The self-made investor

Chennai's V Subramanyam has been using VRO for over 10 years. In a highly incisive letter, he has shared his investment journey with us. He has also shared 10 lessons that our other readers and users might find helpful. With the earnest hope that it inspires and teaches many other individuals, here we have reproduced a copy of the same. Read on. "As an active user of your website for over 10 years, I thought I should share my experiences with mutual funds and direct equity investing for the benefit of the users of this website. I started my equity investments in 1977, when a friend of mine, who has an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad, introduced me to a stock broker. At that time, I didn't know the benefits of staying invested in equity for the long term and hence bought and sold equity for small profits. Unit Trust Fund was the only equity-oriented mutual fund available back then. But its NAV wasn't showing any significant appreciation. I also tried investing in IPOs. In 2006, I was still investing directly in equity. By then, while my stock-picking skills had improved, my portfolio still failed to generate any meaningful returns. It was a frustrating experience, but it did not diminish my interest in equities and the faith that equities deliver better return in the medium to long term than FDs or go

This article was originally published on September 06, 2021, and last updated on November 07, 2022.