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How Long Have You Been At It?

Not happy with the returns of your equity mutual fund investments?

On the contrary, very happy with the returns you are getting?

In any situation, take a quick look at your overall portfolio holding days. Should be easily available in the tracker (app?) you are using.

If you have been at it for less than 3650 days (10 years), don’t be disheartened with not so good performance. Likewise, be wary of being elated with extraordinary high ROIs. It may not amount to much in absolute monetary terms.

And in both cases, long pull may turn out to be very different.

Here are some holding days data from some of the investor portfolios in our kitty:

- Investor 1: Started of with us in 2016. That would be nearly 10 years now. However, portfolio holding days come to just 875 days (less than 2.5 years). Increase in monthly contribution over the years and a large lump sum investment couple of years ago brought down portfolio holding days significantly

- Investor 2: Investing with us since 2017. Though portfolio holding days come to just 572, which is not even 2 years. Again, a large lump sum contribution in recent past tilted portfolio holding days

- Investor 3:  Investing with us since 2017. Portfolio holding days 707. Monthly contributions increased significantly over the years and some lump sum contribution also came in recently which impacted portfolio holding days 

So next time you fire up you MF tracker app, check out holding days first and returns next. Low holding days and not so good returns should not dishearten you much if you go by this sequence.

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