The bond, which the Reserve Bank of India started issuing on behalf of the Union government in 2003, was considered one of the safest savings instruments for retail investors.
Senior citizens should avoid putting their entire retirement corpus in SCSS.
Keep a close eye on credit quality, financials of NBFCs before investing. These instruments should not constitute more than 15 to 20 per cent of your debt portfolio.
If you plan to withdraw money from your corpus regularly to meet expenses, have a portfolio of stable instruments.
Expect more volatility in the coming year as the economy and markets price in the demonetisation drive.