Staying invested in the markets in the post covid period is the biggest strategy that went right Swaroop Mohanty“It always does,” Director and CEO, Mirae Asset Investment Managers (India), in his conversation with Mint as part of our annual series on the personal finance journey of financial services industry leaders said. Two years ago, when Mint reached out to him, he was looking at increasing his equity allocation.
Equity Debt Rijigo
Today, after the stock market rally, his portfolio is skewed towards equities – 70% in equities and 25% in debt. The rest is in physical gold which he inherited from his family. While he thinks the markets are looking good, all of his recent investments are in debt. It is on track to bring down its equity-debt allocation to the prescribed 60:40. “Without getting bogged down in emotion, review and rebalance your portfolio every year or two,” says Mohanty, a firm believer in asset allocation.
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Mohanty has also ventured into alternative assets as a small investment in two start-ups. But, a major part of his money is invested with his employer: 85% of his money is invested in the schemes of Mirae Asset MF.
When asked about his choice between large, mid and small-cap segments, Mohanty has this to say, “I am a crazy retirement kitty person as I do not have a pension. Given my main retirement goal, I have a portfolio return requirement of 11-12%. For this I don’t need to take small cap risk.”
Mohanty’s exposure is only in large and midcap stocks. mutual fund way. He does not invest directly in shares. However, he is an avid investor in thematic funds. He is positive on the banking he expects to play in the next 3-4 years.
Debt-ridden Mohanty feels that with interest rates hiked, if he can come up with the longer term now, he should be fine for the next rate cycle. In the last one year, he has added short duration funds to his portfolio instead of longer duration. In addition, he plans to increase his investment in international equities to 20% of his total portfolio from the current 10-11%. Many times he wanted to buy at a lower price but could not. They believe that low exposure to international equities may affect their portfolio returns to some extent.
life after covid
Mohanty has kept his six months’ expenses in a liquid fund as his emergency fund. The impressive equity gains in the last two years have also provided them some comfort. One of the major buffers he made over the past year was to significantly increase the medical insurance coverage for himself and his family.
At the end of the day, she feels that knowing the difference between needs and wants, and realizing that life could be comfortable without many of these needs, has helped her rework her expenses. His extra savings went into increasing his mutual fund SIP.
advice to investors
According to Mohanty, the first thing you should ask yourself is why are you investing? When setting goals, you may feel that the goals themselves may be unrealistic given your income and time frame. Once these are set, you can choose where to invest based on your risk appetite.