9 Mar 2024

Can we use ULIPs as tax-free debt assets?

It was a shock to pretty much everyone when the government changed tax rules for debt mutual funds in the 2023 budget.

AMCs have since then been trying to adapt by shoehorning “debt-like” funds into unrelated categories. For example, Edelweiss has a multi-asset fund that is offered as a debt fund replacement (but with better taxation). Parag Parikh has launched a similar fund in the dynamic asset allocation category (the “balanced advantage” category).

I was wondering if ULIPs—the infamous Unit Linked Insurance Policies—can be used for debt investment. An investor can invest up to ₹2,50,000 every year into ULIPs and get tax free returns. There is a lock-in period of 5 years, but the funds become redeemable after 5 years irrespective of how long the policy term is. Since the returns are tax free, ULIP debt investments can be attractive even if they earn 1 or 2% less return than an average debt mutual fund.

That’s the theory. But we need to check if that theory holds any water.

The story of my ULIP investment

I started a ULIP 2 years ago to help a bank employee meet their sales target. I had been thinking of repurposing this ULIP as a pure debt investment. But I didn’t pull the trigger as I wasn’t 100% sure. Coincidentally, I received the annual statement for this policy last week, and it was eye opening.

2022 statement for my ULIP (click to enlarge)
2023 statement for my ULIP (click to enlarge)

If you can’t see the issue in these statements, you’re not alone. Most people can’t spot this.

There are 2 kinds of deduction in the statements.

  • “Mortality Charge” is what the insurer is charging for providing life cover. This is tiny because pure life insurance is very cheap. This charge can be ignored.
  • The other deduction, called “Allocation Charge”, is more sinister. This is for charges like policy administration, agent commission, etc. In 2022, when this policy started, they deducted 12% of the premium as the allocation charge. In 2023, this deduction was 8% of the premium.

Let’s look at the impact of allocation charges more carefully. I paid ₹60,000 as the premium in 2022. Of this, ₹7,200 was deducted upfront for fees and commissions, and only the remaining ₹52,800 was invested. To break even by the end of the first year—i.e. for the fund value to be ₹60,000 by the end of the first year—this investment needed to grow by 14%! Making such a return is no easy feat, so it is no surprise that the policy value never touched ₹60,000 throughout the first year.

I paid the next ₹60,000 premium by the end of the first year. Again, ₹4,800 was deducted from this money and only ₹55,200 was invested causing the investment to stay underwater for most of the second year too.

My ULIP’s fund value over the first 22 months

A policy that started in March 2022 has remained underwater till September 2023! This was the reality for a 70:30 portfolio. It took the 2023 equity rally and a big 70% equity exposure to get this investment to break even. Since debt returns are subdued, ULIPs with 100% debt portfolio may even stay underwater for 7+ years.

My hypothesis is still correct: if pure debt ULIPs make 2% less return than average debt mutual funds, ULIPs will be an attractive option. But my assumption that ULIP returns will fall short only by 2% is way off the mark.

Is there a way to salvage ULIPs that are already bought?

What follows is an untested idea. Say, I let my ULIP stay as a equity+debt blend for the first 7 years or so. Hopefully, the portfolio grows to a reasonable size. After this, I can switch the entire portfolio to debt. Given there is no allocation charge after the first 5 years, this can probably be considered a reasonable debt investment. Fresh investments won’t be possible, but partial and full withdrawals will be available.

If you already have a ULIP, this may be a way to salvage the situation. But don’t buy a new ULIP only to get tax-free debt return. ULIPs make a lot of money for insurance companies and agents. Investors have a slim chance of making money through ULIPs.

8 Feb 2024

Back to my roots

I grew up reading magazines at home. Political news commentary, children’s magazines, lifestyle magazines, science magazines, computer magazines, and whatnot.

Somehow the reading stopped once I moved out to live on my own. Now I am trying to go back to my roots.

One of the magazines in the picture is a brand new subscription; I have no idea how enjoyable and insightful it’s going to be. But I can’t know until I give it a try, can I?

3 magazines: Mutual Funds Insight, Wealth Insight, and Swarajya

20 Jan 2024

Temporal correction of market-linked securities

A “correction” in the securities market is when the price of assets fall.

The market often gets overenthusiastic about securities and the prices go up more rapidly than justified. Once the market participants realise this mistake, the prices come down. Sometimes prices come down sharply, within a few days. Sometimes prices stay more or less stable for many months: this is known as a temporal correction. Or a “sideways market” (vs bull market and bear market).

The chart below is an example of a temporal corrcetion.

You’ll notice that from about early 2020 through the end of 2021, the asset value (current balance in the chart, the blue region) has gone up rapidly. Since then, the balance has been falling and rising. By the end of December 2023, the balance is back to where it was in December 2021.

Essentially, 4 years worth of appreciation was realised in just 2 years, between January 2020 and December 2021. Instead of sharply correcting the price, the market has been tepid throughout 2022 and 2023. This temporal correction brings the asset prices back to a reasonable range.

It’s anyone’s guess where the prices will go from here. If 2024 also remains tepid, then we’d say the temporal correction continues. If the prices go up, then we can say that the correction is over.

15 Jan 2024

My progressive disillusionment about direct equity investing

My desire to dabble in direct equity investments is not new. I also know that direct equity investing is not a good fit for me. Despite knowing this, the desire for direct equity investment hasn’t fully vanished.

Rather than fighting the urge, I decided to give in. That’s usually how I roll. I just give in to the temptation and see for myself. Either I end up liking it or I come away with the understanding that it’s not as attractive or beneficial as it once looked.

If I am going to invest in direct equity, well, I might as well learn about it first. So I subscribed to Value Research’s Wealth Insight magazine. A part of me was afraid that I may end up risking too much of the family money in this direct equity experiment, but I marched on anyway. I have been reading the magazine for a few months now and learning.

Contraty to what I was expecting, I am picking up more and more signals and reasons for not investing in direct equity! Jan 2024 edition of the magazine has a story listing common mistakes investors tend to make. The following screenshot is one mistake from the list:

Screenshot from Wealth Insight magazine with this text: "This tree will grow to the sky: No trend can continue without a stoppage. Something or the other will always play spoilsport. It could be the entry of new competitors, a change in the economics of the product, changes in tastes and preferences, poor decisions by the management, etc."

The moment I read this, I remembered my bias towards holding on to my employer’s shares. I was (and still am to some extent) of the belief that holding on to my employer’s RSUs—which have grown much more rapidly than S&P 500—will make me rich. “No tree will grow to the sky” is the advice I had to see to remind myself that no one company is going to be infallible forever.

A few months of learning has not made me give up on direct equity, but I am not madly in love with that idea anymore. Learning about direct equity investing has made me more aware of the risks and nuances involved. I am in a better place than I was a year ago.

12 Jan 2024

A cluttered portfolio is not a problem—it’s a symptom

Let’s say you have bought a ticket for a 4pm movie show. When you arrive at the movie theatre, you notice that there is a 7:30pm show of a more interesting movie. If you had known about this screening earlier, you wouldn’t even have bought tickets to the 4pm movie—the 7:30pm movie is just better.

What do you do after your 4pm movie is over? Do you stay at the theatre and watch the 7:30pm show too? While some may do that, most people don’t. Despite the 7:30pm movie being good, most people don’t have an uncontrollable urge to watch it. Why? Because people know that it’s just another movie. Yes, every movie is unique, but that doesn’t mean you have to watch every movie out there to be entertained. You can afford to miss even really good movies.

Now replace movies with mutual funds. You have been investing in a flexi-cap fund for a few months. You see a media report that praises a certain mid-cap fund for its stellar performance. You fear you’re missing out, so you invest some money in that mid-cap fund. A few months later, maybe you invest in a thematic fund because the theme sounds so wonderful. Later you invest in a contra fund. If this goes on, you’ll soon be holding a dozen or more mutual funds in your portfolio.

Why does this happen? Why is it so easy to say No to a movie, but so very difficult to say No to a mutual fund? Not just mutual funds—accumulating clutter is true with pretty much any investment asset. People who invest in equity want to add gold to their portfolio. Then some REITs. Then some global equity. Then some InvITs. Then something fancy, say invoice discounting. When it comes to investment assets, many of us have a hard time saying No. Why?

I think I have an explanation.

We know that we don’t miss much by not watching a movie. We are able to control or ignore our desires and urges. Most of the time, it’s not even an issue because we know beyond doubt that it’s just a movie.

But we are not able to say No to investment assets because we lack that confidence. We have no confidence in our ability to make the right decisions. This lack of confidence makes us nervous every time we come across something new. Diversifying into different assets gives us a sense of safety. We hope that at least some assets will bring in profits. This lack of confidence inevitably leads to a messy and cluttered portfolio.

A cluttered portfolio is not a problem in itself, but it’s a symptom that tells us that the investor lacks confidence. The investor has no confidence in their ability to pick the right investment asstes. Nor do they have confidence in the assets they currently hold. They readily make room for new assets because they don’t know if their current assets are sufficient or whether they need the new asset. They err on the side of caution.

Conversely, a confident investor will have a simple, uncluttered portfolio. They are comfortable not having every interesting asset in their portfolio because they are confident about the prospects of the few assets they already hold. They don’t get FOMO (fear of missing out) because they know that it’s just another asset.