Zerodha few months back brought in a new feature which allows you to gift shares to your loved ones. The idea seems good but lacks practicality.
First, gifting few shares of a single company is dangerous as you assume that you know for certain it would go up whereas on the other hand you hold more than one stock portfolio. One would argue that “Why not gift an index fund?”, that could be a better option but don’t forget the main reason why indexing works: DOLLAR COST AVERAGING!
Second, gifting cash has way more value and optionality over gifting stocks to someone who is not interested in them.
As today is Raksha Bandhan you would have seen tweets about gifting stocks to your sister instead of cash.
Imagine your sister saving money for something she really wants to buy, and you gift her stocks and Monday they crash…
She might be planning to buy that expensive headphone but you bloody hell added another layer of confusion because now when you call back after few months, and she tells you that she sold immediately you would be sad, and she doesn’t want to do that to you.
Don’t get into investing so much that you forget to enjoy life.
People sometimes get so obsessed with things that they forget the main purpose of it and in most cases, it is just means to an end.
Prof. Sanjay Bakshi reflects upon on the same during his recent interview with Vishal Khandelwal.
He says chasing money is fine but up to a point, beyond that it is no fun. He adds that people keep delaying fun part until they have achieved their target, but it is never really achieved as the target keeps getting higher.
To add to that I also believe that people delay having fun so as they can have more fun at a later day but by the time that later day comes that thing is no more fun. (You grow up old, mindset changes, etc.)
Inshort
Life is short my friend. Don’t get obsessed with money that you only see what it’s worth 10 years down the line.
I think Rs.5000 today has higher value than giving Rs.5000 worth of stocks and telling them that it will be Rs.50,000 after 10 years. What would they do with that 50k when they wanted to buy that 5k dress today!