investment account

3. Assess your risk profile

4. Get a recommended portfolio based on your inputs

5. Invest with a single click

More reasons why you should invest through PersonalFN’s robo advisory platform

• It can help you reap you extra returns of as much as Rs 30 lakhs in 30 years. It recommends direct plans only.

• It brings outstanding research experience of over 15 years. (Outperforming the BSE-200 index by 80 percent!).

• It comes at a pocket-friendly price.

So do not miss out on the opportunity to grow wealth.

Start investing!

Stay tuned!

Has Your Mutual Fund Scheme Really Changed? 

The last couple of months have been very eventful for the mutual fund industry. The curiosity as well as confusion has been building up among advisors and mutual fund investors, as mutual fund houses announce the new version of their schemes in order to meet the ‘SEBI’s Categorization and Rationalization of Mutual Fund Schemes’ norms.

To read more and PersonalFN's views, please click here.

How To Create A Portfolio Of The Best Mutual Funds With Robo-Investing 

While looking for some healthy food options online, I came across a website claiming it could create a meal plan for me in one go. Imagine a portal creating a meal chart for you within minutes? Mind you, it wasn’t random at all.

It had a list of questions that were similar to the ones my real-time nutritionist had inquired in the first meeting.

To read more and PersonalFN's views, please click here.

5 Bad Ways to Pick Mutual Funds – And One Good Way

It is a known fact that bulk of household savings lies with banks. Bank Deposits have often been a safe haven for risk-averse Indian savers.

However, over the past few years, the trend seems to be changing – aided by a decline in interest rates. Savers have started opening up to market-linked investments like mutual funds.

To read more and PersonalFN's views, please click here.

Why Getting Married To Your Mutual Fund Investments Is Foolish!

#Case 1

Shrinivas inherited 10,500 units of ABC mutual fund about 5 years back. The scheme has miserably underperformed not only the comparable schemes but even the broader indices.

But Shrinivas doesn't want to redeem it and switch to a better option because he feels it's his father's gift to him.

While such emotional attachment is obvious, it isn't intelligent always. After all, his father would have never appreciated his wealth getting destroyed year after year.

To read more please click here.

Is Your Robo-Advisor Competent To Offer You Sound Advice?

With robo-advisory platforms mushrooming over the internet, there’s no dearth of tech startups promising you sound advice on investments and on mutual funds in particular.

Many robo-advisory platforms may not even know how many mutual fund houses operate in India. Exaggerations aside, tech startups are toddlers in the arena of investing. They might not even have seen the sharp swings of the market ever.

To read more please click here.

ICICI Prudential Dynamic Plan Will Now Be A Multi-Asset Fund – All You Need To Know

ICICI Prudential Dynamic Plan, a well-known dynamically managed fund from ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund will soon be transformed in to a multi-asset fund. This comes after SEBI’s diktat on the Categorization and Rationalization of Mutual Fund Schemes. The circular dictates that fund houses can have only one scheme per category (except for sector/themed funds).

The market regulator kept one category as ‘Dynamic Asset Allocation or Balanced Advantage’, that allows the equity and debt assets to be managed dynamically. This is where ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund faced a dilemma, as it manages two similar funds – ICICI Prudential Balanced Advantage Fund and ICICI Prudential Dynamic Plan. It had an option to merge the funds or categorize one differently.

All You Need To Know About Equity Mutual Funds

Portfolio Turnover: Portfolio turnover is a measure of how frequently assets within a fund are bought and sold by the managers. Portfolio turnover is calculated by taking either the total amount of new securities purchased or the amount of securities sold (whichever is less) over a particular period, divided by the total net asset value (NAV) of the fund. The measurement is usually reported for a 12-month time period.

Quote: "But investing isn’t about beating others at their game. It’s about controlling yourself at your own game.”‒Benjamin Graham