Monetary Policy: As the macroeconomic outlook becomes less transparent the monetary policy committee has only become more steadfast in its neutral stance. This leaves room for all possible outcomes and actions. The neutral stance has often been equated to a status quo for policy rates. So, the rate hike of…
Last month, Janet Yellen handed over the reins to Jerome Powell. He was initiated as Fed Chair into a chaotic market, as the US markets corrected sharply in his first week. There has been much speculation as to what kind of Chair Powell would make. On one hand, he’s seen…
Everybody knows it. Almost nobody does it. ‘Buy low Sell high’ wasn’t meant for the theorists. It was meant for just about everybody, you and me. Yet, we didn’t get it right. Staring at a gold price of Rs. 25875, one can’t miss the irony. Most investments in gold happened around the…
The Indian investor was once identified with conservatism and savvy. He would always buy when assets sold low. He stayed out of bubbles. Gold was bought in small parcels when prices were attractive. Fixed income was a steady part of his investment book. He ventured into realty only when he…
Quick edit: Watching people shop for gold reminds one of how diabetics think at the sweet counter. They know that the buyer may turn bad but can do little about their urges. Between the lure of the metal and shopaholism, they hardly can differentiate what drives them. The knowledge that…
Free fall Friday it was. And, how? A day when safe havens crumbled like they never really were safe. Infosys, gold and silver as a threesome make for odd company. But, they send out a message which investors can ill afford to ignore. Safe havens are safe only at a…
Quick edit: A new high or a new low are not mere benchmarks. They are milestones around which investors reinvent their expectations. A new high catalyses over exuberance and breeds optimists by the dozens. A new low triggers more converts to the pessimists’ camp. Gold hit a 10 month low this week and…
Quick edit: Is India really a poor country? If so, how do we explain just one temple having gold and precious stones worth 250000 crores in its cellar? How do we explain Indian imports of gold worth 5 lakh crores plus in three years between 2010 and 2012 when the…
Quick Edit: If there was a virus that is hurting the Indian equity investor, we could probably call it Macroanalitis. Terms like fiscal deficit and current account deficit have become so commonplace that one wonders why people never thought about these numbers earlier. The big picture is so scary that…
Quick edit: The budget day is indeed time for some quixotic stuff. The economists think like the citizen and the citizens think like an economist. That reminds one of the apocryphal tales on the most beautiful actress of his time proposing to George Bernard Shaw. Budgets are actually meant for…
A budget is an annual event and volatility is its constant companion. The interesting thing about budgets is that expectations are running very low in recent years. The markets have stopped seeing budgets as catalysts of sentiment overhaul. At best, the budget is an opportunity to make a few bets…
Are budgets really relevant anymore? The picture painted by the budget is never bright. Deficits are here to stay. They always seem to get worse than estimates year after year. Taxes have more or less reached their best possible state. If any, they can only start hurting those who earn a…