Devina Mehra: Before going DIY with your stock portfolio, ask if you can really beat professional fund managers

I don’t know that much about stock markets, but want to start investing in equities.”“What is the point of just investing with mutual funds and portfolio management services (PMSes)? I want to learn and do it myself.”These are some of the questions I get. Often, the unsaid part is, “It is so boring to say that I am invested in a combination of fixed deposits, mutual funds and PMSes.

What do I say when my friends brag about the latest multi-bagger they unearthed? And anyway I am smarter than most of these so-called experts.” The question all these investors need to ask themselves is: Is managing your portfolio yourself the best way to invest in equities? After all, why use financial advisors and fund managers if you can avoid it? So, should you be a do-it-yourself (DIY) investor or is it better to leave the decision making and portfolio management to professionals?First off, investing yourself is the best way—actually, the only way—to understand how the stock market game works. And learning is always a laudable objective!However, do think of this another way too: based on data, are you the very best fund manager you know? Logically, that should decide whether you should manage your own funds.

Now the game gets interesting. Look at all the data on your own investing performance and be objective about this—account for not just the winners that you trot out at every party, but every single stock you have bought from the beginning of your investing journey.

Yes, including all the painful ones you don’t want to think about or ignore in your DP (depository participant) statement. The ones that no longer trade, for example.

The ‘great story’ stock that is now down 80%, instead of tripling. Now that we are in a digital world with