Safe vs risky investments
What do you call a student who beats his guru? A son who outdoes his father? In this case, it is Aman Agarwal, a Bangalore-based management consultant whose investment spread is varied with a mix of equity and conventional ways. He loves to venture with investing more seriously not just for himself but help those around him to know the power of proper planning in personal finance. His journey so far.
My father did a lot of savings, on that count I must say that the apple didn’t fall far away from the tree. He made sure that I believe in savings and also give it the importance it requires to cater my future needs and also to face any uncertainty.
His investments were driven from a tax saving and life insurance perspective. So he had insurance policies, fixed return assets like FD, PPF and also some unit-linked insurance policies. This is where I have taken a leap of faith. I am not saying one should not invest in tax saving instruments. I do have FDs and PPF, but that is just 30% of my entire savings. About 70% of my savings go into mutual funds and stocks. I personally believe that it is good to have a mix of risky and safe investments.
At an early age, it is fine to invest in risky assets, but it is good to have some portion invested in safe assets as well. I wish I had a lot more time in hand to do research, with so many investments options I sometimes go through investment overload. Despite these constraints, I check the past performance of a stock, the price point at which I enter, I also study the risk associated with and my own investment capability. I prefer to stay invested in a particular asset for about 5–7 years. I want to do more of all of these and have a lot more savings to increase my investments. I invest in stocks using my personal as well as the family account, rely on the advice of the broker, friends and to some extent by self-analyzing.
I am a strong believer that our country is still behind in terms of proper planning for savings and investments, and I would be really happy to make a small change to it in any manner possible.
