“₹2.2 lakh lost to FX markup over 5 years. I never noticed until I looked.”
Yes, regularly. My process for five years was: vest, sell, wire home via Fidelity. I wasn't holding long-term — I was treating each vest like a paycheck and repatriating it. Looking back, that was probably not optimal from a tax standpoint either, but the FX cost was the part that surprised me most.
Fidelity NetBenefits for the shares. Sell on vest day or shortly after, international wire to my Indian account. I thought I had it under control. I track all my other finances carefully — SIPs, hotel rates, foreign card fees. The RSU repatriation had a blind spot I didn't know about.
A colleague mentioned the FX spread almost in passing. I went home that night and pulled five years of wire receipts. I'd been repatriating $100,000 a year and losing about ₹44,000 annually to Fidelity's spread plus wire fees. Over five years: ₹2.2 lakh. The receipts were all right there. I transferred the following month.
I'm starting to think about partial diversification. I've been 100% MSFT for five years. The position has done well but it's a meaningful chunk of my net worth now. I want to start moving some of the older lots into a more balanced portfolio — probably index-heavy, some fixed income. Haven't decided the exact split yet.
Moderate to aggressive. I'm at Director level, income is stable, I have a long horizon. I'm comfortable with equity concentration in the short term. But I'm also pragmatic — having 60% of my investable assets in a single stock is a risk I'm increasingly aware of, especially as the position grows.