Safeguard against demat account fraud

It would appear that 'temporary' use of clients' holdings is quite common. Obviously, being able to use other people's money is a great temptation and quite hard to resist! Investors need to remain vigilant as unscrupulous brokers intent on cheating with the recent ones.

A lot of investors, like me, are just interested in buying stocks against full payment and holding them for months and years. I can't understand why such investors have to sign over power of attorney rights to their investments to brokers.


I could set up things in such a way that I might be able to trade in equities without giving the broker the power of attorney. What should be the default offered to new investors is actually secret knowledge that is carefully obscured and is only discoverable with some effort!


If you do not give PoA to anyone, you are the sole operator of your demat account.
This is the safest way i.e. by transferring the shares manually to the broker's personal demat account:

Buy this option  is not practical in online trading. If you sell the share today, you have to transfer the share to the broker's demat account by next working day so that he can deliver them to the buyer. If you fail to do that, it is broker's obligation to provide the shares to the buyer. If can the share doesn't reach to the broker in-time, he has to buy them from the market and settle the transaction. This may result in penalties to you. You also have to pay the difference in the prices.

With this crirsis hopeful SEBI will come up with polices that will help to overcome the above hurdle.

Don't Just Stand There

Got overweight during secondary section part of  school life.

Finally during college days ( 20 yr ) I went to fitness centre at hometown to move out of the sedentary lifestyle , after having high uric acid level and pain in knees 

Simple stretching and exercise on coming months with a healthy food choice I lost 13 kg ( from 66 - 53). For the next 2 year I kept balancing with the final year study and exercise. Even it gave me the confidence to compete for SSC exam . Lethargy is no excuse.

Years passed as I moved to city life for job , tried to be regular going to gym and got roommates who inspired not to give up of fitness. 

I registered for 10k run on Dec'2012 but did not turn up for the race.

Subsequntly again I registered for 10k runs on 2015 & 2016  but did not turn up.

Transformation isn't just about losing weight. Transformation can be about so much more. 

It took 30 years to complete my first 5k run cum walk. Sometimes it's the internal transformation that is its own best reward.

The desire to explore yourself is one of the most basic instincts of the human nature. It is therapeutic and the ultimate source to find your zen.

2017 onwards, gratitude for the small successes kept pushing me to particpate more 5k , 10k races.

The more you can focus on what you're doing right, the more confident and energised you'll be to keep on going.You can't beat yourself over the finish line folks. You've got to learn to truly love yourself unconditionally and keep on encouraging yourselves to grow in the right direction.

It works like an antithesis where you compete with yourself and success leaves you in want of more.

As we progress in life, creating milestones and achieving them, we should not forget our gratitude to everyone who has been instrumental in making our lives easier, even if in a small way.

My first fitness instructor Rishi Da will keep inspring me always. 

In this journey I keep meeting  and always keen on learning from the various trainers.

Fitness is the ability to keep going on when others have surrendered a long time back.

We also need to remember that our existence on this planet is finite.

Do whatever makes your body flexible and lighter .Be selfish and take out time every day for yourself.

Certainly this has been my long, slow journey.

Train, eat, recover and repeat! Do that repeatedly — day after day — and that's how you'll be able to imbibe real fitness in your life , Don't Just Stand There !!

Income – Savings = Expenses

The most common mistake people make is planning to save with the wrong formula Income - Expenses = Savings

We have to forcefully save money and manage expenses in the balance amount left.

But a prior allocation to saving is what we should opt for.Clear financial goals and proper planning helps in saving too. Another disruption we see that hinders our saving is Lifestyle Infaltion.

Lifestyle inflation means the increase in one's spending in proportion to an increase in income. In short, salaries have gone up, spendings have gone up and savings have gone down.

There is no harm in buying materialistic things but that has to be within limits.Learn to differentiate between what you fancy and what you need.

Remember, 'SALE' means the company wants to make a sale; it's for them, not for you.

Just like humans binge on food when they are depressed, they also tend to shop for instant gratification. which is just temporary. In the present economic turmoil, please do not fall into this trap.

Once you start maintaining an expense sheet on monthly basis, you will automatically tend to be more cautious while spending.

50/30/20 rule : Resolution to make a difference

From the perspective of long-term financial well-being, sticking to a financial plan is important.

Budgeting is always a challenging task with a three way pull between necessities, luxuries or wants and investing for financial security.

Senator Elizabeth Warren popularised the '50/20/30 budget rule' (sometimes labelled '50-30-20') in her book, All Your Worth: The Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan (originally published in 2005).

According to this thumb rule:

50 percent of the earnings after tax should be used towards necessities.
30 percent of the money should be spent on luxuries or wants / desires.
20 percent money should be saved and invested towards your financial goals.

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ELSS or PPF?

Nayana is a young banking professional. It's the last quarter of the financial year and she is trying to figure out tax-saving options under Section 80C. Her father has suggested investing in the Public Provident Fund (PPF). However, her adviser recommends investing in Equity Linked Saving Schemes (ELSS) instead.
Her father is worried about this as he has never explored anything beyond PPF. He derives comfort from the fact that it is a fixed income oriented investment, guaranteed by ..

Nayana and her father have to understand that tax-saving investments should not be looked at from a tax saving perspective alone. We are talking about Rs. 1.5 lakh of her hard-earned money, which she has the option of investing year after year. There is no reason not link it to one of her long-term goals like saving for retirement, buying a house and the like.

Investing in a fixed income product like PPF will restrict her returns. With inflation hovering around 6%, her real rate of return is only 2-3% with PPF. Such low returns will prevent any major gains accruing over a long period of time.

ELSS actively invests in the equity markets, with a potential to earn higher returns than traditional savings options like PPF. In fact, if Nayana's father had invested in ELSS instead of PPF 15 years ago, his investments in equity would have grown to Rs. 61 lakh as against Rs. 29 lakh in PPF.

If risk is what Nayana's father is worried about, risk of loss in equity tends to reduce over the long term and tax-saving investments under Section 80C are usually for the long term. Hence, ELSS fits the bill. Moreover, ELSS will effectively be a tax-free investment (EEE) for Nayana
The investment gives deduction up to Rs. 1.5 lakh and both dividend as well as redemption proceeds are exempt from tax. Nayana also gets better liquidity with ELSS' lowest lock-in period of 3 years, should she feel the need to redeem the investment for some reason. To top it all, she can do a monthly SIP, which means every month she invests Rs. 12,500 instead of bunching everything up at the year end.

Therefore, Nayana must refrain from allocating funds towards tax-saving options the way her father did. Instead, she should weigh the pros and cons and aim for more with ELSS, instead of getting stuck with fixed income-oriented investments like PPF