Think, Understand and Then Invest
University Institute of Applied and Management Sciences(UIAMS), Panjab University organised expert session on Financial empowerment through wealth creation jointly with Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI).
The keynote address was given by Sh. Suryakant Sharma, Senior Consultant AMFI. He highlighted the importance of financial security for individuals and emphasized on sustained investments. He advised the investors to first think and ensure adequate life insurance, reasonable medical insurance cover and an emergency fund before embarking upon the journey of wealth creation. He then made a vehement plea for regular savings and increase of savings every year minimum by 10%. Emphasising on need for wealth creation for prosperity, he advised the investors to not be a money accumulator but also be a wealth creator which only would make them comfortable with regard to their money needs for their milestones in life. He then advised participants that they should look at real return and not on notional return as inflation and tax liability substantially takes away major portion of notional return. He cautioned participants that most of the investments except in governmental schemes have risk but risk can be managed by simple formula – Think, understand and invest. He also emphasized the need to have financial planning of their families in place for focused investment and also the need for practicing rule of compounding in investments for higher return in long run. He then shared basic information on various investment avenues available in the market. Shri Sharma cautioned general investor not to enter into securities market directly as there are inherent risks in the market and unless the investor have sound knowledge of market, sectors, economy, international economy etc. he should desist from entering into the market directly. At the end, he emphatically cautioned participants not to invest their hard earned money on the advice of others including agents and never never in unregulated fund mobilisation schemes – Ponzi scheme, chit funds and committees etc. – which give assurance for higher and quick return at the beginning but ultimately vanish with the hard earned money of investors. Not so affluent class of investors are more susceptible to such allurement and we all have a social responsibility to make them aware about the menace of such schemes and impress upon them not to invest their money in such schemes.
After this, Sh. G.B. Singh, SBI Mutual Funds highlighted various mutual fund options which can help in building corpus. It was followed by a question answer session. Participants asked lot of questions on personal finance which were satisfactorily answered by the experts. Prof. Monika Aggarwal, Director, UIAMS extended a formal welcome to the speakers and at the end of the program Ms. Garvita and Mr. Sahil K Sharma proposed the votes of thanks.
