I have worked in the stock market with ABN Amro Bank as ‘Branch Manager’, one of my prime responsibilities was to take care of all the clients & nurture them to make them big financially. A lot of people used to come & discuss the stock market & related products like mutual funds, insurance, ULIP plans, debts funds, etc. My job was to guide them efficiently. Out of many clients, there were some students also. My advice to all the students has always been to start investing as early as possible. An amount of Rs. 500/- is good enough to start investing on a monthly basis. Money is not the constraint, but the attitude toward the stock market and lack of financial industry knowledge is. The objective is to develop the habit of investment & making people gain knowledge about the financial market. Starting from mutual funds to long term investment in the stock market, intraday (including F&O) can be utilized to fulfill the pre-decided objective but one has to choose it carefully. For the students (or all those who have zero knowledge about stocks), my advice would be to start investing in mutual funds SIPs (particularly blue chip funds with long term horizon, say 5 years), whatever amount one can shell out on monthly basis. Start investing the moment you are in graduation first year & see how your fund grows by the time you attain the post-graduation degree.

Author:
Vikas Sharma, Assistant Professor, Unitedworld School of Business (UWSB)

Disclaimer: The opinions / views expressed in this article are solely of the author in his / her individual capacity. They do not purport to reflect the opinions and/or views of the College and/or University or its members.