Talkback

Stock Recommendations

Every new year, I look forward to the cover story on stock recommendations. The Hunt For Value, in January 2024 issue, listed some of the bellwether stocks, such as SBI, Infosys and Maruti Suzuki, as well as some of the relatively new ones on the block, such as Lemon Tree and Harsha Engineers. Overall, they seem to provide a nice bouquet across market caps. The illustrations, India Riding On Modi Wave and Election Market Dynamics were very informative and interesting. It highlighted a very crucial facet of the way market sentiments react when a stable government is in place. Of course, macroeconomic events, like the US Fed rate cuts and oil prices also have an impact on market movements.

Pragyan Thakur, email

Save Early

The article, Why Is It Important To Start Planning For Retirement Early? (January 2024 issue), perfectly illustrates the compounding benefit one reaps in if one starts saving early. Not only is the amount needed to build a corpus much lesser, even the overall corpus accumulated at the time of one’s retirement at age 60 much larger as illustrated in the graphic Start Early, Save Less.

Kasturi Das, email

Mis-Selling Insurance

Games Agents Play To Mis-sell Ulips (January 2024 issue) perfectly explained the rampant mis-selling of unit-linked insurance plans (Ulips) by insurance agents who beguile consumers with all kind of gimmicks to sell these insurance plans under the guise that they will fetch them market-linked returns. The key is to remain informed and never mix insurance with investment. I think one should go for pure term plans to cover life, a dedicated health plan that covers critical illness and make investment separately in a mix of debt, equity and other asset classes in accordance with one’s requirements.

Abhishek Singh, email

Smart Budgeting

I am 22 years old and recently started working. I end up spending a huge amount of my salary on miscellaneous expenses, such as eating out, movies and so on, and often have to either resort to revolving my credit card payments, or seek money from my parents. The budgeting article in January 2024 issue, How To Manage Income And Expenses, was helpful and could go a long way in enlightening youngsters like me on how to manage their monthly budgets and save and invest for their future. I have an endowment policy that I now realise I was mis-sold. I plan to take a term insurance policy and a health policy, although I have the latter provided by my office.

Kartik Rath, email