Parag Parikh's Columns and Writings (Archive)

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The Parag Parikh columns archive refers to the body of column writing, opinion pieces and feature articles published over more than two decades by Parag Parikh, the founder of PPFAS Mutual Fund, principally in the Indian business press across publications including Business Standard, DNA and the Economic Times. The column archive is among the most substantial bodies of Indian-authored writing on value investing and behavioural finance applied to Indian equity markets and forms a key complement to the founder’s two books Stocks to Riches (2005) and Value Investing and Behavioral Finance (2009).

Parikh’s column writing began in the 1990s and continued until his death in May 2015. The columns engaged with the same themes that would later be developed at book length: investor psychology, the limits of efficient markets, the Graham-Buffett-Munger value-investing framework, the Indian retail-investor experience and the operational realities of investing in Indian equity markets. The columns are still accessible through publication archives and through the PPFAS Knowledge Centre, which preserves selected pieces.

The archive is preserved as part of the PPFAS investor education programme and the PPFAS investor desk portal, with selected columns and excerpts indexed under “Parag’s Views” within the Knowledge Centre. The columns are also frequently referenced in PPFAS podcast and interview appearances and at the PPFAS Annual Unitholders’ Meet.

Publication venues

Business Standard

Business Standard (BS), the Indian business daily published by Business Standard Limited, was the principal venue for Parag Parikh’s column writing across the 2000s and into the 2010s. BS hosted regular columns on equity markets, investor psychology, value investing and contemporary market events. The columns drew on Parikh’s experience as the founder of Parag Parikh Financial Advisory Services Limited (CIN U67190MH1992PLC068970) and as manager of the Cognito PMS launched in 1996 (see PPFAS history 1979 to present).

Key BS column themes included:

  • Critique of speculative excess in Indian equity markets.
  • The case for long-term value investing.
  • Application of Daniel Kahneman, Amos Tversky and Robert Shiller’s behavioural-finance ideas to Indian investor behaviour.
  • Analysis of specific Indian market events including the 1992 Harshad Mehta scam, the 2000 dot-com bubble in Indian technology stocks, the 2003 to 2007 mid-cap bull market and the 2008 global financial crisis.
  • Commentary on the Indian mutual fund industry and on the contemporary regulatory environment under SEBI Mutual Funds Regulations 1996.

DNA

The Daily News and Analysis (DNA) newspaper, published by Diligent Media Corporation in Mumbai from 2005 until its discontinuation in October 2019, was another principal venue for Parikh’s writing. DNA hosted opinion pieces by Parikh during the mid-to-late 2000s addressing similar themes to his BS work, with the DNA columns often pitched at a somewhat more accessible retail-investor audience.

Economic Times

The Economic Times (ET), published by Bennett, Coleman and Co. Limited, hosted occasional feature articles and quoted commentary from Parikh as well as periodic full-length columns. ET coverage of Parikh’s writing was particularly visible around scheme launches and at industry inflection points. Parikh’s posthumous influence in the Indian retail-investing ecosystem is regularly referenced in ET coverage of PPFAS Mutual Fund and its leadership under Neil Parag Parikh, Rajeev Thakkar and Raunak Onkar.

Other publications

Beyond the principal venues above, Parikh contributed to:

  • Outlook Business: feature interviews and occasional bylined articles.
  • Business Today: feature articles and quoted commentary.
  • Mint: feature interviews and commentary.
  • The Sunday Express and other Sunday business supplements.
  • Industry publications including Cafemutual and PMSBazaar.

Column topics

The Parag Parikh column archive is broadly organisable around several recurring topic clusters.

Behavioural finance

A central theme of the columns is the application of behavioural-finance concepts to Indian investor behaviour. Parikh introduced Indian readers to:

  • Loss aversion and the prospect theory of Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky.
  • Heuristics and biases including anchoring, availability and representativeness.
  • Mental accounting per Richard Thaler.
  • Overconfidence and the trader-pull-effect.
  • Herd behaviour and reflexivity per George Soros.
  • The “noise trader” framework of Andrei Shleifer and Lawrence Summers.

The columns made these concepts accessible without sacrificing rigour, and the cumulative volume of column writing on behavioural finance was substantial enough to support the 2009 book Value Investing and Behavioral Finance.

Value investing fundamentals

Parikh wrote extensively on the Graham-Buffett-Munger framework of value investing. Recurring topics included:

Indian market history

Parikh wrote frequently about Indian stock market history, particularly the recurrent boom-and-bust cycles that he viewed as illustrative of behavioural-finance phenomena. Specific events that received extensive column treatment included:

  • The 1992 Harshad Mehta scam and the bull market that preceded it.
  • The 1994 to 1995 IPO boom.
  • The 2000 dot-com bubble in Indian technology stocks.
  • The 2003 to 2007 mid-cap and small-cap bull market.
  • The 2008 global financial crisis.
  • Periodic real-estate and gold-related speculative episodes.

Regulatory and industry topics

Parikh wrote on the regulatory environment for Indian equity investing, the evolution of SEBI Mutual Funds Regulations 1996, the structure of the Indian mutual fund industry, and the relative merits of direct equity investing versus mutual fund investing.

Investor education

A substantial fraction of the columns are pitched as pure investor education, explaining basic concepts such as SIP, STP, SWP, direct plan adoption in India, mutual fund trail commission, regular vs direct plan mutual fund, and the PAN and KYC requirements for retail investors.

Chronological span

The column archive spans approximately the 1990s through 2015. Approximate sub-periods include:

  • 1990s to 2000: Early writing on Indian equity markets, value investing concepts and reflections on the broking and PMS practice at PPFAS Ltd.
  • 2001 to 2005: Extensive column writing leading up to the publication of Stocks to Riches in 2005.
  • 2006 to 2009: Mature column writing on behavioural-finance themes, supporting the 2009 publication of Value Investing and Behavioral Finance.
  • 2010 to 2012: Columns connected to the preparation of PPFAS Asset Management Private Limited (incorporated 8 August 2011) and the May 2013 launch of the AMC’s flagship scheme.
  • 2013 to 2015: Column writing during the founder’s final years, including reflections on the launch of Parag Parikh Flexi Cap Fund (then PPLTVF), the Indian mutual-fund industry’s growth and macro topics.

The column archive ends with the founder’s death on 3 May 2015 in a road accident in Omaha, Nebraska, while returning from his first attendance at the Berkshire Hathaway annual general meeting.

Book serialisation context

Several of the columns were directly serialised, excerpted or extended in Parikh’s two books:

The books are essentially structured expansions of the column material, providing book-length treatment of themes that had been developed across multiple columns. The relationship is similar to that of many newspaper-columnist-turned-author careers, in which periodical column writing builds the audience and develops the material that subsequently appears in book form.

Preservation and access

The columns have been preserved through several channels:

  • PPFAS Knowledge Centre: The “Parag’s Views” subsection of the Knowledge Centre hosts selected columns and excerpts.
  • Newspaper archives: Business Standard and the Economic Times maintain online archives that include past Parikh columns (subject to subscription access).
  • Books: The most substantial column material has been republished and expanded in the two books.
  • Third-party compilations: Investor education resources by other publishers and creators have compiled and discussed Parikh’s writing.

The PPFAS Knowledge Centre preservation is intentional and reflects the AMC’s broader policy of preserving the founder’s voice. The “Parag’s Views” subsection is the principal canonical resource for accessing Parikh’s columns in the modern era.

Influence on PPFAS Mutual Fund

The column archive’s influence on subsequent PPFAS Mutual Fund operations is substantial. The columns establish the doctrinal foundation of the PPFAS investment philosophy that has been operationalised in:

The columns continue to be invoked by Rajeev Thakkar, Raunak Onkar and Neil Parag Parikh in PPFAS podcast and interview appearances, at the PPFAS Annual Unitholders’ Meet and in the long-form PPFAS monthly factsheet commentaries.

Comparative context

The Parag Parikh column archive is among the most substantial bodies of Indian-authored value-investing and behavioural-finance writing. Comparable column archives in the Indian financial press include:

  • Aswath Damodaran’s writings, particularly his blog “Musings on Markets” (though Damodaran’s writing is academic rather than newspaper-column-based).
  • Vivek Kaul’s columns on equity, macro and behavioural topics.
  • Monika Halan’s writings on personal finance.
  • Manish Chokhani’s interviews and lectures.

Within this comparative context, the Parag Parikh column archive is distinguished by its early adoption of behavioural-finance concepts in Indian discourse, its consistent voice across more than two decades and its direct operational connection to the subsequently founded PPFAS Mutual Fund.

Recent developments

In the 2025-26 cycle, references to Parikh’s column writing have featured in:

See also

External references

References

  1. PPFAS Asset Management Pvt Ltd. “Parag’s Views.” https://amc.ppfas.com/knowledge-center/parags-views/
  2. Parikh, Parag. Stocks to Riches: Insights on Investor Behaviour. Tata McGraw-Hill, 2005.
  3. Parikh, Parag. Value Investing and Behavioral Finance: Insights into Indian Stock Market Realities. Tata McGraw-Hill, 2009. ISBN 978-0-07-007763-8.
  4. Business Standard. “Dalal Street veteran Parag Parikh dies in Omaha.” 4 May 2015.

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