India Post News Service

FREMONT: Do you remember what you were doing in fourth grade? What you did in your sophomore year in high school? Monte Malhotra remembers exactly what he did at those times. In his fourth grade, Monte started investing in stocks in school. In his tenth grade, he started writing a book. Now, only 18 years old and in his undergraduate year at Stanford, Monte is the proud author of a book and no light or fluffy work has he written.

 "The Young Investor’s Guide to Retiring Young" is a book about personal finance and investment aimed at the younger crowd but a good read for the older, more experienced readers out there, too. Trading card analogies snag curiosity and show parallels while short chapters retain interest. More established investors can brush up on the fundamental principles of investing. Available on Amazon, the book talks about personal finances, stocks and investing. While talking about how he got interested in the financial world, Monte reminisces about the fourth grade teacher at Harker School, Bill Bost, who started teaching his class about stocks. Every Friday evening, the class played stock market games and voted on fake portfolios they had set up.

Monte was hooked for life by the financial world. His dad, Kuldip Malhotra, remembers that he was the only child he knew who, every morning, would grab the business section of the newspaper to read about the Dow and the yen. Soon, imaginary trading was no longer enough and Monte asked his mother, Sushma for some money to invest. At that point, she refused to do so. Monte loved checking his mother’s stock portfolio. One day, she found that one of the stocks in her portfolio had been sold and she could not figure out how. When she mentioned it, Monte said that he had done so and that it was just in time. Speechless, Sushma was furious and did not know how to react. Just then, the man on whose advice she had bought the stock called and asked her to get rid of that stock immediately. She says that was when they first took his interest in stocks seriously.

Just as an aside, kids, do not try this at home. Monte’s family members got together and advanced him money worth his next two years of birthday and Christmas gifts. With that seed money, Monte was in business and has been earning returns in the teens since then. He started the Finance and Investing Club in Saratoga High School when he found no one shared his interest. It soon grew to more than twenty people in four years. At this point, he realized that everyone made the same mistakes that he had made in the initial stages. He had been investing for around six years when the idea came to him to write a book. Sushma recalls that when she asked Monte which summer camp he wanted to go to, he said that he would be staying at home to write a book. Monte thought writing a book would be easier than it turned out to be.

His aim of five to six pages a day was whittled down to one page a day. He wrote the whole book that summer but not satisfied with the more adult language, he rewrote it the next summer with language more appropriate to the younger age group he was targeting. Eight longer chapters turned into thirty seven shorter chapters. After that, he went online to search for publishers. When he was accepted, his publishers did not know he was seventeen. He had to resubmit the manuscript when he turned eighteen. Monte feels that that initial fourth grade class changed his life. It made investing fun and homework on stocks was much more tangible when he got 10 percent on returns. He learned life lessons about handling money and personal finances.

He realized that schools do not usually teach real life money concepts. However, as personal finance is very crucial and people cannot invest if they are in debt; the first half of his book is devoted to understanding personal finance. He is strongly against students carrying credit card debt, for example. Other recommendations from him are that beginning investors keep it simple, do not follow tips but do the research on a company and its core competencies and to avoid panic and hold stocks for two-three quarters, if possible. "Investing is not abstract and you should know tangible aspects", he says. His sister, Angela, had this to say about Monte, "I saw Monte’s interest in finance develop in 4th grade when his entire class would invest in the stock market. He would passionately talk about the stocks he was investing in and would be very enthusiastic about it. I felt that it was at this point that finance became Monte’s number one interest.

He helps me with my financial planning and how I should repay my student loans. I feel very lucky to have such a knowledgeable younger brother helping me with my money management". Besides helping his sister’s financial planning, Monte manages his parents and various other family members and friends’ stock portfolio. As a Stanford undergraduate and an Associate with the Charles R. Blyth Fund (part of the Stanford endowment), he feels that many practical skills you need for life are never taught in school. He learned time management to help cope with schoolwork and writing.

His advice is "Whatever you are passionate about, you really pursue it and put effort into it- you will probably be more successful than others who are not passionate about it". Monte has certainly followed his own advice to become a published author and a successful investment and financial advisor.