Real assets and alternatives
8 articles
How to Calculate Rental-Property Cash Flow and Return
Annual rent divided by purchase price is the figure everyone quotes and it is not a return. Working out the real one takes an afternoon, and it usually changes what the owner thinks they own.
6 min read
How to Choose the Form of Gold for a Future Gold Purchase
Owning gold and owning the thing the gold is for are not the same, and the gap between them is made of costs. The form to hold depends entirely on what the gold has to become.
6 min read
A Financial Checklist Before Renting Out a Property
Letting a flat is not a passive income arrangement. It is a small operating business with a tenant, a legal relationship and a maintenance liability, and most of what goes wrong is decided before anyone moves in.
5 min read
Should Gold Be Part of a Long-Term Portfolio?
Whether gold belongs in a portfolio is a question about the whole portfolio, not about whether gold has gone up — and most of the arguments made for holding it fail before any data even enters the picture. Run here on real Indian data for the first time: what a modest gold allocation has actually done to a portfolio's returns and its falls, what a gold allocation would need to be for beyond that, and why the popular arguments for it are not arguments.
8 min read
How Global Gold Prices and the Rupee Affect Gold in India
The gold price an Indian buyer pays is three things multiplied together and several more added on. Knowing which one moved explains most of what looks mysterious about it.
7 min read
What Risks Do Peer-to-Peer Lending Investors Take?
A platform offering several times a deposit rate is not offering a better deposit. It is offering a different product, and the difference is the risk of not being repaid.
5 min read
The Financial Risks and Hidden Costs of Real-Estate Investing
Property is the asset households understand best and measure worst. The gap between what it appears to return and what it actually returns is made up of costs that never appear in the story anyone tells about it.
7 min read
What Risks Does a Gold Investment Carry?
Gold feels safe because it is solid, familiar and has been valuable for a very long time. None of those properties is a financial one, and the risks it carries are specific enough to list.
6 min read