Life of a financial advisor

This post is straight from the heart. I mean don't mean to offend anyone. But I am writing this feeling very low today

In this long journey of financial advisory, I have experienced various market corrections as well as huge rallies

My gratitude to all who kept immense faith in me and never doubted my intentions. Many of my overseas investors left blank cheques with me, so that I can invest whenever they have funds in bank

I understand the pain, that investors are going through for past 3 years. All of us know that the correction started post announcement of Long term Capital gain in February 2018.. Then the SEBI order of categorization of mutual funds. This led to huge losses in mid and small cap. Fund managers lost lot of independence to manage funds. Looks like SEBI does not want fund managers to use much expertise

Then there was the election year. No one expected a pro growth budget. post elections, everyone was eyeing the budget. But the Budget presented in July 2019 gave the signal, that government believes in Socialism and does not care about the Economy

Markets again corrected sharply. However after huge backlash, FM took some decisions out of the budget like cutting corporate tax cuts.

That gave some legs to rally

Then came the budget for February 2020. Everyone expected huge measures like scrapping LTCG and relief to personal Income tax, to boost the consumption.. However apologies for this, but it was 90 minutes speech with nothing for MSMEs, tax payer, or capital markets

Strangely I feel that keeping such high disinvestment targets, MOF never realized, that for this they need solid capital markets

However markets tend  to discount future events. Large caps started performing in last quarter of 2019 and then mid caps joined the rally in January 2020. We were looking forward to huge rally, as FII started buying again and so did DII

Portfolios again started going into green,  There was a sigh of relief

But then Covid 19 hit us. This along with low Brent prices, OPEC big fund houses started to sell all investments, may it be equity, gold or bonds

Now, the markets are very volatile. Although they did well last week, but they shall stabilize only when we get the curve of Covid 19 cases go lower. However, once we are through with Covid 19, we shall experience huge market buying. There is huge liquidity in global markets. All this shall find its way to India. Also remember that February IIP numbers were much better than January, showing revival of economy

We shall also benefit hugely of manufacturing activity shifting from China to India

Few Investors are however quick to blame the adviser for losses of their portfolio

I ask them few questions

Did I bring LTCG or was anyone aware of that?
Did anyone sense IL&FS CRISES?
Was I the part of budget, which disappointed market?
Did you even call me one time, when you enjoyed huge returns in 2017?
Do you check rate of Gold, real estate, everyday ?
Did I ever sold you any expensive product like ULIP where commissions are as high as 25% ?

Today everyone is under lock down. But for me it is like working 24 hours. All are free at home, they keep on analyzing and ask for any statements any time.

I get messages and mails at night. They expect me to revert to them at earliest. They keep forgetting, that even I am working at 25% of capacity.

When they go for equity investments, they talk of long term horizon. But they keep on checking portfolio every second day

After working day and night, writing suggestions to MOF, Checking portfolios and making changes accordingly, what do I get back in return?

.75% brokerage and I pay GST on that. And that brokerage is also not upfront, but Trail basis

All I look forward to some appreciation and trust. The majority of my investors do, and they have my gratitude

Request all. If you do not have patience, please do not invest in equity. For me Equity is the best asset class to generate wealth.

IT IS THE TIME THAT YOU SPEND IN THE EQUITIES MARKET AND NOT THE TIMING THAT CREATES WEALTH