I have the following credit cards

1. HDFC Bank – Platinum Plus Card
2. Citibank – Platinum Card
3. Standard Chartered Bank – Titanium Card
4. Barclays Yatra card – Platinum
5. SBI Card – Silver Card

And use them in such a manner that I get thousands of rupees worth gifts and cash back each year. I will show you how I do it but before I begin please understand that you may not need so many credit cards and you don’t need to manage so many credit cards to get the same benefits. The idea is to managing your credit cards efficiently so you can earn money each time you purchase something. I can manage more number of credit cards because I purchase lot of things online and have a complete business of websites, domains and hosting online and so I can spend lot of money on my credit cards and manage them efficiently. So don’t think that having more cards can help but the idea is to manage them in a manner such that you get most benefits out of your day-to-day purchasing activity.

Managing Your Credit Cards

1. Read TOS

The first step to managing your credit cards is to understand the terms of service or terms of usage. There are very few people who actually read them but I always read them. Remember these terms are not the ones that your sales person tells you but these terms are in the booklet that you get along with your new credit card. Ideally you should know them before applying for a credit card. You can read about the terms for your card you are applying online. It makes me aware of the minimum amount I need to spend on each of those credit cards each year to make them free for me and I don’t need to pay anything for using those cards.

So the first point of having a credit card is to use it because there are very few credit cards that offer you completely free card even if you don’t use it. SBI card is an exception and they don’t charge anything even if you just have the card and don’t use it for years but that is one of such cards. All other credit cards may charge you yearly fees for non-usage. My Citibank credit card offers me cash back but they also need that I use my card for at least 20,000 Rs per year to make fees waived off.

2. Automate Payments

Always make an ECS payment from your bank account for each of your credit card. I always do 100% payment to be debited from my bank account. I never want to be found guilty of not making a payment even if I am not around my computers for few days to make the payment but if you don’t prefer 100% payment, make sure you opt for minimum payment due to be debited from your bank account.

It does not make any sense to be using your credit card for minor loan or making a due rollover to next month because the interest rate on credit cards is very high. This is the only reason I recommend you to have 100% payment as ECS from your bank account to your credit card. Use other means of loan if you actually need it. Even a personal loan is better than loan on a credit card.

Apart from that never ever use your credit card for cash withdrawal because that has even higher interest rate. Just remember never purchase anything from your credit card that you think you cannot pay by the due date.

3. Don’t be Afraid

I have seen lots of Indians are afraid when it comes to using a credit card. I am not talking about people who are 50+ because they are not used to using cards anyway but even computer geek’s or even an MBA from reputable colleges are afraid of having a credit card. They are even terrified when using it online.

This does not mean you should be using your credit card online everywhere but if you see a reliable Internet payment processor or verified by Visa things on the site you should be fine using your credit card on that site.

Tip: If you see a transaction in your credit card statement that you are sure is not done by you, you can call your credit card company and get your card hot listed and launch a complain about the transaction. They would investigate and credit your money back for the transaction. Do this only if you are 100% sure or else you may be charged a fee for the unnecessary complain.

How I use my Credit Cards

You may wonder how I am able to manage so many cards, their payment dates and other such stuff. I have a complete plan the way I use my credit cards. Remember I don’t need to worry about the payments because they are always taken from my bank accounts and so this means I never have to worry about that part of my credit card management. This also means for all my credit cards, I have never missed a payment till date.

Where I use what

• Standard Chartered Bank Credit card is used for making payments for my hosting, domains and other online stuffs.
• HDFC Bank card is used in Google Adwords and at CESC (my electric bills).
• Barclays Card is used in Bing Adcenter and Facebook Advertising as well as in one of my smaller Adwords Account.
• Citibank card is used mainly for booking tickets online, making offline purchases like my MacBook Pro as well as pay my telephone and internet bills for my home and office.
• SBI Card is used for recharge my prepaid mobiles and DTH accounts as I have very small credit limit in SBI Card.

The diversification of what is spent on which card allows me to know which type of transaction can appear on which of my card statement and so if I see anything that is not right, I can act accordingly.

The Benefits

Let me show you some of the benefits I get when using my credit cards.

1. HDFC Bank Credit Card

HDFC Bank’s credit card is the most heavily used card and so I accumulate lot of reward points with them. I have accumulated lot of points in the card without redeeming it because they have PlayStation as an option if you make 20,000+ rewards points which I think is not very far for me.

Apart from that they also offer cash back for my electricity bills which when paid offline would mean I have to waste time visiting the place to make the payment. It not only saves me time but also pays me back for using it.

2. Barclays Yatra card

Barclay cards offer gifts vouchers of various brands and I personally prefer Lee vouchers from the pack. I get 1 or 2 Lee jeans each year just for using my Barclays Credit Card. Indirectly Bing, Google and Facebook sponsors my Lee Wardrobe.

3. Citibank Card

Citibank card is one of those cards where I get instant cash back and you can see how I managed 2 cash back’s in the last 5 months.

4. Standard Chartered Bank Card

I make all my USD payments through my Standard Chartered bank card because they have very good online interface for details about the transactions and so I can get details about any transactions before a statement is generated and it helps me if I need to verify my credit cards anywhere by entering the transaction ID or things like those. Apart from that like HDFC Bank card, Standard Chartered Bank card also offers lot of options and items as rewards and so it makes more sense to accumulate lot more points before redemption.

5. SBI Card

SBI Bank Credit cards is not very heavily used and so I don’t make anything significant as rewards from them but still I am accumulating points which I can redeem for big rewards when I think they are worth it.

Final Thoughts

According to me everyone should have a credit card and learn how to benefit from it. I am damn sure there will be no one who don’t pay electricity bills, telephone bills and make mobile and DTH recharges and just doing them with your credit card can not only save you lot of time but also help you get some rewards out of it.

Do you agree that credit cards can actually help you actually earn money? Share your views in comments below.

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1. Global Credit Solutions
2. Understanding the present credit market situation
3. Barclays Sweep Deposit Account – How Good Is your Savings Account?

I was thinking to get fresh new look to this blog for quite some time. I was working passively on it for quite some time and finally decided to get it live yesterday. I would love to hear your feedback on the new design. Apart from that if you see any other broken images or other things do let me know.

For those you have not seen the old design you can refer the screenshots below

Eagerly waiting for your feedback and as always you can speak your heart out about it in comments below.

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Let me share some of the most read articles of 2011.

1. How I Made 50,000 Rs In Just One Trade - I shared my secret with an example on How I Made 50,000 In Just One Trade.
2. Best Gold ETF in India - Comparing major Gold ETF’s in India to see which one is best gold ETF of India and also see why Gold ETF’s has a price difference.
3. Physical Gold Or Gold ETF – Which is Right for You? - Gold ETF or physical Gold. The positive and negative aspect of investing in each of them so you can decide which one is right for you.
4. Ask me Anything - Where my blog reader can even ask what am I doing right now at this moment, Was fun answering those questions in 2011.
5. Invest in Mutual Funds – Can Ads Substitute Entry Load? - AMFI India has came up with ads – it is wiser decision to invest whatever little you can every month in Mutual funds and why I think these Ads cannot substitute Entry load?
6. How to Calculate Support & Resistance Levels – Chart of MIC Electronics - How to Calculate Support and Resistance Levels as well as stop losses for the stock based on chart patterns taking example of MIC Electronics India limited.
7. When to Buy In Market Crashes - Answer to yet another user question that I was and is getting quite often which is when is the right time to buy in market crashes.
8. List of Stocks You Should Buy Now and Forget Forever - Very different yet effective List of Stocks that you can buy now and forget.
9. Why 4700 is Nifty Support and What to Expect From Market Ahead? -Yet another explanation of Nifty Support levels using chart patterns.
10. See How Chart Pattern Repeats by Itself - Hindalco came up with very good set of results. On major news channels, brokerage houses gave price target of 208 but see the charts of Hindalco.

Don’t hesitate to share your personal best article in comments below.

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1. Eid Mubarak 2011
2. Gold Exchange-Traded Funds (GETF)

Eid Mubarak to all Blog Readers …

Image Credit: MagicEye

May Allah’s blessings lead you to eternal happiness, success and peace of mind in life but don’t forget my Eidi, your never ending love.

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1. Wishing Everyone Eid Mubarak

Manshu of Onemint wrote an excellent post about who you should listen to. Being an online blogger and market trader I could very easily relate to most of his points but one point that stood out was

Stop listening to people with heavy biases.

The question is how do you judge if someone is heavily biased?

According to me there are two groups of people who talk about stocks. First those who themselves invest in stock and second those who don’t invest in stock but do the research for some clients.

If you listen to the person who has not invested in stock (assuming he is not restricted to invest in those stock by some corporate governance) but just tracks it for his clients would mean he himself is not confident about his own research. In short he could make more money selling his research rather investing with that research.

If you listen to person who has invested in a stock, he could be biased towards that stock.

In equity market, most people have bias towards stock they are holding and that is one of the main reason I don’t prefer sharing stocks I hold (to the extent I can and yet remain transparent with my trades) because then it could be taken the wrong way that I am pushing people to buy my stocks.

So finally my question is – Who do you prefer as a mentor – slightly biased yet investor in stock or unbiased yet no risk taken of his own money? Share your views in comments below.

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I was surprised to see an Innovative Savings Account by Barclays Bank called Sweep Deposit Account. The benefits of this account type are so many that I could not resist myself sharing it here for my readers. Note that I could not open an account with them because they don’t provide Sweep deposit account in Kolkata as of now. Nevertheless I think it would be a great account for my readers.

In a savings account you get 9.25% as interest rate. Yes you heard me right – 9.25%. The catch is, you have to open an account with 50,000 as term deposit and 50,000 as your account initial deposit and you get 9.25% interest on the complete 100,000 and not only on the term deposit amount of 50,000 like other banks.

You get Visa ATM International Debit card and a cheque book to do all bank related transactions.

Barclays ATM’s are too few and far in between but you can use your Barclays card unlimited number of times for cash withdrawals at any VISA ATM’s all over India.

Apart from that you get 10% cash back for Debit card usage for first 3 months from signing up for the Barclays Sweep Deposit Account.

As I could not open my account I could not write more specifics about the account operations so if anyone knows more about the account please do share them in comments below.

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1. A good way to approach the market right now

I receive a lot of emails and comments as questions, but many a times people tend to ask questions in comments things that are relevant to the topic. So I thought it would be a good idea to answer any question you feel like asking to me. Nothing is too personal or Silly. If you want you can even ask what am I doing right now at this moment, so feel free to speak ask your heart out. I’m looking forward to answering them all.

I did the same on my Internet Marketing Blog and the response was awesome and I expect the same here.

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We are into the final week of 2010 and it is that part of the year where I share the best articles for the year. Before going into the list let me wish everybody a very Happy and Prosperous 2011.

1. How New tax Code can Impact us?
2. 3 Factors to consider before investing
3. Technical Analysis – The Ultimate Guide to Investing
4. How to Select Best Stock to Buy Today?
5. 3 Best Tips on Systemtic Investment Plan
6. Growth or Dividend? Which Is Right For You?
7. Stock Broker’s Review
8. Why Mutual Funds Are Better Than Stocks
9. Was SEBI’s Decision on “No Entry Load” Correct?
10. New Direct Tax Code Hits Badly to Mutual Fund Investors
11. Is Insurance an Investment Option?
12. How to Find Multibagger Stocks – Secrets of Successful Traders…
13. Sharekhan PMS Review – My Experiment with 500,000 Rupees
14. PMS Review – Why PMS Cannot Live Upto Your Expectations
15. How to Trade In Market?

Once again have a Happy and Prosperous 2011.

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Wish All my readers a Very Happy & Safe Diwali.

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1. Wishing Everyone Eid Mubarak

I got this email from ICICIBank

I am sure those who have voted for ICICIBank have no idea How Unsafe is ICICIBank Phone Banking?

Now knowing how unsafe is ICICIBank do you still think ICICI Bank stand a chance to be even nominated. Share your views.

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Wishing all my blog readers a very happy and joyous Eid.

Eid Mubarak.

Image Courtesy: atmgreetings.com

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There has always been lots of issues with me when it comes to ICICIBank but I was fine with them until yesterday when I found that ICICIBank Phone banking is very unsafe and anybody can do any type of transactions using my ICICIBank account.

Yes you heard it right. One of India’s largest bank is having such an issue. You may be wondering how?

Call ICICIBank customer care number in your city. To log-in as somebody else you need only 2 things.

1. User’s Account Number
2. Primary User’s Date Of Birth

If you issue a cheque or even do an online fund transfer, the other person knows your account number and so all he need to do is go to your online profile to find your date of birth. My FaceBook profile has my date of birth and I even checked with Orkut and they have it online too.

Now if I issue a cheque to you I risk my complete ICICIBank account. Do you think this is tolerable?

ICICIBank online facilities has always pretended to be much more secure with password grids and what not but this type of lapse is by no means tolerable.

Are you still using an ICICIBank account? If your answer is yes it is the time to think now.

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A user question and this time it is about the brokerages and how to calculate them.

I am the new for the share marketing I am open the account for Sharekhan. I don’t know how to calculating brokerage for Sharekhan. Will you please explain how to calculating the brokerage giving me some example.

Thank you sir

As far as I know Sharekhan have a brokerage plan of 5 paise / 50 paise but if you push hard at the time of opening an account they can bring brokerage down as well but let’s assume 5 paise / 50 paise as the brokerage plan and do the calculation.

Now what does 5 paise / 50 paise mean.

It means that when you do a transaction (Buy or Sell) of 100 Rs on delivery based buying or in simple terms if you buy shares with a plan not to sell the same day you pay 50 paise as brokerage. On top of these 50 paise there will be other tax and charges which roughly makes these 50 paise close to 70 paise.

But if you square of the trade on the same day you will not be paying 50 paise but it will be 5 paise instead.

The same brokerage also applies when you sell the shares. I.e. on 100 Rs share price you pay 50 paise as brokerage.

Example

How to calculate the brokerage very fast and with no calculator?

Just add 1.5 Rs per 100 Rs to the actual share price.

Let’s say you buy Reliance Industries at 1050 Rs. (Rounded price as of now)

Now the total brokerage roughly that you will pay for buying as well as selling would be 15.75 per unit.

So the cost price will be 1050 +15.75 and so if you sell Reliance Industries at 1065.75 you will make some profit.

My broker is Motilal Oswal and My Brokerage plan is 3 paise / 30 Paise and so for this I just add 1 Re per 100 Rs to the actual share price.

I.e. 1050 + 10.5 i.e. 1060.50 will be my price where I can make some profit.

So how do you calculate your brokerage?

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These days I get lots of queries related to loan and one of them was what is the EMI one needs to pay for any loan? So I thought I will create a very simple EMI calculator.

So here it is.

Try avoiding loan as much as possible.

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Stefan, asked very important question to me

Hello Shabbir,

I need your suggetions as I am finding it difficult to decide which would be a better stratergy. I am not a trader.

I have following shares: (Are these good stocks to hold for another 2 to 3 years perspective?)

1000 Infotech enterprises ltd bought at Rs 110.
34 RIL stocks bought at Rs.1080
130 Bharti Airtel at 356 Rs.

I have a home loan: Current status:

Outstanding prinicpal: 12,00,000 Rs
Interest rate 10.5 % (Floating)
EMI: 18,300 Rs
Prinicpal component: Around 7700 Rs
Interest componet: Around 10600 RS

My question is should I sell all my shares and pay back the home loan or should I stay invested and just stick to my EMI?

Note: From my overseas assignments, I feel, I can earn and pay around 5 Lacs as lumpsum to the bank till this year end.

Please suggest me.

Regards,
Stefan

Now you have roughly cash level of 3,60,000

1000 x 280 = 280,000
34 x 1080 = 36720
130 x 320 = 41600

and so I would suggest you to offload 300k of your investment and pay back your loan. This would mean your EMI is reduced by close to 4000 Rs. Now start SIP of close to 4000 Rs in best mutual funds. Markets in 2010 is expected to be volatile and SIP would mean you have nullified the volatility to an extent. The other 500k you can pay would mean you would be almost done with the loan by the end of this year.

This is my opinion or I would say this is what I would have done and now I leave it to the users as well to provide some valuable suggestions.

Over to you guys

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