E8: The only way to get Rich- Stories from across the World

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In the eighth edition of Insider Investing, our co-founder Sandeep Jethwani welcomes Purav Shah who's a founding team member at dezerv., and is leading our global investing practice. In this episode we discuss how investor behaviour differs in India vs abroad, potential biases to avoid, building better investing habits and strategies for long term wealth creation.

Tune in to learn how the information overload is affecting our decisions around money, the importance of diversification & staying invested for uninterrupted compounding, and how only one percent of traders beat FD return. Don't miss the interesting anecdotes like the story of Rick Guerin, why we should have a pact with ourselves when it comes to our money, and how Warren Buffet made most of his wealth in the last decades.

Episode Transcript

Introduction

Hi, welcome to a special episode of insider investing. In this episode, I talked to Purav Shah, who's at the founding team at dezerv. and handles our global investing practice. In his previous life, Purav worked on wall street with JP Morgan and UBS, and I've also had the pleasure and privilege of working together very closely with him In my previous life.

In this show, we talk about the differences between trading and investing. The interesting story of Rick Guerin, why we should have a pact with ourselves when it comes to our money and why asset class selection impacts our dreams much more than we think.

Sandeep:

Hi Purav, It's good to have you on the insider investing show. You know, we've been thinking about doing this for a very long time. I was actually very intrigued when we were actually going through your background and trying to set this up. We've had very different journeys. You worked in private banking and managed money for the wealthiest individuals in the United States, and I've done it here in India.

And sometimes it's also exciting to understand what are the big differences that you see culturally in how people manage their money. Tell us a little bit about the move from. The U S to India, how did it happen? And what sort of contrasts did you see with your investors in the U S?

Purav:

Hey Sandeep, super excited to be on this channel, and happy to be part of the dezerv journey along with you and Sahil and Vaibhav.

So, you know, I started my journey almost 16, 17 years back when I was in the US and  after my graduation, I landed up working with some of the big private banking firms in NY. It was a very exciting time in my career because I was always true to work on wall street and, wanting to work for some of the wealthiest clients with premier banking.

Sandeep:

From the Big Bull, how far was your office? 

Purav:

We had multiple offices and we had one on the Avenues of America, which is sixth avenue. and Then we had our headquarters on the other side of the river in New Jersey. So we kind of used to hop on, hop off between different offices within New York and New Jersey, but we are not that far, you know, from Midtown to downtown, it wasn't that far.

What was interesting about working with some of the premier private banking firms and some of the largest clients was that, weworked very diligently in terms of preparing for pitches. So I was on the investment advisory side and I would,  along with the rest of the team, work for many weeks preparing recommendations for the clients, right?

Which involves us talking to several analysts within the firms globally as well. And then you go present the plan to the clients. The meetings go maybe one time, two times, you know, that time zoom and Google Meet was not really that widely used. In fact, I didn't even know about zoom when I was in the US back 16 years.

So it was all personal meetings and, you know, once we met with the clients and they fall forward with the recommendation. The journey went pretty smooth from there because it was whether on a quarterly basis or semi-annually we had touch points, but we really talked more about that goals and aspirations.

You know, like if someone was starting a brand new business, we check with them if they needed a loan or financing, right. Or something as simple as maybe the daughters made it to the soccer team or something. Right. These were very, very fluid and open conversations and it was less about portfolio because we were.

Do actually annual reviews. And when I joined these banks, I found out that we were doing annual reviews. I was really surprised that How do we just review with clients on an annual basis? I mean, yeah, they get their statements, they get the quarterly notes, et cetera. But, how do we review the portfolio annual basis?

And the simple answer to that was that clients didn't care on a month to month or a quarter to quarter, year to date basis. They cared about long term. Even when you showed them our performance reporting for the reviews, we looked at three or five-year numbers for returns. It didn't matter what month over month the investment had moved.

SANDEEP:

Wait, you wouldn't get calls from clients asking you to talk about the portfolio. What happened in the last week and how things were, what has changed in the portfolio in the last one month? And so on that wouldn't happen. 

Purav:

We would get calls if they had any nervousness in the market and they wanted to know what really happened.

Forced them to say, okay, let's open my portfolio. Let's dissect it. Let's see where I'm falling short or where I'm doing better. No, it was more about just trying to understand what is happening in the market. So, a good example is that in 2013, when the fed was consistently increasing interest rates, we call the taper tantrum and obviously the equity markets were underperforming that time.

Yes, clients called us to ask what's going on in the market. And when we explained to them that, you know, there is a tightening happening from the Fed, which is, might be happening to SU it might be creating pressures on liquidity in the market. They understood. But then they also knew that, you know, they were invested for long-term and they didn't want to just look that as an isolated event to make any irrational changes to the portfolio.

And Sandeep when I came to India about three and a half, four years back, I was in a completely different industry.  you know,  when I was working on the product side, always meeting with clients all the time with you with,  other members of, the previous firm, there were a lot of touch points with the clients.

In fact, forget meeting the client first, even in terms of our investment, We looked at it week over week basis, month over month basis. What happened? What were the reasons, et cetera. And then when it came to client, you had to talk through them, why suddenly certain portfolios were down or certain funds were down on a month over month basis.

And the number of calls, I mean, you know, I was able to reach all my clients in the U S in, in annually in a very, very easy fashion without having to really struggle trying to get on the calendar, because it was. Probably once a year, right. It made it a lot more simpler for us to do that concise, then a conversation and review of the portfolios on an annual basis.

And there was a stark contrast when I came to India. 

Sandeep:

Thats interesting to know, because you know, we've always worked in India, worked with. I'll drop all the clients in India. And this has been probably the nature of the game that you are actively in touch. You are making extra, the portfolio periodically, and you're communicating very, very actively and possibly it's because of the majority of the market.

Also, in some sense, In the U S potentially people have been in the money for a longer period of time. Here in India, we are seeing formal private banking also be around for very, very short period. I would say like barely two decades of real private banking that has been happening in India. And, but sometimes, you know, when you think about Indian clients, I think it's not also universal.

I remember early on when I started my career. You know, there is this place in Bombay. You're probably familiar with it. It's called the Dadar Parsi Colony, or one time I happened to get on a cold call with somebody and this gentle Parsi old lady agreed to give me time of day and she agreed to meet me. And when I went to her house, this was literally a two bedroom apartment that probably had not been sort of refurbished for the last two to three decades.

And, we got talking about investing. I was asking her to invest in mutual funds. We invest in stocks, et cetera. And the only thing she told me that she hadn't done anything quite actively but Her dad used to do investing when he was around and he had made some investments and they are lying in a cupboard and she was kind enough to say that, okay, I'll show them to you and you can tell me what we can do off them.

And this was the time before really the, the whole demat boom happened when or demanding was not compulsory back then. And that's, this just reminds me how old I am, but, she brought out those papers, shares this word shares of, what was then called TELCO now Tata Motors. TISCO now called Tata steel. And, we just started putting down the numbers on a piece of paper and I thought something looked amiss to me.

So I said, you know, I'll make a note of these things and I'll come back to you. In a few days, I went back to office and I actually put down the numbers on an Excel sheet because what I thought I was making a mistake sitting in front of her was that I was overestimating the value of these shares. But when I put it onto an Excel sheet, I realized that this was worth 24, 25 crores of papers.

And literally like in a small file in a rickety Goldbridge cupboard, there are the Intel's worth 25 grows, and I'm not even sure whether she knew that she had 25 crores worth of stock. And really possibly the only reason she could make that kind of wealth is because she was not actively looking at it.

And to your point. You know, she probably didn't look at it for them for a couple of years. And, where's your clients in the US would also not look at it for maybe a year or two years till the time you will ping them and say that it's time to do a review.

Purav:

Yeah. So Sandeep that you're absolutely right about this, I think what also made them calmer in terms of the response to several market events was that trust with the institution.

Right? So the tone we are dealing with your advisor, the institution, the type of analysts that work behind the scenes for you, you kind of feel that sense of confidence and responsibility that someone has taken for you and that they really appreciate it. So they knew that someone was working behind the scenes for them, for them.

That they didn't have to constantly keep looking at their portfolios. 

Sandeep:

Yeah, I think that's an excellent point. I think a lot of times we are forced into a position where we have to analyze things when we do not believe that the person handling our affairs is really up to mark and, really therefore for us at dezerv, it's been very important to ensure that Strong domain experts actually handling money for our clients. So the team which is handling asset classes, For example, have been people who've been doing it for a couple of decades. You, on the other hand, are handling our global investing practice. I've been doing it clearly for more than a few decades, similarly private equity, credit evaluation.

So having deep expertise I think is very critical and potentially something that Indian wealth managers or People who advise clients on their money have to potentially do and create those ecosystems. Yeah. And the other thing, Purav I now also look at it in contrast to the time when we were there, we were in private banking and now when we started in private banking and now is the amount of information and data, which is being thrown at people right. 

Today you have CNBC, Bloomberg, live information. The tickers are scrolling, you know, every time there's a market fall, all the channels are falling over themselves to pull attention of the user. So you will see terms like bloodbath and, you know, from blood on the floor and those kinds of terminologies being pulled at you.

Then you have social media, which is  Twitter. Suddenly now you start getting, you know, updates on your feed. Yeah, about what is happening to the markets. And then there is WhatsApp. Like, you know, I have like, I have friends in private banking who send me almost hourly updates on what has happened in the markets.

Isn't this also in some sense, contributing to the extra thinking that clients are being asked to do, because suddenly you're being put in a position where you're being thrown news at and you naturally have to react to it. Right. 

Purav:

I agree with you, the rampant access to information today through social media for news channels, even talking to friends at parties, right.

Discussing your portfolios. It's so funny. I mentioned to you the other day, nothing against, um, you know, my,  the guy who works for me, you know, my driver, but,  he mentioned that the stock markets are doing fantastic. I mean, that's the comment that he raised. I mean, this is a guy who's not invested in the markets at all, but apparently he gets information from some of his colleagues or whatever. And he mentioned to me that the stock, like I said in, is great. So this is really that, that point where like, you know, every one gets so much information, whether it's relevant to you or not. And then what happens is let's talk about it. Sandeep that when 15 years back. How many asset classes were there in India today?

Right? 20 or 15 years back. People talk about real estate goals, maybe a little bit about equity, mostly fixed. Okay. We got more than nine plus asset classes, thousands of investments. So there's so much information and so much universe that exists. People are bound to be confused. They don't know what to invest in.

And when you just invest it for three months in something where you heard about it, and then you realize that suddenly something that's just doing much better. I mean, let's talk about crypto as a great example. Like, you know, you just bought your Bitcoin and suddenly if  Etherium is up people are very, very excited to actually get out of Bitcoin and maybe more to something else which has just gone up because there's so much information and so much, so many choices available.

Sandeep:

Yeah, I agree. And also like reacting to those choices is something that you inherently enjoy. Right. And, you know, I did this, piece a few weeks ago and recently I was also reading a James Clear talk about how we are congenitally engineered to react to situations, you know, and you know, probably if you would go back to the time of our ancestors, there will be times when we will be in the jungle and we would have to react to the roar of a tiger or you know, slide off a snake and stuff like that. And new mentally are tuned to constantly being absorbing that information and reacting to it. When it comes to investing, you have to actually control that urge. So it's almost this primal urge that we have to act that we have to pull back on to become great investors.

We talk about all of these guys like Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger. And the key thing about them is. You know, long-term is really long. It's not even like a few years. It's been a couple of decades, you know, how do you think we should think about that? Because here we have this primal urge on one side and we all know sort of what is right for the long-term.

Yeah. And Sandeep, we bring up a great point about Warren buffett, for example. Right. A lot of people think that, oh, I mean, you know, I mean, yes, he's a very successful businessman investor. Who's made a ridiculous model of wealth, but if you look at the history. Most of his wealth did not come in his prime years.

It came in the last couple of decades. And when we talk about long-term investing and deep,  you know, in terms of your time horizon, you have to be in that sense, be very focused, right? Because maybe those returns or that success will come down the road. You know, he didn't think when he started his journey that he's going to be a multi-billionaire; he never had that vision, right.

That he's going to be a multiple billionaire. All he knew was that he wanted to invest in good stocks for a long time. So, 

Sandeep:

yeah, absolutely. I think 85% of his wealth, like you hinted at, got created after he was 65, which is the time you would probably retire in India. Right. But if you also like, think about situations that have been happening around us, we are seeing that the average holding period of a stock in the U S markets is down.

Potentially 12 years down to like barely five months. Right. And that is indicative of the fact that people are being encouraged to trade. A lot of it is probably because it's so easy to do. And on the other side, there is this gamification of instruments or gamification of applications that is happening.

And you know, when you talk about Warren buffett, the one interesting thing I read recently is this story of this gentleman called Rick Guerin, who was, who I didn't know, and was the third partner of Warren buffett and Charlie Munger. He started off with them,  started building Berkshire Hathaway, and he was potentially, therefore, as smart as the other two guys, in fact, Warren says that he was smarter than the two of us.

The only difference was that this guy was into trading and margin trading at that. And then one time came where his margins probably blew through the roof and he had to put in more money and he had to sell his Berkshire Hathaway stock to Warren and Charlie Munger. And as they say, the rest is history, right? So this trading thing is not really working out for people. 

Yeah, no. Which is true. I mean, you, you even take a note from, what, India's most popular broking house has come out and recently online broking as a commodity recently said that less than 1% of the people are traders actually make more money than the fixed.

You know, 

That's incredible. That's, you know, the other way to think about it, 99% of people actually do not make money equal to fixed deposits and fixed deposit rates today. So you think about what kind of returns they are making. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, the other thing is also is not trading is not easy, right?

It's not, it's not something that you say that, okay. I will, besides my. Trade in stocks and trading asset classes, buy and sell debt, et cetera. It's a full-time commitment. And then it, with it, it brings a lot of stress like I have seen, and you've seen much better than me. People really like to go through a hell of a lot of stress when it comes to their trading positions.

Imagine like you're, you're this trader you're coasting along nicely. And Out of the blue COVID hits. And before you know, it, your portfolio is down 70, 80% because it's probably leveraged. And then you make shorting a margin, figuring out borrowing from your wife and stuff like that. Is this really, is this worth it?

If the returns are just not there around it? Yeah, 

Purav:

no, absolutely. And, and, and, and, you know,  history actually tells you. That, see, I completely agree that why traders and the market, because they have a certain mandate from their investors, right. That they need to do certain types of strategies, which is what they are in the market.

But,  at the same time,  if you look at the time horizon of what people have bought,  held for a long time, even if you look at it,  just before the global financial crisis, and if you held it all the way through the years, you would have still done better than a trader or then a fixed. And that's the biggest market always towards long-term investment, right?

Sandeep:

Yeah. I think that the fact that compounding is really a wonder in it. It's so hard to explain compounding, right? You just only have to experience it because when somebody tells you that, you know, this money will grow at the rate of 12%, a lot of people don't get excited with a number of 12%. But the other way of saying it is that your money will double in six years.

You're like, okay, wait a minute. That sounds like a good idea. If I put five lacks and it will become 10 lakhs in six years, it's a great return for me. And actually it's really the same thing, right? It's that rule of 72, where you actually see that the return of 12% delivered consistently over a period of time will mean that your money will match.

But when it comes to our money, we don't have that horizon. Like you, there isn't one thing that you and I discussed as patterns about how we think about kids' education, right? You and I both are thinking about how to prepare our kids for that particular university, that in the U S that we want to send them to.

But when it comes to their money, we think very differently. 

Purav:

And that is how generally the population thinks, right. They plan for all their goals, whether it's wedding, buying a house, or making the foreign trip, whatever they want to do. Right.  but one thing they don't realize is that for meeting all those goals, you will need to have money waiting for you at that period of time.

Sandeep:

And so have you planned for that, right? Yeah. So what is really this long-term thing? Like when you were in the U S and you would ask folks to think about what tenure are they giving you money for? What is like the app, the normal response that you would get from your clients? Like what people say one or two years as long-term, or would they have like different horizons around what they perceive as being long-term?

Purav:

No, I think for people long-term really may that something that they didn't have. Look at the balances daily, right? That was one of the ways they looked at it.  long-term meant was that when we asked them the question when they actually were profiling them or, trying to get them into the system,  and when we go through the different objectives, the two most important questions, and we asked them was what was the risk tolerance?

Meaning how much volatility can they,  fathom through the years? And also what was that time horizon? They were willing to hold it in. So someone who was short-term had clear objectives that he needed the liquidity, but people, when they said long-term for them, it meant like a full market cycle, which was like seven plus years.

Basically. That is what long-term meant for people that generally that I'm willing to hold my invest in seven plus years, because that's what means to me, long-term that I'm willing to hold my investments for a full market cycle. And that is how we really work with our clients back then. 

Sandeep:

That's amazing because you know, sometimes we are conditioned to think of long-term in a certain way, like in India or an instrument, or especially on the equity side becomes long-term after one year for tax purposes.

And sometimes we conflate that with what is the long term for the portfolio. We ended up believing that more than one year is long-term. Whereas like you said, it's possibly one market cycle on. And in most cases, it's like seven to eight years in some cases. And I really love the fact that you said that you don't, you would get people to sign on the mandate because it's almost like a pact that you're creating with yourself.

You are saying that I am signing up for staying invested for the long-term and every time. I I think about the money that I've invested. I think about whether I have crossed that time period or not. And it sort of reminds me of the story of this in a Greek story of this guy called Ulysses who had to tie himself up voluntarily so that he wouldn't get distracted by the sounds of the silence and stay focused on getting through the journey.

And sometimes I think probably we also need a pact with ourselves as. 

Purav:

No, you're absolutely right. Sunday. So that back made it very important. And that was the very first foundation of getting the clients indoor. Right. We had to absolutely make sure that they had signed that back, which is to understand what their risk tolerance was and what, for how many years they were willing to hold it investments for the task.

It was very important. And when they actually signed the piece of paper, because that DocuSign was not really in the limelight, but that time when they did sign the piece of. You know, they actually made a pact with that and they, most of the time they stick to those,   those,  mandates that,  that they signed them.

Sandeep:

Yeah. And the best example is, as you once told me, and I didn't come up with this in many ways, right? So I hope sumi is not listening to this, but the fact is that we are in it. We go through ups and downs, but we are committed to it because we signed up for something,  right at the, at the variable.

But the other thing, the other really interesting point that you brought up with a puller was the fact that for you long-term is that pool of money that you don't need to look at the current value. Sure. And that to me is like a very powerful concept. Like you, you only, therefore, look at what you can control, which is the amount of money that you invested in it.

And the time that you held onto it as investors, we don't have control on. The number it will reflect today. Morning. Can I get up tomorrow morning and say, I want my portfolio to be worth 11 lachs won't happen. Right. All I can control is one. How long can I invest? And secondly, how much will I invest?

Purav:

That's true. 

Absolutely as you said, there are only two choices available to you when you get into the market. And everything else that happens in between it's completely out of your control and which is why clients delegate these responsibilities to experts because they manage the ups and the lows, right?

Sandeep:

Yeah, absolutely. And when you talk about experts Purav, there's this other fag. Investing is not only about equities, right? There are multiple different asset classes and they perform differently over different points of time. Just talk a little bit about why you think we should have diversified portfolios because that's the common question that we get, we are on the back of a very strong bull run on the equities market right now when it comes to my long-term money. Why shouldn't I just put that, all of that into equity and just forget about it. Why should I even care for fixed income international equity gold? And other such instruments when I can just probably put it into equities and just sleep over it.

Purav:

Sure. And also people always think about equities more because that is what flashes in front of the eyes. Most of the time, it's all about markets. You just talk about the Sensex, the nifty, the S and P 500. But what people fail to see is that no two asset classes, when you take bonds or stocks on a year-over-year basis, they perform the same.

Let's take a good example of 2018, for instance. That was a bad year because globally the fed was tightening interest rates very quickly and equities on under performance generally globally. And the best performing asset class was cash, actually money market instruments, and that cash would be the best performing asset class globally.

In 2018, you look at 2013 post 2013. After the fed started tightening the real estate REITs investments. What the best performing asset class for the next two. And this is what happens because we are always in a cycle. Every asset class goes through its own cycle. Equities follows, the economic cycle bond has its own cycle. Bonds has their own cycle

You know, currencies are more volatile and more fluid in terms of how they trade basis on demand and supply. So there is constantly, always this, cycle or cyclical factor that exists for different assets. And they work at their own pace and for their own merits. Right. And which is why we always try to look at what correlation exists between these asset classes.

Right. How they behave with each other when equities are going higher, most likely bonds are underperforming, but there'll be a year when bonds are over-performing or outperforming your equity. Equities will be underperforming. Yeah. 

Sandeep:

Yeah. And there's a philosophical point there, right?

Because you cant put your dreams or your aspirations on hold. Just because one asset class, which is equity, didn't do well in a particular year. You have to get to a certain point. And therefore, even with integrated portfolios, the objective that we've had has been to,  have uncorrelated asset classes in the portfolio so that we are able to deliver performance consistently over a period of time.

And that consistency of performance, It's key to compounding, right? Because it's not important to get 20% return  in one year and be down 10%. The next year. It's more important to get 10 to 12% consistently on your money for a long period of time, because that's really when the money compounds. The other thing I see is that, you know, sometimes when we go in for very aggressive portfolios or only one asset class portfolios, the volatility or the downside in the portfolio increases significantly.

And, when, when that particular asset class is not doing. And that then causes us to break out of our investing journey. I've had, you know, I remember, the time of 2008, when really coming on the back of 2004 to 2007, a huge bull run had happened in the markets. You know, everyone had practically started allocating money only to equities and at the bottom of 2008, when the Lehman crisis happened into early 2009, a lot of investors came back and said, Sandeep I made the mistake of my life.

I will never put money into equities. 'cause they lost, like, I remember Kotak stock. I think if I'm not wrong, it was down like 90% from, and you think about that, that number just blows your mind. Like how can a stock, like Kotak Mahendra bank, which is a bank established well-run, et cetera, be down 90%, but it was, and then people who lost that money sort of swore to themselves that they will never invest into equities at that time.

And then through 2009, the rally that they missed was another. So getting the right asset allocation so that you don't lose money more than what you can tolerate is very important. 

Purav:

Correct Sandeep. And as you said, that the mix of bonds and gold in your portfolio, yes. It may not sound too sexy to you, right?

You own bonds of gold. They don't move much, but when times like you can't go and say, I have a good fund in my portfolio, right. People are talking about 

Bitcoins now, not really gold because they think that's the new goal, according to them. But when you have gold or bonds in your portfolio, when events like 2008 or 2020, When your portfolio is going down, you will, that downside you will have in your portfolio will be a lot less.

Then if you were to own a hundred percent equity, and Sandeep we also know that if you're down 50% in your equity, it doesn't take 50% to go back up. It takes a lot more than 50% to go back up. So having it doesn't double. Exactly. So, which is why having a board and bonds in your portfolio helps. Lower the downside.

And so that your recovery time to come back to breakeven is a lot shorter than owning a hundred percent equities. So I love the fact that , we do have a, for the most aggressive, we own bonds and gold. I think it's a very smart thing. Um, you're not selling sexy again, as I said, but I think it's that I think from the client's perspective.

Sandeep:

But the one thing I struggle about when it comes to our integrated portfolios is that we have gone out of our way to make them completely liquid, right. In the sense that you can exit them at any point. Whereas on the other side, you know, we see quantum of wealth being created. Then you can't break out of an instrument very easily, like think about real estate.

Okay. So if you, if you were to just put up now, you don't paper, the returns on real estate. Haven't been exciting. Okay. You'd probably made like six, seven, 8%,  even in a city like Bombay for the last 15, 20 years. But the reason people make a lot of money is because it's just so hard to see.Property, right?

You would just have to find a buyer, then do the process documentation, et cetera. Sometimes it falls off in that period. And then when you look at over a 10, 15 year period, you'll say like, oh my God, I made a lot of money. I put in 50 lakhs and became worth one crore. Isn't that exit barrier an important part of the joint?

Purav:

I think it's a very important part. Just knowing how the investor behavior works as of today. In the light of the amount of information and options available. I wish there were instruments where you could hold your liquid assets or market assets, but you're not allowed to break them for a long period of time.

You don't always talk to you about the retirement market in the U S which is so vibrant, right? From the time you get into your workstream, you invest into 401k plans and individual retirement accounts. They are called Iris because they are retired. And you can't break these until you actually retire.

You break them, you gotta pay a half hefty penalty on top of that, you pay taxes immediately on the entire corpus. So I feel sometimes having these instruments actually deters you from making those impulsive decisions that you otherwise would have made taking that. Let me just get out of this talk because I've made great money.

Let me go to the next one, try to chase that one, you know, these things, but what 

what happened? Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, I see this even in a lot of other instruments, especially with fund managers who bring in heavy exit loads, I've seen. Even the ultra wealthy clients, not exit out of those instruments.

And then we look at it five years later, like, oh, I made a lot of money. And the returns per se may not be exciting, whether you made a lot of capital simply because you couldn't exit it very easily. And having that like an exit barrier in many ways is important. So if, if we don't have the same things, like a Roth IRA or a 401k.

Potentially, we should create that exit barrier in our mind and break into that piggy bank only if it's an extreme situation. 

Purav:

You're spot on. I mean, yeah, it does have something similar called EPF, but the returns are, you know, you are, everyone gets the same size, kind of a fit all, you know, sort of an approach, right.

Versus in the foreign countries that you have, the retirement plans. They do let you take the risk as for your risk profile. Right? So if you want to be a hundred percent equity, you could be a hundred percent. Which I think is a fair game, because if an investor is willing to take that risk through his retirement, he should be allowed to, I hope that we can create something similar out here in India.

Maybe we can.

Sandeep:

Hopefully  it's early days for India and I'm quite confident that newer mechanisms will emerge for people to manage their money and really get well, meaningfully wealthy because you see a lot of people who actually made real wealth are people. Either by choice or by default couldn't exit their portfolio and therefore held onto it.

I think in some ways, entrepreneurship or working at a startup and getting ESOPs is a part of the same game rate. You're, it's not a very liquid asset you can buy and sell it and therefore you're holding it. You continue to work on a day-to-day basis. And then, you know, at some point that, or. Well,  quite a lot of what worries me therefore, is that right now on the other hand, is that a lot of us look up to people who we think are wealthy, but actually may not be, you know, you're suddenly the spate of people giving me advice on social media about what to do with my money, where in fact, we should be looking at people who really live the game like Warren buffett over a really long period of time.

Purav:

One thing I've learned, if anything, and, you know, I made my own mistakes as well. When I started my journey. I also tried to be pretty impulsive in the beginning . And, you know, try to cut corners and try to move between assets and asset classes, try to make the most, because, you know, I was a young guy at that time and, you know, I wanted to take advantage of what was available out there.

And we have so many people to listen to. Right. I mean, the fund that I worked at had 900 analysts. The sky's the limit, what you can listen to everyday. So I made my own mistakes and I've learned how I've suffered on my returns, but I did actually start following one of the guys, you know, during my early days.

And, you mentioned one thing was that if you had to look at your portfolio every day, meaning that you were not sleeping at night properly, if you're not having a good night's sleep. And that means you are not in the right mix. That means there's something wrong, either with your understanding of the type of portfolio or investment you have, the, both of them are not in sync with each other in which is what you have to make change to either you get your senses back to where it needs to be, or you change your portfolio to where you are able to sleep at night and can carry out your day-to-day task.

What would you use? You're doing your job. So that got me straightened that actually. And, since that time,  I've not actually looked back. 

Sandeep:

Yeah. I love that. You know, I, I genuinely do believe that there are smart people who invest, but the really smart people invest for the really long term. And that's potentially what I'm taking away today.

Purav, thank you so much. This was a great conversation. Hopefully in the subsequent episodes of insider investing, we'll talk more about different parts. Investing, and we lean into your global experience, but this has been an amazing conversation. Thank you!

Purav:

Same here Sandeep, thanks so much. I really enjoyed the conversation today.

Outro

We hope you enjoyed tuning in today. I've got some great takeaways. New episodes of this podcast come out every alternate Thursday. You can listen to the episode on our website or wherever else you listen to your podcasts. If you wish to reach out to us follow dezerv LinkedIn, or you can write to us at social@dezerv.in


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