There is clearly a wild rush towards equity, some are doing this out of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out), whereas some are left with no other choice given relative unattractiveness of hitherto popular asset classes of Bank Deposits, Real Estate and Gold. The magnitude of this irrational exuberance can be gauged by reading chats in  some whatsapp groups, comments on investing blogs or discussion forums like MMB (one such snapshot shared at the end of this short post).

Stalwart Advisors doesn’t have a sales team (& hence no sales target or incentive to mis-sell). Rather we have transparently put all the information on our website and let investors decide for themselves. If prospects contact us over email or telephone, we also ask lot of questions to gauge whether they are ready or not, and accordingly counsel them.

Yet, there have been instances when prospects simply sign up for the research advisory online without reading properly or talking to us. We had written a post sometime back to help new entrants set right expectations ‘Indian Markets at Cross Roads‘, but FOMO often leads to irrational behaviour.

We are now adding one more sanity check for prospects before they sign up – a 10-point checklist “Am I Ready?”

Whether you are a new investor or old, whether you are investing yourself or through an advisor, we believe it will be a good idea to go through this checklist:

Disclaimer: Some of the above points are thumb rules for a healthy personal finance. Consult a financial advisor for a personalised and comprehensive financial plan. Stalwart Advisors provide a model portfolio only for direct equity investing.

Sharing one of those scary comments we saw on some investing blog, in addition to numerous mails and comments we receive everyday: