{"id":22436,"date":"2021-12-09T12:31:08","date_gmt":"2021-12-09T07:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fundsindia.com\/blog\/?p=22436"},"modified":"2021-12-09T12:32:35","modified_gmt":"2021-12-09T07:02:35","slug":"are-you-carrying-the-baggage-of-past-mistakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fundsindia.com\/blog\/mf-research\/are-you-carrying-the-baggage-of-past-mistakes\/22436","title":{"rendered":"Are you carrying the baggage of past mistakes?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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This article was originally published in LiveMint. Click\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0to read it<\/span><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Two Buddhist monks, a senior and a junior, were travelling together. During their journey, they came across a river with a strong current.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To continue, they had to swim through the river and go to the other side. As the monks were preparing to cross the river, they saw a very young and beautiful woman also attempting to cross, but didn\u2019t know how to swim. The young woman asked if they could carry her across to the other side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buddhist monks take a vow of celibacy and are not supposed to even look at women, let alone carry them. The junior monk politely refused. But the senior monk put the woman on his back, swam across the river, and dropped her safely to the other side without saying a word. The younger monk couldn\u2019t believe what had just happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After rejoining his companion, he was speechless, and an hour passed without a word between them. Two more hours passed, then three and finally the younger monk could not contain himself any longer, and blurted out: \u201cWhy did you carry that woman when we took a vow as monks not to touch women?” \u201cOh, you mean the woman way back there? I put her down long ago. Why are you still carrying her?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similar to the junior monk, all of us in some form carry the investment baggage of our past investment mistakes in our portfolios. In a world where we are bombarded with several new investment products (both good and bad) almost every day, it is natural that most of us end up with a lot of subpar or unnecessary products in our portfolios over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thankfully, the markets have had a strong recovery in the past 18 months and the rising tide has lifted all boats. This is a great time to review and reflect on your portfolios.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is a quick checklist:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Check asset allocation:<\/strong>\u00a0Is your current asset allocation (read as the split between equity, debt and gold) in line with your original plan? If there is a deviation of +\/-5% in any particular asset class, this is a good time to rebalance it back to the original.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Check equity portfolio:<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n