Companies are raising capital at a pace like never before. Promoters are selling their shares at a frenzied pace. Mostly, the buyers are domestic mutual funds. The target segment is restricted to midcaps and small caps. Clearly, retail inflows are placing strong compulsions on fund managers to deploy money quickly,…
An upgrade of India’s sovereign rating right in the middle of one of our history’s toughest economic reform programs is clearly a shot in the arm. It is a booster shot for global sentiment on India, capital raising exercises by government and companies, and domestic sentiment. This will further speed…
Indians don’t fancy financial products much. A mutual fund, ETF, or ULIP is supposedly meant for investors who don’t have any idea about equities. If one can’t choose the right stocks, he is perceived as a candidate for a mutual fund scheme. Investors genuinely believe that these products don’t have…
Every market opens up newer investment opportunities. There will always be businesses that nobody wants to own. Or at least, only a few people would seek to venture into them. Businesses that are shunned often drift in valuations, until they reach extremely attractive levels. Then, an event or news or…
Markets have a habit of surprising investors. The surprise tends to vary in intensity and impact. How markets react to surprises, determines the extent. When the intensity is strong, the impact is likely to be high. Markets always tend to be unprepared for surprises. This is ironic considering that markets…
Investment styles in mutual funds are unique. The valuation paradigms of each fund manager drive them. Every fund manager’s approach to risk will be clearly visible in his portfolio. Investment choices speak louder than words. To appreciate a fund manager’s risk construct, all we need to do is to closely…
It’s that time of the year when the festive mood creeps into market trade. Every investor is optimistic and every fund manager worth his salt doles a positive prognosis about markets. No matter where markets are, how valuations look, and where the economy is heading, market players turn politically correct…
GST’s travails went through another interesting week of twists and turns. The acceptance of a new, modern tax system by its stakeholders is innate to its success. If people reject a system, and choose to operate outside it, as has been the habit, it would not meet its objectives. The…
The week marked remarkable change in domestic investor sentiment. The Indian market story has long ceased to be a secular one. We are a heterogeneous market and have ample breadth of business performance within our economy. We have churned our indices to remove companies going through difficult times. This counters the…
When DIIs sold, FIIs bought and when FIIs sold, DIIs bought. This was almost mistaken for some kind of Yin and Yang phenomenon. Investors and analysts reduced it to a complementary system, where the two counterbalanced each other. This would work well for the overall market. But, the two aren’t…
The last week saw a heated debate on electric vehicles. This brought back intense focus to the threat, disruption poses to the automobile industry. Advancements in technology can disrupt the world much more in the next ten years than it has in the last fifty. This is not just restricted…
The investors are always more obsessed with knowing who is buying a stock than who is selling. The natural inclination is to follow buyer behaviour. Bull markets bring this more sharply into focus as large deals start taking place between large investors. Sellers of bigger parcels seek to exit stocks and buyers…
