Indian investment apps will have you spoiled for choice (yay!), but you need to sieve through all the options to find the ones that are best suited for you. The next point of focus becomes maximizing returns on your investment apps!
So we thought we’d share some tips (actionable steps) for you to take, and some tools (investing miracle-workers!) for you to know about. Let’s not waste any time – the sooner we go through this, the sooner you’ll be off investing and growing your money on your app!
Tips for Maximizing Returns on Your Investment App
Goal-based investing – Do you want to book a vacation for this time next year? Or do you want to splurge for your 25th birthday? Having short-term (and long-term) plans lends direction to your investing. A number of popular Indian investment apps offer users the option to practice goal-based investing. This helps for three reasons.
- It helps you identify how much money you need to meet your goals and create an investment plan accordingly.
- It also allows you to gauge how much time it will take for your investments to mature.
- It will help you take stock of when you need to invest and look into options on your investment app that can help you maximize your returns.
Micro investing – You can start earning returns, even if you have only spare change! Read that again! Micro investing – a form of investing small amounts regularly rather than investing large sums of money all at once – is facilitated by a number of investment apps in India today. Deciml is one such app. Round Up investing with Deciml allows you to set a roundup limit to which all your spends get rounded off, and the balance gets invested. So if you spend ₹113 on your morning cab ride to work, and your round-up limit is set to ₹10, then ₹7 will get invested! You see – you are literally investing spare change! But you start earning returns on even ₹1 almost instantly! Deciml also allows users to set a Daily Deposit limit (as little as ₹10, as much as ₹500), and this amount will get auto-invested on your behalf every day. Micro investing can be a very simple, yet effective way to start investing and gaining returns from the get-go!
Diversification – Investing is never a straight line – there are always ups and downs. Sometimes you might have investments that aren’t performing well. But, do you know what will help you mitigate this risk? Having multiple investments – some of which will be riding the ups, while others are slumped in a low – optimizing your returns at all times. Indian investment apps offer innumerable options for investing – right from fixed deposits and stocks, to mutual funds and digital gold – the options are literally endless – and you should at the very least find out as much as you can about diversifying your portfolio on your investment app.
Remember, these tips are all actionable steps that you need to take to optimize the returns through your selected investment app!
Strategies/Tools
That brings us to the miracle workers. We call them miracle workers, but in fact, these are two strategic tools that are responsible for maximizing your returns through most investment apps – if you are investing regularly, and staying invested for the long term. Here’s what you need to know about them –
Rupee Cost Averaging – Rupee cost averaging works when instead of investing large sums of money in one go, you invest small amounts for longer periods of time. The easiest way to illustrate how this works is by showing you two different cases –
- Case 1 – You want to invest ₹15,000 for the year. You have the option to invest it all at one go, so you get to buy a total of 300 units, at ₹50 each.
- Case 2 – You want to invest ₹15,000 for the year. You decide to split this into three installments of ₹5,000 each. Today, for ₹5,000 at a NAV of ₹50, you can buy 100 units of a selected mutual fund. You decide to invest the remaining ₹5,000 3 months later – when the NAV is ₹30. So at that time, you can buy 166 units of the same mutual fund. Your last ₹5,000 gets invested in another 3 months when the NAV is ₹40, which gets you 125 units.
So, while in one case you are getting 300 units of your mutual fund, in the second case you are getting 391 units of your fund! And this, in a nutshell, is how rupee cost averaging can help you maximize your returns through any investment app that allows you to invest in small amounts or through Systematic Investment Plans (SIPs).
Compound Interest – Compound or compounding interest is the interest that you earn on your interest!
Assume that you are investing ₹100 at 10% interest per year. So your ROI for the first year is ₹10, i.e., 10% of ₹100. Here ₹100 is your principal amount, and at the end of one year, you’ve got yourself ₹110. Through compounding interests, the second year’s principal amount becomes ₹110. You will now make a 10% interest on this investment amount (i.e., ₹10), making your total amount at the end of the second year ₹121. And the pattern continues for the whole tenure of your investment.
| Year | (P) – Principal Amount (₹) | (I) – 10% Interest Amount (₹) | (P+I) – Closing Amount (₹) |
| 1 | 100 | 10 | 110 |
| 2 | 110 | 11 | 121 |
| 3 | 121 | 12.1 | 133.1 |
Here is a look at how 10% compounding interest would work over three years of investments.
With these tips and tools/strategies, keep in mind that while higher amounts of investment will obviously gain better returns, discipline is what will truly help unlock the potential of investing, with rupee cost averaging and compound interest as catalysts for maximizing returns.
