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Should You Buy Bitcoin?

In general, many financial experts support their clients’ desire to buy cryptocurrency, but they don’t recommend it unless clients express interest. “The biggest concern for us is if someone wants to invest in crypto and the investment they choose doesn’t do well, and then all of a sudden they can’t send their kids to college,” says Ian Harvey, a certified financial planner (CFP) in New York City. “Then it wasn’t worth the risk.” The speculative nature of cryptocurrency leads some planners to recommend it for clients’ “side” investments. “Some call it a Vegas account,” says Scott Hammel, a CFP in Dallas. “Let’s keep this away from our real long-term perspective, make sure it doesn’t become too large a portion of your portfolio.” In a very real sense, Bitcoin is like a single stock, and advisors wouldn’t recommend putting a sizable part of your portfolio into any one company. At most, planners suggest putting no more than 1% to 10% into Bitcoin if you’re passionate about it. “If it was one stock, you would never allocate any significant portion of your portfolio to it,” Hammel says.

At a time when the Indian stock market is peaking and has rallied immensely compared to global markets, there are companies that have not performed in the last 10 years. These are definitely a minor portion of the market considering there are hundreds of stocks that have turned multibagger since 2020. What went wrong with these stocks? Reasons vary from corporate governance, sectoral weakness, company specific and so on. But the more important question is, are these stocks worth buying?