Harsh Kumar, CFA

Being bad is not good but trying to be good by spending excessive energy & huge resources for the sake of being good is no good either. Hope I learnt it right 🙄. Thank you @AswathDamodaran for this insight! @malpani_megha

If I tell you a funny joke, you will laugh for one minute. If I tell you that joke again, you will laugh for one second. And if I keep repeating it, you will eventually stop laughing. But if I play (not sing in my voice 🙂) a melodious song, you will enjoy it. If I play it again, you will still enjoy it. In fact, even if it’s on loop, you may continue to enjoy it. As financial advisors, we often find ourselves repeating the same messages -about behavioral traps, discipline, asset allocation, and staying invested - review after review, year after year. The truth is: successful advisors - those who truly walk the distance with investors - turn this repetition into music. Over time, investors begin to internalise these ideas, much like a melodious tune that stays. On the other hand, transactional advisors often make it sound like a joke -repeated too often, without depth - eventually losing its impact. Because in investing, it’s not just about what is said, but how meaningfully it is reinforced. #MakeItMusicNotAJoke

2020 taught us about viruses, quarantine, cooking and  envious Zoom backgrounds 2021 was about vaccines, pharmaceuticals, and learning to navigate the blurred lines between work and home. In 2022, we found ourselves understanding geopolitics : Russia, Ukraine, and the far-reaching consequences of global conflict. 2023 brought lessons in inflation, recession, and understanding AI. 2024 became a year of learning elections and political shifts, from India to the US. 2025 pushed us to understand tariffs, free trade agreements, and currency dynamics. And 2026 is unfolding with conversations around precious metals, Israel, Hormuz, Persia, LNG, and crude oil. For all the misery, destruction, and pain these years have brought, one thing stands out: The sheer breadth of learning. In just six years, people across the world have absorbed knowledge spanning health, economics, geopolitics, technology, and energy far beyond what most of us were ever taught in school or university. History didn’t just happen around us. It turned all of us into reluctant students, with real-time exams. #SyllabusWeNeverSignedUpFor

If you drink 1 drop of whiskey today and double it every day, you would end up consuming an entire distillery’s daily output by 15th April 2026. If you start walking 1 step today and double it every day, you would end up walking the distance from Earth to the Moon ~30 times by 15th April 2026. If you gift ₹1 today to your child and double it every day, you would have to give ₹1,700 crore on 15th April 2026. If you read 1 word today and double it every day, you would end up reading 5 crore books on 15th April 2026. And if someone tells you they can generate 6% per month and double your money every year, then your ₹1 lakh invested today would become ₹1,048 crore by 15th April 2046 Sadly, we don’t live in theories. Compounding is powerful but when it starts sounding like magic, it usually is. #DropsToDistillery

As part of our ongoing Investor Education Initiative, I was featured on @NDTVProfitIndia's Your Money Matters with @alexandermats The discussion focused on New Mutual Fund Houses and their investment approach, covering how these new entrants think about investing, where they could potentially add value, and the risks investors should be mindful of. Thank you, @alexandermats , for the engaging conversation, and @NDTVProfitIndia for the opportunity to share these perspectives. Telecast on: 18th March | 5:30 PM In case you missed it, sharing the link below. youtube.com/watch?v=ceFKfc…

A house fly lives for about a month. A mosquito typically lasts 1–2 months. A cockroach can survive up to 12 months. A momentum portfolio lasts 1–2 seasons. A thematic portfolio lasts the lifecycle of a theme. A fundamentally well-researched, diversified portfolio can last generations. Choose based on the longevity you want, not the news you see. #CockroachPortfolio

Whenever I play tennis with a better player, 40–0 is the most dangerous score for me. I struggle to contain my excitement and somehow end up losing the game. When I was learning to drive, I made more mistakes on the open roads of Chandigarh than on the heavily trafficked roads of Bangalore. In my first job in sales and marketing, I would often lead comfortably at the beginning of the month, only to lag behind by the end. In exams where I knew the first 20–30% extremely well, I managed to mess up the last 10–20% because the complacency of getting the early questions right made me slow down. When I reached drinking age, drinking with my dad usually meant a better evening, while drinking with college friends often ended in messy handovers. And in investing, I find it very hard not to book profits and stay on the compounding journey of 100x when a stock delivers 20% in the first week. The real test isn’t when things are difficult. It’s when things seem too easy, too early. #DisciplineAfter40Love

When portfolio returns are less than the benchmark - we change our funds. When portfolio returns are less than those of family and friends - we change our advisors. When portfolio returns are less than FD and gold – we change our asset allocation. When portfolio returns are less than zero – we change our entire portfolios. And surprisingly, none of the above actions helps the returns. Sometimes the real thing that needs fixing isn’t the external problem, it’s our behaviour. (Unless there is a genuine problem to begin with) #MissileManag

One of my friends told me she paid 10x more to remove a tattoo than what she paid to get it done. My dry cleaner charges more to remove a small stain than to dry clean the entire shirt. I’ve seen dieticians charge more for a session than the cost of the food itself. Sometimes it’s cheaper to discard an electronic gadget as e-waste than to repair it. And often, you spend far more time, money and energy pacifying your spouse than the original cost of the argument. Fixing things is always harder than doing them mindfully in the first place. Your portfolio is no different. #CostOfUndoing

Trump has mid-terms to worry about. Mojtaba Khamenei has his country’s survival to worry about. Benjamin Netanyahu has internal opposition to manage. The Indian government is worried about energy security. Many in West Asia are worried about the safety of their families. For rest of Asia, inflation is the real concern. And someone who is short on oil is worried about avoiding bankruptcy. Everyone commenting on markets is focused on their own priorities. Which is exactly why deciding whether to invest in the market today should depend on your asset allocation, liquidity status, and risk profile - not the noise in the media. The long-term rewards of your investment decisions are yours to enjoy and the short-term pains are yours to live with. #HeadlinesAndPortfolios

I was chatting with an investor yesterday. He mentioned that he lent money to one of his relatives at 24% interest per annum for next two years. It reminded me of an interesting statistic: In FY 2025, Indian health insurance companies rejected claims worth ₹30,000 crore. In terms of numbers, nearly 1 in 8 claims were rejected. After the credit issues in the debt markets about five years ago, we haven’t had a single instance of a mutual fund delaying redemption credit by even one day. I am not comparing the two. But if regulated health insurance companies do not honour claims 12% of the time, imagine the risk you are taking when the only thing you are looking at is the return percentage. The measurement of risk is equally important as the measurement of return. #ColoursOfRisk #HappyHoli

First flight using autopilot was flown in 1947, and we still use human pilots. Third umpire in cricket was introduced in 1992, we still have human umpires on the field. Deep Blue vs. Garry Kasparov happened in 1997, yet humans still play chess, compete, and are widely followed. Robo-advisors were introduced in 2008 and even today they manage less than 2% of total global assets under management. I know people who feel uncomfortable changing their whiskey brand, leave aside changing their entire behaviour. Try changing your 80-year-old grandmother’s mindset. Changing 300,000 years of Homo sapiens is even tougher. #StillNeedPeople

When I meet my defence friends, the conversation revolves around war stories, postings, and retirement plans. My business friends talk about money, ROI, and markets. With family, discussions drift toward weddings, children, and life updates. When I meet my wife’s friends, conversations often return to old teachers and shared memories. And when I meet my daughter’s friends, we discuss birds, animals, dinosaurs, and the mysteries of the world. The same applies to client portfolio reviews. No two conversations are ever the same - because investing is deeply personal. What may appear as asset allocation and returns on paper is, in reality, hyper-personalisation in practice. Because in wealth management, personalisation isn’t a feature. It is the job itself. #PERSONALfinance

As part of our ongoing Investor Education Series, I was recently featured on @NDTVProfitIndia for a discussion with @alexandermats on Large & Mid Cap Funds. The conversation covers the key aspects investors should understand - the structure of the category, risk-return dynamics, portfolio positioning, and where Large & Mid Cap Funds fit within a long-term investment strategy. For investors looking to understand this category in a simple and comprehensive manner, this discussion serves as a useful primer. Thank you, @alexandermats for the engaging conversation and for bringing investor-focused discussions to a wider audience. Telecast on NDTV Profit 25th February | PM @malpani_megha @Zvestfamilyoffc #LargeMidCapFunds youtube.com/watch?v=ymRdcL…

My friend, a chef by profession, seems to know more about capital markets than most fund managers. My gym trainer has strong views on why AI is a bubble, with greater conviction than Jensen Huang. My retired neighbour explains trading strategies that would make Jane Street pause. Many of my relatives are real estate experts, without quite knowing what a REIT is. The barista at Blue Tokai near my office has remarkable clarity on why Bitcoin is undervalued, perhaps even more than CZ. And my daughter’s nanny has firm forecasts on gold, rivaling the US Fed or RBI. Maybe knowledge has truly been democratised...Or maybe confidence has. Because for many of us still working within these domains, the honest answer to most complex questions remains: “I don’t know.” #EveryoneIsAnExpert

Last month, I was at a conference where a capital market participant began discussing gold imports and the balance of payments - largely based on a reel he had watched. The conviction was strong. The conceptual depth wasn’t. Around the same time, I read about film institutes where aspiring filmmakers consume more social media than cinema. They are studying films without watching films. And yesterday, a research note by an unknown firm Citrini triggered a sharp sell-off in IT stocks, the authors had reportedly shorted the stocks beforehand. The speed at which narratives now form and spread is staggering. Information has never been more accessible. Understanding has rarely felt more fragile. #ShortOnStocksShortOnDepth

You meet your batchmate who was very bad in studies and is now doing extremely well. You can’t reconcile that. You meet your batchmate who was extremely good in studies and is not doing well. You can’t reconcile that either. Similarly, seeing large-cap IT services stocks go through a brutal correction in February - hard to reconcile. And in the same time period, metal and power stocks sitting near 52-week highs - equally hard to reconcile. Markets, like life, don’t move according to our old report cards :) #TopperTrap

I met a senior executive at a retail chain yesterday. In the course of our conversation, he casually mentioned that he had lost close to 3–4 years of his income trading Options. I asked him if he felt any remorse. He smiled and said, “No. Market se banaya tha, market ne wapis le liya.” Apparently, he had made a lot of money in crypto back in 2017. So in his head, it was “house money.” But because of those losses, his family wanted to keep a close check on him and he had to leave his aviation job, something he genuinely enjoyed, and move to a retail role that he clearly wasn’t excited about. Financially, he had rationalised the loss. But the real cost wasn’t just the money. It was -The loss of autonomy. -The moment ambition got replaced by caution. -The gradual shift from choice to compulsion. We often calculate losses in percentages. Rarely do we calculate the opportunity cost of a setback. “Market ne wapis le liya” sounds philosophical. But sometimes, the market doesn’t just take money back. #MarketTakesMoreThanMoney