Key Takeaways1 January 1-15, 2026

1. Foundations of Financial Planning: Understanding Risk & Returns
Speaker: CA Harsh Roongta, Partner, Fee Only Investment Advisers LLP

Context: Investors often evaluate investments using headline returns, such as point-to-point performance, average returns, or product labels like “safe” or “low risk.” This session demonstrated, why such shortcuts are misleading and why risk must be understood in terms of purchasing power, time horizon, volatility, and probability of loss, rather than merely nominal returns.

Session Highlights:

• Illustrated how so-called “low-risk” fixed deposits can appear safe yet destroy purchasing power after accounting for taxes and inflation, using a simple, real-life “dosa” example.

• Demonstrated why comparing returns from a specific start date to a specific end date (point-to-point returns), even over 10-year periods, can lead to incorrect conclusions due to lucky or unlucky timing, and why rolling returns—returns across all possible start and end dates—provide a more reliable framework for evaluating investments.

• Showed, using long-term Indian data (2001–2025), that equities outperform fixed deposits in the vast majority of long-term periods, though they are accompanied by significant short-term volatility.

Key Takeaways :

• Risk is not limited to volatility or visible losses. The loss of purchasing power due to inflation and taxation is a real and often ignored risk, particularly in investments commonly perceived as “safe.”

• Point-to-point returns are unreliable. Rolling return analysis offers a truer picture of risk and return by showing how outcomes vary across thousands of time periods, rather than a conveniently chosen one.

• Higher returns inevitably come with higher volatility. The solution is not to avoid volatile assets, but to use them thoughtfully through diversification, disciplined investing, and adequate holding periods.

Recording of Webinar Link

1. 1. 1. The views expressed in Edubytes are those of the speaker(s) and do not represent the views of NISM. This initiative is part of investor education and should not be considered financial or investment advice.

   2. 2. Foundations of Financial Planning: Asset Allocation Made Simple

Speaker: Shailendra Kumar, Co-founder www.finatoz.com, Rightfocus Investments Pvt. Ltd.

Context: Aimed at building an understanding among investors of asset allocation and how to create their long-term investment portfolios using strategic asset allocation.

Session Highlights:

1. 1. • Demonstrated how a diversified 50–50 portfolio of equity and gold delivers average returns while bearing significantly less risk than the average of individual securities—a core principle of

      • Illustrated that equity volatility decreases dramatically with longer investment tenures, proving that long-term holding smooths volatility.

      • Explains how equity (growth), debt (stability), commodities (hedge), real estate (diversification), and alternatives (return smoothing) perform differently across economic cycles and must work together as a unified strategy.

Key Takeaways:

1. 1. • Align long-term goals with risk tolerance and maintain a consistent allocation through market Rebalance periodically when the risk profile or goals change—never react to market noise or chase recent winners.

      • Rebalancing automatically locks in gains after rallies, reduces risk before corrections, and maintains the original risk profile. It is a proven wealth-building mechanism that separates emotional investing from disciplined investing.

      • Good Investing Is Not About Predicting Markets, but About Building a Structure That Works Across All Market Conditions.

Recording of Webinar Link

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