Letter From The Editor: Your All-Weather Investing Guide

Before I begin, let me make a frank confession. I’ve never invested in stocks directly. I’ve mostly stayed away from mutual funds too. Almost every penny that I earn is safely parked in bank fixed deposits. Call me a tad old-fashioned, but I’ve always believed that it is a small price to pay for being an independent journalist.

Strangely, at a time when the entire investing world is being turned upside down by bad news, I find comfort in my seemingly archaic investing methods. After all, capital preservation is being seen as the dominant theme for 2012.

However, you’d do well to stay clear of my self-confessed conservatism. In this special edition, we’ve laid out a rich menu of investing wisdom for you that is both rare and insightful. And it starts with a simple precept: The investing terrain is both complex and uncertain. Therefore, this isn’t exactly the time for wildly adventurous, bold bets.

With the help of our formidable columnist and Consulting Editor Sanjoy Bhattacharyya, our special projects team of Shishir Prasad, Pravin Palande, Abhishek Raghunath and Bharat Bhagnani went to work on deciphering the complex interplay of macro and micro factors affecting the investment landscape. Exclusive commentary from Larry Summers, Stephen Roach, Mark Mobius, Satyajit Das and John Mauldin provide the vital global perspective.  A battery of stars from the Indian investment world — Kenneth Andrade, Ritesh Jain, Luis Miranda and Sanjay Dutt — along with our team show you how to play each asset class — equities, fixed income, real estate, private equity, gold and art.

We’ve also constructed a model portfolio of all-weather stocks that have survived and thrived for a little more than a  decade, beating the Sensex by a wide margin. Plus, Associate Editor Pravin Palande has put together a wonderful graphic story that traces the decline of Greece, the birthplace of democracy.

That’s not all. I’m pleased as punch to announce the launch of forbesindia.com. The arrival of the online edition marks an important milestone for the Forbes brand in India. While the digital medium offers exciting, new possibilities, one thing is for sure: It’ll have the same authoritative brand of journalism that has been at the heart of our print edition.  

For the past several weeks, our Director-Online Deepak Ajwani and his enterprising team of Bhagwan Patil and Sandeep Shivalkar, aided by our Social Media Editor Peter Griffin, have been toiling hard to create a new platform that allows our editors, writers, designers, photographers and contributors to have deeper — and certainly more regular — conversations with our growing and influential community of readers. So come on over to forbesindia.com. Let the conversations flow.

Best,

Indrajit Gupta
Editor, Forbes India
Email: indrajit.gupta@network18online.com
Twitter id: @indrajitgupta