The millennial marketeer’s secret for financial success

livemint.com:

₹50,000 monthly rent for the two-bedroom house in Domlur, Bengaluru—It’s been a home for the last more than seven years. Singh’s investing style is also reflective of the mindset shift that millennials have been through: From the ‘gold and real estate’ fixation of the previous generations to the obsession with the ‘click of a button’ stock market trading that emerged after the pandemic. Singh, though, is not new to the markets.

He hails from a business family in Kolkata where stock market talk was an integral part of growing up. “My dad used to invest in stocks traded at the Calcutta Stock Exchange. In fact our house was built with the money we got from selling Ranbaxy shares," he said.

But the ‘old way’ of transacting in shares, filling up multiple forms or visiting the stock exchange personally was intimidating. It’s only the massive ease of investing brought about during pandemic that got him involved. “I reconnected with some old friends during the pandemic and we used to discuss stocks in our Whatsapp group, solve each other’s queries.

That is when I opened an account with a discount broker and started investing in stocks and mutual funds," he says. “My dad still doesn’t believe in mutual funds. I let him invest a little bit in direct stocks," he adds.

Singh’s been extremely diligent when it comes to saving for retirement. “I max out my voluntary provident fund and I’ve done so at all my previous jobs. Same for public provident fund," he says.

A decade into his career and several career jumps and promotions later, this has grown into a substantial corpus. He also participates in his employer’s stock programme—getting paid partly in Lenovo stock every month. “This was my one big regret with Titan, my first job.