Rahul Agarwal, Director, Wealth Discovery Securities
Rahul looks after sales initiatives, marketing strategy and new product design and implementation at Wealth Discovery. He is also responsible for steering the company into new product domains. He is a Technocrat with Post Graduate degrees in Civil Engineering and an MBA in Finance from the University of Pittsburgh.
In conversation with Dominic Rebello, Rahul says, “The Indian economy in our opinion is about ready to enter a period of long term sustainable growth, and yes there would be periods of hiccups, the investors need to be patient in these conditions and stay invested for the longer term.”
Tell us a few words about Wealth Discovery?
Wealth Discovery is a full services financial firm based out of New Delhi. Our online activities are carried under the brand name EZ Wealth. We are members of all prominent stock exchanges and offer a wide spectrum of financial services which include trading/investing in equity, commodity and currency segments. We also provide paperless mutual fund investing, bonds and other investment options to our clients. Our primary focus is on financial advice and literacy, our flagship product EZ family offers a comprehensive suite of financial advisory services to all our clients at a very nominal cost.
How is Wealth Discovery different from others?
We proudly call ourselves A “Different” Broking House. We have set out to fill the void between the full-service brokers and a truly stripped down discount brokerage which reflects in our product offerings which covers the entire gamut of investing and trading class. We also believe that the discount brokerage model that is currently being followed in India has set in a race to the bottom where everyone is trying to reduce brokerages at the cost of providing adequate services in terms of financial advice. We believe that 90% of the investor class in India which already is miniscule as compared to the population has very little financial literacy and for them concepts like zero brokerages are of no use, for us,” Zero Brokerage without Financial Advice is practically zero”. We are here to present for the first time in India a hybrid model which combines Zero Brokerage with Prudent Financial advice, subscribing to this product is like having a personal financial planner that too at such an affordable price.
What makes an investor successful?
There is no shortcut to success in any field and it’s equally true for investing and trading. The biggest recipe to success in this area would be information and an inquisitive mind. An investor/trader should always keep looking for the information that is relevant to his investment strategy and should always be prepared to ask questions and find answers to them. Other two things that are equally important is discipline and risk management. Investment and trading is all about discipline and managing risk.
Your take on the current market scenario?
At this point we remain cautiously bullish on the Equity markets even though they appear to be a little overpriced with the benchmark Nifty around historic highs and a PE of 26.5. Historically at such levels a correction always follows, however, it is also true that people have lost more money waiting for a correction then they would have lost if an actual correction would have taken place. The recipe to success is to stay long and do it in steps, if the market falls tomorrow buy some more stocks, always invest that money in the markets which you do not need in the next three to five years. The Indian economy in our opinion is about ready to enter a period of long term sustainable growth, and yes there would be periods of hiccups, the investors need to be patient in these conditions and stay invested for the longer term.
Your vision for Wealth Discovery?
Our stated vision is: “To be an organization that empowers individual investors in taking control of their financial lives in an efficient and cost effective way”. We want to become a name which synonymous with prudent financial advice, to serve our clients through innovative product offerings and in process guiding them towards a path of sustainable wealth creation. As part of our Corporate Social Responsibility we want to be medium of financial literacy to the general masses. Our endeavor is to be a part of an exercise where we spread basic financial literacy to each and every corner of the country, educating individuals making them financially literate and in the process creating employment opportunities in the financial advisory domain.