A debate regarding investing in PPF or in mutual fund/direct stocks is better in terms of wealth creation is always around the corner.

But is this comparison valid?

You cant compare orange with an apple. PPF is a debt product and equity MF and direct stocks are from Equity asset class. The features, offerings, pros n cons and usefulness of each of those differ

While investing you should not put all your eggs in one basket. One of my blog readers said instead of investing money in PPF if I would have purchased any bluechip stocks 15 years back I would have been more wealthy.

My answer was "After 15 years you can say so as top bluechip stocks have performed well but there are many more such companies which were on the top, 20 years back and now those are nowhere.

So just betting on a single/ bunch of stocks alone is not a good strategy. No one can predict the future. Everyone talks based on the past performance only.

So investing in different asset classes are equally important for having a balanced portfolio.