Portfolio Rebalancing or Market Timing - VRK100 - 15Sep2020

Importance of Portfolio Rebalancing - VRK100 - 15Sep2020

 

Tweet #vrk100

 

Birds poop out just before take-off in order to weigh less during flight. Likewise, in financial markets, it's sometimes better to lighten up one's positions (rebalancing) in order to take advantage in future.

 

Rebalancing and market timing are two different animals. Rebalancing is basically a risk management tool. It's easy and simple to understand and implement. You move in and out of different asset classes, like, bonds, stocks, gold, etc., according to your asset allocation.

 

With rebalancing, you never go to 0% or 100% with a single asset class. You move the money within your comfortable range, say, 40%-60%. Several assets classes, like, stocks, are subject to heavy losses frequently.

 

Hence, it's better to rebalance portfolios periodically within your comfortable range. The danger with heavy losses is we would be completely out of market due to fear psychosis.

 

Market timing is for the sophisticated and it's highly complicated. It's not suitable for green-horns. It doesn't work 97.17% of the time for 99.572% of investors / traders.

 

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The above blog post is a reproduction of my Tweet thread dated 15 September 2020 >

Birds poop out just before take-off in order to weigh less during flight. Likewise, in financial markets, it's sometimes better to lighten up one's positions (rebalancing) in order to take advantage in future.

— RamaKrishna Vadlamudi, CFA (@vrk100) September 15, 2020

 

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P.S.:

The following images (from old files) are included here after 12Aug2021 till 09Apr2023 for reference purpose (since 09Apr2023, I stopped including new information or images / screenshots in this blog as this blog had become too big with 490 images) > These images are just for information purposes only, this is not investment advice. Readers should consult their own advisers for advice before making any investment decisions:

 

These images / screenshots / weblinks are sourced from various web sources  > 

 

 

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Business Standard 07Apr2023 - FMCG pricing power - Ambi Parameswaran 

 

 

 

Turkish Railways - 400 km from Istanbul

 

 

 

Tweet 03Apr2023  - Nate Gareci - 14-year old streak for US stock outperformance ends - 

 

29Mar2023 Business Standard - article by Ajai Shukla -  Aim for Indigenous Weaponry - India defense capex - domestic vs foreign

 

20Mar2023: Ajay Shah Narottam of XKDR Forum (earlier with NIPFP) - BQ Prime video - his Twitter handle

 

-- SVB collapse (Silicon Valley Bank) in the US was mainly due to asset-liability mismatch between short-dated liabilities and long-dated assets leading to interest rate risk; and high concentration of uninsured deposits among venture capitalists

-- the response from the US authorities (the US Treasury, the Fed and FDIC) is unprecedented in the sense that they all deposits of two failed banks (SVB and Signature Bank) whole – in the process insuring even the uninsured deposits (in the case of SVB, uninsured deposits were huge at 93% of total deposits)

-- the US authorities took ‘systemic risk exception’ and insured the uninsured deposits of SVB and Signature Bank

-- when the authorities respond to a crisis in an unprecedented manner, it’s easy to guess something is going to break

-- in the case of SVB, the wholesale depositors (like venture capital firms, startups, etc.) were terrified of  their uninsured deposits and started withdrawing deposits in an unprecedented speed; and this was amplified by modern information technology (social media, like, WhatsApp, Twitter and other info sharing platforms) leading to SVB bank run in a rapid manner as the word spread more quickly via social media

-- the speed with which large depositors withdrew money from SVB never happened in history (in just two to three days, SVB bank run led to its collapse)

-- the level of inter-connectedness in the world is higher now compared to 2008 GFC

-- the aim of monetary policy is to break something in the system, so that it would force people to spend less leading eventually to lower CPI inflation

 

-- the Fed reacted late to hiking interest rates and later they were forced to hike rates with great speed in 2022 – this has set the stage for banks and others to suffer

 

-- the failure of SVB is a combination of bad management from SVB, Fed tightening rapidly and weak bank regulation

 

-- banking is still a disaster-prone industry; banks tend to fail often since the 19^th century

-- banking can never be safe and secure

-- the developed markets are more inter-connected; but India is backward in certain respects as our markets are not so connected with the rest of the world

-- the network of relationships is complex in the globe

-- felt threatened by the collapse of SVB and Signature Bank, money started moving from smaller banks to bigger banks; and depositors moved money to safer money market mutual funds or MMMFs (that invest only in US Treasury bills)

 

-- the problems in a few US banks spread to Credit Suisse, which has already been in trouble for several years (much prior to SVB collapse)

 

-- banking is always a trouble sector

 

-- Why should we tie our payment systems so tightly to highly-leveraged banking industry, which has been troubled sector for long? Why can’t we allow payments to run via MMMFs and Google Pay, which would be much safer compared to linking payments with banks? Had we linked our payments with MMMFs and Google Pay, we wouldn’t have so much trouble.

 

-- the monopoly of banks in India in the payment systems needs to be questioned

 

-- the shareholders and employees of SVB got burnt; but the rich depositors (Silicon Valley firms) got bailed out – prima facie, this seems unfair – it’s politically bad to use public money to save rich people – this unfairness leads to rage against the rich and elite leading to various kinds of political and economic problems

 

-- we should decrease the banking leverage and we should not allow public money to be used for bank bailouts

 

-- we should reduce the monopoly of banks in payment systems

 

-- by making uninsured deposits whole, the US authorities created a moral hazard – now, depositors will continue to think I’ll deposit my money in a bank that gives higher interest rates than another bank that pays lower interest rates – this moral hazard is creating an incentive for depositors to seek higher interest rates as at the back of their minds they would know some day the government will ultimately come and rescue the failed banks

 

-- inflation in the US is a tough cookie

 

-- the Fed faces a big challenge between whether to focus on financial stability and to focus on containing inflation; the dilemma is if they continue to raise rates, it could further destabilise the financial system and if they lose focus on inflation control, inflation may not come down

 

-- I don’t think the US inflation would come down to 2% target before Nov2024 presidential elections

 

-- the Fed successfully delivered 2% inflation for long in the US and they are proud of it

 

-- after 2008 GFC, there has been a good monetary policy and financial stability toolkit with the Fed; because of this better toolkit, they are now able to respond to crisis situations in a speedy manner to arrest contagion risk

 

-- the speed with which the Fed is responding to crises is due to the remarkable work done by Ben Bernanke and his crew at the time of 2008 GFC

 

-- due to this better toolkit, central banks of developed markets (DMs) are better equipped to deal with crises

 

-- due to these toolkits, the current crisis may not turn into a big mess

 

 

Tweet 18Mar2023 - Derek thmpson -  article by Mike Konczal - services vs goods - US CPI inflation - 

In the chart given below (period Jan2000 to Feb2023), the highest inflation is from 1) delivery services, 2) hospital services and 3) water & sewerage maintenance -- cost of services inflation is much higher than cost of goods - in fact, many goods' prices have deflated over the years - the cost of various services is high because they are labour-intensive

Below is a chart created by Mike Perry of American enterprise Institute >

 

10Mar2023 Tesla Inc -  as on 10Mar2023, Tesla per-share price is USD 173.44, with a market cap of USD 543 billion -- Tesla P/E ratio is 47.9

 

Tweet thread 08Jan2021 - On 07Jan2021, Tesla P/E was 1,663 and market cap of USD 785 billion; on 14Mar2022, its P/E was 104, with a market cap of USD 797 billion

 

My limited point: Focusing solely on valuation multiples is dumb, especially for companies on exponential growth trajectory. Markets tend to price in higher growth much in advance of reality. Tesla is a prime example.  

 

 

 

24Mar2023 Victor Niederhoffer - NHK video - 1997 / 1998 - Asian Contagion - Thai banking crisis of 1998 - stock investing - big loser -

- Washington Post article 17Nov1997 on Niederhoffer - New Yorker article 15Oct2007 (long read) -

09Mar2023  Fundsmith - Annual Shareholders' Meeting 2023 - stock investing - 

04Mar2023 Real Vision Finance - Raoul Pal talks to  David Dredge, CIO of  Convex Strategies - video recorded on 03Feb2023 - convexity portfolios

09Mar2023 Real Vision Finance - Maggie Lake talks to Doomberg - video - hidden energy opportunities - 

 

15Mar2023 Federal Reserve - the US Fed Monetary Policy Tools -  new policy tool "Bank Term Funding Program" or BTFP set up on 12Mar2023 in response to SVB collapse and Signature bank collapse - BTFP terms and conditions

13Mar2023 Blockworks Macro - SVB collapse - video -  Joseph Wang talks about curent bank bailout and moral hazard - another video 14Mar2023 by Joseph Wang  -

13Mar2023 Wealthion - SVB collapse - video -  Adam Taggart talks to Joseph Wang, former Federal Reserve insider - excellent points by Joseph Wang (@FedGuy12)

12Mar2023 Tweet - SVB collapse - other banks too suffered heavily admist SVB Collapse - 

SVB Financial Group (SIVB) (-60%) 

PacWest Bancorp (PACW) (-54%) 

Signature Bank (SBNY) (-36%) 

Western Alliance Bancorp (WAL) (-32.4%) 

First Republic Bank (FRC) (-31.3%) 

Customers Bancorp Inc (CUBI) (-23.5%) 

First Foundation Inc (FFWM) (-20.3%)

Other banks too suffered losses in their share prices, except big banks like, JP MOrgan, Bank of America and Wells Fargo

Big seems to be getting bigger 

12Mar2023 SVB Collapse - SVB Financial Group tweeted on 06Mar2023: "Proud to be on @Forbes' annual ranking of America's Best Banks for the 5th straight year and to have also been named to the publication's inaugural Financial All-Stars list." -- Forbes 2023 list of America's Best banks - 

By 10Mar2023, the bank collapsed!

 

10Mar2023 FDIC press release - "Silicon Valley Bank, Santa Clara, California, was closed today by the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. To protect insured depositors, the FDIC created the Deposit Insurance National Bank of Santa Clara (DINB). At the time of closing, the FDIC as receiver immediately transferred to the DINB all insured deposits of Silicon Valley Bank. All insured depositors will have full access to their insured deposits no later than Monday morning, March 13, 2023." - US bank run - US bank collapse -  SVB - bankruptcy - 

Reaction to the SVB collapse is bruatal in markets today - On 10Mar2023, S&P 500 is down 1.45% to 3,862; Nasdaq down 1.76% to 11,139; Russell 2000 Index down 2.95% to 1,773; CBOE VIX  up 9.7% to 24.80;  US 10-y Treasury yield down 22 bp to 3.70%; US 2-year Treasury yield down 31 bp to 4.59%; gold and silver up 2% each; and  US dollar index or USDX down 0.67% to 104.64. Both European and Asian stock markets are down. Bank stocks have fallen more than other sector stocks today. 

 

SVB is said to to be the 16th biggest bank in the US, before its collapse.

Failed Bank List from FDIC of the USA - banks in the US fail regularly - but SVB is bigger compared to several banks that failed in th US in the past 7 to 8 years

 

SVB Finacial Group trading halted on 10Mar2023 - Silicon Valley Bank or SVB -  

 

 

08Mar2023 SEBI circular -  Gazette of India - Buyback route through open market via stock exchanges - curbs on bids, price and volume 

MoneyControl and Business Standard

06Mar2023 Vanguard -  US ETFs data: 

-- the first ETF in the USA was launched in Jan1993

-- AUM is assets under management

-- industry MF AUM in the US is USD 16.2 trillion (31Dec2022); net cash flow to inudstry MF is minus USD 958 billion in the 10-year period (2013-2022)

-- ETF AUM in the US is USD 6.5 trilion (31Dec2022); net cash flow to ETFs is USD 4.1 trillion in the 10-year period (2013-2022)

-- while inudstry MF has negative flows in the 10-year period (2013-2022); ETFs have positive cash flows

-- in the 10-year period (2013-2022), the average expense ratio of Vanguard ETFs decreased from 0.14% in 2013 to 0.06% in 2022

-- ETFs in the US accounted for more ethan 30% of exchange volumen in 2022

28Feb2023 India market cap to GDP raio is 94.74 percent as on 28Feb2023 -- based on BSE market cap of all BSE firms Rs 257.73 lakh crore and estimated India GDP for FY 2022-23 of Rs 272.04 lakh crore

05Jan2023 School of Athens by Raphael - video  - Renaissance - Vatican fresco - Plato Aristotle Euclid Heraclitus Ptolemy Pythagaros Socrates - "none of them were Christians" - Diogenes Zeno Epicurus Parmenides Boethius - painting

04Mar2018 School of Athens by Raphael - video -  painting - Wikimedia Commons - 

 

23Jan2023 ET - Tata Motors' ADR to be delisted effective 23Jan2023 - American Depositary Receipt - delisting

08Oct2022 Sahil Bloom The most powerful life hacks I've found - 

21Feb2023 Stanley Pignal - most hyped technologies - will Chat GPT be one of them? - similar to Iridium?

21Feb2023 Bank of Baroda vs Adani group - Fun - humour -

23Jan2023 Fake news vs real news - fake news from Reuters Pitchbot juxtaposed real news from Reuters - people easily believe the fake news in this case because it's so believable -

20Jan2023 Kunal Shah talking to Romeen Sheth - suitcases and weddings - Indian eithos - low trust society - living room vs bath room -

 17Feb2023 StLouis Fed -Fed balance sheet expansion and contraaction - QE and QT (QT is withdrawal of liquidity or reduction of Fed balance sheet) - 

1) From 03Sep2008 (GFC or global financial crisis) to 14Jan2015, Fed's balance sheeet expanded from USD 905.25 billion to  USD 4,516.08 billion (five times increase)

2) From 14Jan2015 to 28Aug2019, Fed B/S contracted from USD 4,516.08 billion to USD 3,759.95 billion (16.74 percent decrease)

3)  From 28Aug2019 to 26Feb2020 (COVID-19 outbreak), Fed B/S expanded from USD 3,759.95 billion to USD 4,158.64 billion (10.60 percent increase)

4)  From 26Feb2020 (COVID-19 outbreak) to 13Apr2022 (QT started), Fed B/S ballooned from USD 4,158.64 billion to  USD 8,965.49 billion (116 percent increase)

5)  13Apr2022 (QT started) to now (15Feb2023), Fed B/S contracted from USD 8,965.49 billion to USD 8,384.77 billion (6.5 percent decrease)

Tweet 26Dec2021

Tweet thread

Fed balance sheet expansion - from 18Dec2022 to 15Feb2023 >

 

02Feb2023 NDTV - New income tax regime versus old tad regime  - 08Feb2023 Livemint - why nex tax regime has limited appeal 

10Feb2023 - household finance - household savings - financial assets - savings rate - investment rate -

  24Aug2017 RBI report  of Household Finance Committee  - PDF copy -    RBI data flow of financial assets & liabilities - 

21Jan2022 Ila Patnaik and Radhika Pandey - cut taxes to spur demand - standard deuction - 10Jun2019 savings and capital formation by Ila Patnaik and Radhika Pandey - 29Jan2019 tax incentives influence household financial savings by Ila Ptnaik, Radhik Pandey and Renuka Sane

05Sep2017 Business Standard - pension as mandatory savings by Renuka Sane  - NPS - 

The June2011 Report of the Shyamala Gopinath Commitee on Comprehensive Review of NSSF - small savings - 11Nov2011 govt decisions on this report -

25Jan2023 Adani Enterpirses FPO - as per this, LIC of India, SBI Employees Pension Fund and life insurers are investing as anchor investors in the FPO

31Jan2023 Adani Enterprises Ltd follow-on public offer (FPO) sails through- as per Business Standard  article 31Jan2023, the FPO was bailed out by non-institutional investors (NIIs). They include, Reliance Industries, JSW Steel, Bharti Airtel, Torrent Group and Zydus Cadila Group.   "This includes names like Ambanis, Sajjan Jindal, Sunil Mittal, Sudhir Mehta and Pankaj Patel." - AdaniFPO - Adani FPO -

images from the article > 

31Jan2023 BSE demand schedule for Adani Enterprises FPO

Fun - Meme on Adani Enterprises FPO

25Oct2022 Mehdi Hasan - Rishi Sunak / 'Desi' prime minister memes are genius - fun - meme -footwear -

29Dec2022 India current account defcit - TE -  India CAD reached 4.4 percent of GDP as of 30Sep2022

06Mar2023 music video - web archive video  - web archive lyrics and sung by Leonard Cohen - 'Everybody Knows' 

Tweet 02Feb2021

"Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows 

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died..."

Music video - web archive - Piano Music by Claude Debussy for Relaxation - with paintings by Monet, van gogh, Manet, Pissarro, Degas, Renoir, Degas, etc. - classical music - impressionism -

 

13Jan2023 Moneycontrol: 

Q: Coin has become quite large with assets under management of Rs 33,000 crore. What’s your plan to monetise the platform in the long term?

Zerodha's Nithin Kamath: In July last year, there was a Sebi circular that users have to move money separately to buy stocks and mutual funds. Earlier, they could use the money in their trading accounts to buy MFs. So, that has ruined customer experience on Coin a little bit. We see Coin as an execution platform, not a discovery platform. (Coin is a platform for investing in direct plans of mutual funds).

On Coin, what we're saying is people who come to Coin already know what funds they are trying to buy. We want to make that as simple and easy as possible. Eventually, the longer term plan is that we have to figure out a way to build an advisory business -- either directly or partnering with a startup-- and Coin will play the role of a foundational block.

10Jan2023 Fed - Fed Chair Jerome Powell's speech "Central Bank Independence and the Mandate -- Evolving Views" 

- monetary policy - bank supervision - climate policies -

-- Fed Chair categorically stated that the US Federal Reserve believes in central bank independence and would not go beyond what is mandated by the US Congress

-- specifically, he told Fed would not expand its scope to issues  relating to climate change and their perceived social benefits

-- "We are not, and will not be, a 'climate policymaker.'" 

17Sep2022 Tweet - Derek Guy - How to look better is a suit 

 - look better in outerwear - look better without exercise - style - dress better - clothes - tailoring -

 

03Jan2022: #Quote #Poverty #Wealth

"Poor and content is rich, and rich enough..." ~ Shakespeare, Othello

 

31Dec2022 FS blog - The best podcasts of 2022 

 - farnam street - Shane Parrish - The Knowledge Project - 

 

02Jan2022 video - 7-year old Drew Barrymore - TV show - Johnny Carson - Hollywood - ET - Steven Spielberg - good laugh -

31Dec2022 TE - data - macro indicators - bitocin - ethereum - crypto assets - inflation - interest rates - bond yields - top S&P 500 by market cap

 

TheIdeaFarm Tweet 20Dec2022 - tope 20 investing podcasts of 2022 

Tweet 22Nov2022 - Telugu family when you show no interest in emigrating to the United States - meme - fun -

Tweet 21Dec2022 - save the planet - upma with greenpeace - green peas - fun - meme -

Mark Brooks Tweet thread 30Dec2022 - 100 tweets -  management - strategy - people - culture -

BBC documentary -  a wonderful documentary on Friedrich Nietzsche by @bettanyhughes > Bettany Hughes > Genius of the modern world >  philosophy - BBC - video

BSE holidays 2023 - NSE holidays 2023 - stock market  

12Nov2022: I walked along KBR Park outer walkway (Banjara Hills, Hyderabad) this afternoon and I took some photographs along the way > 

Hyderabad police control room, beside TRS headquarters >

 

TG 15Nov2022 -  2023 Holidays under NI Act in Telangana state - bank holidays

JP Morgan India in 2023 - Balancing Growth with Statbility 

- India GDP growth rate in FY 2022-23 could be nearly 7%, but below pre-pandemic potential trend

- FY 2023-24 GDP growth rate could be lower, due in part to lower exports due to global slowdown

- corporate and bank balance sheets are in better shape in recent years

 

- capex cycle / investment cycle will take time to fructify 

- consumption receovery still remains below its pre-pandemic trend

- corporate debt-GDP ratio in FY 2020-21 is at 30%, the lowest level since 2006 (due to years of delveraging)

- manufacturing utilisation rates are still at 76% (giving less hope for immediate capex revival)

 

- the limited capex upcycle is being driven more by the public (government) rather than the private sector

 

- much of nominal bank credit growth is explained by elevated inflation

- real policy rates may become positive in FY 2023-24

Tim Ferriss video  28Jun2022 - 2nd part - Tim talks to Edward Thorp (Ed Thorp) - How to Think for Yourself - transcript - life - probability -

- Schaum's Outlines is a simple book on basic statistics 

- 1st part video 25May2022 - Beating Blackjack and Roulette - Beating stock market - #Investing - stock investing - transcript -

- Tim Ferriss talks - all transcripts -  

30Dec2022 BSE - In a BSE filing , Bandhan said that:"the Bank has transferred its Group Loan and SBAL technical written-off portfolio amounting to Rs. 8,897 crores to an ARC, pursuant to Swiss Challenge Method, for a consideration amounting to Rs. 801.00 Crore, on Security Receipt consideration basis. ARC along with Investor has subscribed to 51.70% of Security Receipts amounting to Rs. 414.04 Crore whereas Bandhan Bank has subscribed to 48.30% of Security Receipts amounting to Rs. 386.96 Crore."

21Dec2022 BSE -  Bandhan Bank had said that it had  received binding bid from an ARC, amounting to Rs. 801.00 Crore, on Security Receipt consideration basis, for the group loan (small business and agriculture loans or SBAL) written-off portfolio with outstanding of Rs. 8,897.00 Crore. Based on this, the stock fell nearly 8% intra-day on 22Dec22, ultimately closing for the day 4.7% with a closing price of Rs 232 and market cap of Rs 37,330 crore.  - asset reconstruction - loan write off - NPA - loan losses - banking - investing - stock investing -

21Dec2022 Reuters - India to bolster carbon trading market with stabilisation fund - carbon credit - emission - carbon market financing - net zero - green energy - trading certificates -  sector wise share of India carbon emissions >

18Feb2022 Business Standard - Startups, IPL auctions & the Veblen effect  - by Sandeep Goyal of Rediffusion

- Julius Caesar - how to become famous - ransom demand - Romans - Rome - economist Thorstein Veblen

- Veblen effect: market behavior: consumers purchase higher-priced goods when similar low-priced substitutes are available - caused by the belief that higher price means higher quality, or by the desire for conspicuous consumption

 

 

20Jan2023 Zuk - cybersecurity - recent WhatsApp takeover frauds - how it works - 

13Dec2022 BSE -  Bihar Sponge Iron Ltd, in a BSE filing after market hours, says its servers are under cyberattack and the company is "struggling to get back its entire data" - #ransomware - ransom ware - cybersecurity

04Feb2023 - CPI inflation - Euro are / eurozone - Netherlands - Trading Economics data - 

 

31Jan2023 - CPI Inflation of major economices TE - 

 Australia CPI inflation - Japan CPI inflation - Egypt CPI inflation -

27Nov2022 TE - UK inflation, Japan inflation and EU inflation - European Union - CPI inflation in these countries is at record highs 

 

10Nov2022 - Gwalior Rayon Silk Manufacturing (Weaving) Company Ltd was incorporated in 1947. Its name was changed to Grasim Industries Ltd effective 22Jul1986. It now belongs to Aditya Birla Group. #Investing 

RBI 02Apr2007 -  Monetary Policy Transmission in India
(Paper presented by Dr. Rakesh Mohan, Deputy Governor, RBI, at the Deputy Governor's Meeting on "Transmission Mechanisms for Monetary Policy in Emerging Market Economies - What is New?" at Bank for International Settlements, Basel on Dec 7-8, 2006.) #MPT 

- Traditionally, four key channels of monetary policy transmission are identified, viz., interest rate, credit aggregates, asset prices and exchange rate channels... In the recent period, a fifth channel – expectations – has assumed prominence in the conduct of forward-looking monetary policy

RBI 27Jun2012 - RBI Working Paper Series No. 11
Monetary Policy Transmission in India: A Peep Inside the Black Box - Jeevan Kumar Khundrakpam and Rajeev Jain #MPT 

- A few attempts have been made to examine the channels of monetary policy transmission for India.

RBI 15Nov2012 - Lost in Transmission? Financial Markets and Monetary Policy - (Speech delivered by Michael Debabrata Patra, Deputy Governor, Reserve Bank of India - November 12, 2022 - in the Treasury Heads’ Seminar organised by the Reserve Bank at Lonavala)

- "Lost in Translation" (2003) Hollywood movie quoted 

- Prisoner's Dilemma

- transmission and distribution losses

- Monetary Policy Transmission (MPT)

- key channles of monetary polilcy transmission 

10Oct1985 David Chaum - Security without Identification Card Computers to make Big Brother Obsolete 

- Twitter handle

- cyber security - privacy - data protection -  individuals

- digital signature - blind signatures 

- payment systems -  

- cryptography - cryptographers - crypto - 

31Oct2022 ESMA - The European Securities and Market Authority  announces withdrawal of recognistion of six central counterparties (CCPs) in India - the withdrawal is effective 30Apr2013 - as these CCPs have not met the ESMA conditions

The six CCPs are: CCIL, ICCL, NSCCL, MCXCCL, IICC and NICCL.

Of the 41 third country CCPs (TC-CCPs) recognised by ESMA, only these six CCPs from India are derecognised by ESMA now.

As per ET article dated 03Nov2022, ESMA withdrew recognition to these six CCPs due to: "the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and SEBI are not comfortable letting these CCPs come under the scrutiny and inspection of overseas market regulators... The trades that would be affected are foreign currency forwards --- where a bank hedges the currency risk of a client buying or selling dollars or any other foreign currency; interest rate swaps in which two entities exchange fixed interest payment vis-à-vis floating rate payment to cover interest rate risks; and custody businesses of some of these MNC banks handling secondary stock and bond market trades of foreign portfolio investors and local institutions like mutual funds."

Real Vision Finance videos - three part series on Italy - Here, Grant Williams talks to Steve Diggle, founder of Vulpes Investment Management -

 

06Sep2019 - video part 1 of 3 - History of Italy's Broken Banking System - Florence, Tuscany, Italy

- Florence is the centre of Italian banking in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries

- Italy and France have beautiful, gentle , bucolic countryside

- the Ponte Vecchio (an old bridge on Arno river in Florence)  has the gold sellers because if you had your business on the bridge, you didn't have to pay your full municipal taxes because you weren't actually inside the city walls. So the reason why London Bridge and these ancient medieval bridges used to be full of merchants is because they were actually avoiding paying tax - #anecdote 

- Florence is synonymous with Medici

- double-entry bookkeeping, a 15th century financial revolution, was brought by Medici

- lending for interest and profit was banned by Church (in old days) in the rest of Europe, but in Florence banking was a respectable profession - (though lending was banned by Church, the minorities especially the Jews were involved in lending) 

- Florence (a town of merchants) is in the middle of Italy, so commerce to and fro the South and North had to pass through Florence on Arno river

- Florence was a fair place to do business - florin was their currency, backed by gold

- Florence was the first capital of united Italy (1870)

- Even now, Italy is a loose federation with several independent identities and differences 

- historically, regional identities have been very strong in Italy - national identity in Italy is weaker

- South Italy is poorer compared to North Italy, which feels they are subsidising the South

- there is anger and resentment against Brussels

- Since 1999 (birth of Euro), Italy's economy has not strengthened causing resentment against the EU

- Italy's pathetic bureaucracy kills businesses

- Florence's duomo is the city's most iconic landmark. Capped by Filippo Brunelleschi's red-tiled cupola, it's a staggering construction whose breathtaking pink, white and green marble facade and graceful campanile dominate the Renaissance cityscape - #architecture 

- The Medicis (in Florence) did not seize power. At their pinnace of power, they weren't involved in banking at all anymore. They got out of the banking business. Instead, they got into the pope business and the owning-the-town business. Politics was definitely a more steady profession than banking.

- because Italy is part of the Euro and the EU, it has to follow the EU's diktats and suffers from EU's bureaucracy - compared to Britain, Italy is more integral to the EU project and as such Quitaly (Italy quitting EU, similar to Brexit) is not happening

- For Italy, leaving the Euro may be easier than leaving the EU

- it being part of EU, Italy has no monetary flexibility and as such sometimes, interest rates are lower when Italy's economy is hot and interest rates are high when when Italy's economy is in downturn (against principles of standard monetary economics) - so, at times, Italy is deprived of the self-correcting mechanism of capitalism

- empires are inflexible, EU is like an empire

07Sep2019 - video part 2 of 3 - Siena - Will Italy be the next country to leave EU?

- world's oldest bank Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena S.p.A. (Banca MPS or BMPS) - Monte dei Paschi in English means 'mount of piety' - in existence since 1472 - but the bank is in financial trouble now (November 2022) -

- wrong / misaligned incentives in Banca MPS (the bank went public 1999 and since then it has three government bailouts)

- at its peak in May2007, the share price of BMPS was Euro 1,085 and now (03Nov2022) it's quoting at Euro 1.86 (it has lost 99.83% of its value from May2007) - great lesson in 'not averaging down'

-  Siena and Florence were rival trading centres (they used to employ the English, Germans, etc., for fighting)

- why is everything (buildings, architecture, etc.) intact in Siena? because there is no growth - when you stop growing, your preserve things -

-  the scale of ambition (in olden days) in Siena is amazing

-  adverse demographics in Italy

-  unsustainable, unserviceable and high debt in Italy

- zombie banks in Italy 

-  JM Keynes said, "If you're a banker, the one thing you must never do is fail idiosyncratically.  Always fail together." #anecdote #quote

-  Italy is frustrated with Brussels (European Union)

- the sovereign debt of Italy is now littered across Europe

- Italy is beautiful (world's 5th most visited country)

- though a G7 nation, Italy's metrics are extremely poor in: 1. ease of starting a  business, 2. corruption, 3.  low rank in getting credit, 4. low rank in paying taxes, 5. high bureacracy (all these negatives suffocate entrepreneurial flair)

07Ssep2019 - video part 3 of 3 - Cortona and Lake Trasimene

- Fate of Italy's Future

 

- Battle of Lake Trasimene - Hanibal's Cunning Ambush - largest military ambush in history - Hannibal of Carthage defeats Romans here massacring thousands of Roman soldeirs - it was Rome's worst defeat in history -

- Three mistakes by Romans in Battle of Lake Trasimene: 1. Roman general Flaminius acted hastily, 2. He rushed to battle (instead of rushing, one should prepare well) and 3. He underestimated the enemy (these mistakes have significant contemparaneous message)

- Why aren't flashy cars, like, Ferraris, Maseratis, etc., there on these roads? Because four or five years ago, in order to increase tax revenues, the Italian government  sent out the traffic police to stop any really nice cars on the roads and asking them how much tax they paid last year. Afraid of the policemen, Italians sold their expensive cars very cheaply at that time. #Anecdote

- flashy cars and terrible roads (Italian dilemma: you can have private wealth in public squalour)

- Italy has a tax collection problem

- you can't get a cappuccino in Italy in the afternoon, you get it only in the morning - you've to drink tea in the afternoon

- Woman fertility rate in Italy is low at about 1.2 or 1.3 (adverse demographics)

- Italian economy is weak and so is its banking system; as such, leaving the Euro is a pipe dream for Italy

- things are cyclical in history; today, Europe has a common currency, open borders and same interest rates; and these things may change in future because of resentment against the EU and inflexibility of the EU - what if you invested in Italy and one day in the next few / several years, Italy switches back to Lira and what will happen to your asset values in Italy? #Quitaly

- EU's inflexibility may lead to its own downfall in future

02Nov2022 NASA - James Webb Space Telescope launched on 25Dec2021 - astronomy - 

- Webb Telescope orbits the Sun (solar orbit) and it is 1.5 million kilometers away from the Earth (it's actually 3.9 times more distant than Moon is  from the Earth)

- in contrast, Hubble Telescope orbits the Earth and is just 570 kilometers far from the Earth

 

30Oct2022 CNBC Marathon - documentary - video - How Cars Keep Americans Safe

- Ralph Nader

-#Anecdote  Swedish car company Volvo made history in 1959 when engineer Nils Bohlin invented the three-point car seatbelt. Volvo essentially gave the design away for free, allowing for its widespread adoption.

- Korean automaker Hyundai unveiled an airbag concept called the Hyundai Hug. The bag is deployed from the passenger seat and is made of air filled chambers and tethers that draw the bag around the body of the passenger. The idea is to hug the passenger in place and protect them from a collision in any direction. - Hug airbags - male dummy - femaly dummy - dummies may cost between USD 100,000 and USD 1,000,000 -

- We are here at Humanetics outside Detroit, Michigan, and this company is the largest maker of crash test dummies in the world. Humanetics controls about 90% to 95% of the crash test dummy market. 

 

- some dummies have 138 sensors

 

 - car safety vs false sense of security

 

- Car manufacturers really weren't interested in talking a lot about safety. If we talk about safety, then we have to acknowledge that cars might not be safe.

 

21Oct2022 Family of Sangita and Sajjan Jindal (JSW Group):

video 15Oct22

Their children are:

Tarini Jindal Handa, Managing Director, JSW Living Pvt Ltd (Furniture stores Forma)

Parth Jindal looks after JSW Cement and JSW Paints

Tanvi Jindal looks after educational initiatives

Sajjan Jindal is son of Om Prakash Jindal or OP Jindal. OP Jindal's four sons are Prithviraj Jindal, Sajjan Jindal, Ratan Jindal and Naveen Jindal.

JSW Group companies (JSW originally meant Jindal South West):

 

JSW Steel

JSW Energy

JSW Holdings

JSW Cement

JSW Paints

JSW Living

 

 

12Oct2022 FT - India looks to move up tech value chain with iPhone plant deal 

- Apple - manufacturing in India - 

Three Taiwanese companies that already work for Apple in India — Foxconn, Pegatron and Wistron — will be putting the iPhone 14 together at their sites in the country’s south, two people familiar with the secretive US company’s operations said.

 

10Oct2022 BBC -  India facing a pandemic of antibiotics-resistant superbugs

- silent pandemic - superbug - drug resistance -  antibiotic resistance - 

Antibiotics, for example, cannot cure viral illnesses like flu or common cold. Patients with dengue - a viral infection - and malaria - caused by a single-celled parasite - often receive antibiotics. Antibiotics continue to be prescribed for diarrheal diseases and upper respiratory infections for which they have limited value.

As prices of antibiotics fall and diagnostics remain expensive, doctors prefer to prescribe drugs rather than order tests. "Doctors are sometimes not sure what they are treating, and they want to treat everything by using broad-spectrum drugs," says Dr Walia.

Hospital infections are also to blame. Patients are often pumped with antibiotics to compensate for poor hygiene and sanitation, "because no doctor wants to lose a patient because of an infection".

 

13Oct2022 Supreme Court - judgment copy - Aishat Shifa vs State of Karnataka - split verdict by SC - Justice Hemant Gupta and Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia - Hijab case - Dairy number 8344 of 2022 -

-  Lawyer Gautam Bhatia article on the above - Discipline vs Freedom -Article 12 - Article 14 - Article 15- Article 21 - Article 25 -

- related: Bijoe Emmanuel & Ors vs State Of Kerala & Ors - Tweet 18Dec2018 and Tweet thread 03Dec2016

17Oct2022 BEML Limited - Apportionment of Cost of Acquisition of equity shares after demerger of BEML Land Assets Ltd from BEML Ltd - BEML demerger - 

- cost of acquisistion is dividend into as follows: BEML Ltd 99.54% and BEML Land Assets Ltd 0.46% (this is for income tax purposes)

 

Scheme of Arrangement - demerged co (BEML Ltd) and resulting co (BEML Land Assets Ltd) - MCA order copy BSE filing 02Aug2022 -

- ex-date for the demerger was 08Sep2022 (record date 09Sep2022)

 

(Previously, the land assets of Tata Communications Ltd -- erstwhile VNSL --  were spun off creating a separate entity at the time VSNL was sold to the Tata group by Govt of India - the resulting company is Hemisphere Properties India Ltd. Hemisphere holds 740 acres of land. Hemisphere was listed on BSE and NSE on 22Oct2020, and Govt of India now holds 51% in this company.)

17Oct2022 BSE - Maharashtra Seamless Ltd:  At its Board of Directors' meeting on 17Oct2022, the company approved issue of bonus shares in the ratio of one bonus equity share for every one equity share held (record date will be intimated later) -- however, at the same Board meeting, the Board did not approve sub-division (share split) of shares -- at the same Board meeting, the company declared Jul-Sep2022 quarterly results (company presentation) -- 

-- it may be recalled, the company on 12Oct2022 informed that its Board would ocnsider issue bonus shares and stock split at it Board meeting being held on 17Oct2022

06Oct2022 TE    Bond inclusion postponed:    The yield on the Indian 10-year government bond jumped as much as 12 bps to approach a two-month high of 7.5% on 06Oct22, after JPMorgan Chase did not include India to the GBI-EM Global Diversified index, as investors cited investment hurdles that need to be resolved, including a lengthy investor registration process and the operational readiness required for trading, settlement and custody of assets onshore. The bank's decision disappointed investors who have been hoping for an inclusion of India in the emerging markets debt index early next year, which would boost capital inflows.

Tweet dated 29Sep2020 on possible bond inclusion

22Sep2022 Supreme Court India judgment copy - Daiichi Sankyo Co Ltd vs Osca Investments Ltd - Diary No 18187 of 2017 - Special Leave Petition (Civil) No 20417 of 2017 in Supreme Court - Ranbaxy - Fortis Healthcare - IHH Malaysia - Related case is Vinay Prakash Sings vs Sameer Gehlaut & Others -

Supreme Court on 22Sep2022 sentenced Malvinder Singh and Shivinder Singh to 6-month prison - SC also directed Delhi High Court to appoint forensic auditors in share sale deal of Fortis Healthcare Ltd - 

Fortis Healthcare Holdings Pvt Ltd (FHHPL) was a holding co of Malvinder Singh and Shivinder Singh brothers and family - FHHPL held shares in listed subsidiary Fortis Healthcare Ltd (FHL) - FHHPL pledged shares of FHL in favour of Indiabulls Housing Finance -

Old tweet thread dated 31Jan2018 on the case >  Delhi High Court - "Fishing Expeditions" - damages calculation based on present value method (NPV) -

21Sep2022 Livemint -  ‘It’s important for us to look at our non-ratings business’ 

Ramnathan Krishnan, MD and Group CEO of ICRA Ltd: "We have subscribed to an early warning system. There is an external vendor who aggregates data from multiple sources and then feeds the information to us on a daily basis. This is mapped to our portfolio. So, if we have got X number of credits that we rate, these X number of credits are bucketed as a portfolio, and those are tracked by that vendor. They look at GST filings, PF deposits, negative news, litigation, changes in auditors, and changes in directors, among others. They aggregate all this data, and then there are alerts that are sent to the analysts on a daily basis."

Ramnathan Krishnan on lack of timely access to corporate loan default data from banks: "Credit rating agencies have been requesting RBI to allow access to its Central Repository of Information on Large Credits (Crilc) platform for picking up default numbers. We do not have access to that yet. So, at the moment, the process that we follow is to seek confirmation from banks and from borrowers."

22Jun2022 Twitter -   (How to Tweet properly)

I went viral 3 times in my first 30 days on Twitter. 

Huge hack: Formatting your tweets. 

Here's how I do it

25Jun2022 Twitter - Ten  of the most useful websites on the internet

04Aug2022 Twitter - Ten incredible free websites, like, Simple Wikipedia, Open Culture, Google Arts & Culture, Visual Capitalist, Project Gutenberg, etc., that will make your more intelligent 

19Aug2022 Twitter -  there will be a lot of thunderstorms and it's good to be prepared for them

-- lot of events that impact markets negatively, from Suez Canal crisis, Oil Shock to COVID-19 Pandemic > crisis > event >

28Oct2022 WaPo -  Rishi Sunak shows the growing influence of Indian talent in the West 

"The success of Indian-origin talent is at this point overwhelming. Significant CEOs of Indian origin include Sundar Pichai of Alphabet, Satya Nadella of Microsoft, Parag Agrawal of Twitter (possibly not for much longer), Shantanu Narayen of Adobe, Arvind Krishna of IBM, Raj Subramaniam of FedEx, Sonia Syngal of the Gap, and (soon) Laxman Narasimhan of Starbucks. All this is happening in an America that is arguably the greatest generator of managerial talent the world has ever seen. These individuals are hardly succeeding in a weak or uncompetitive environment."

 

12Sep2022 ET -- Indian talent -  26 companies in the US have Indian Origin CEOs which constitutes 5% S&P 500 index and 13% of total Mcap, according to Economic Times > Major companies include, Microsoft, Google, Adobe, Linde, IBM, Starbucks (yet to take over), Vertex Pharma and FedEx > Satya Nadella, Sundar Pichai, Shantanu Narayen, Arving Krishna, etc. >

14Sep2022 BT - Tata Group market cap as on 13Sep2022 is Rs 21.70 lakh crore from 28 listed companies > 

China GDP growth rate TE -  China full year GDP growth - China's gross domestic product grew by 8.1 percent in 2021, accelerating from a 2.2 percent expansion in 2020 and beating the government’s target of “above 6 percent”.

03Feb2023 Jason Zweig of WSJ - improve your writing - three-part series - writer - write well -

part one - getting started 

part two - sharpening your tools

part three -becoming a writer

16Aug2022 video - David McCullough's 8 x 12-foot writing shed > he used to call this his 'world headquarters' - he died on 07Aug2022 - Tweet 12Aug2022 - #history #author #writer #historian - write well -

David McCulloough wrote all his books using a Royal typewriter, which he bought for $25 in 1965 - He said, “Everything that I’ve ever written, I’ve written on that typewriter … And after a while, I began to think, maybe it’s writing the books. So I didn’t dare switch.” - two images >

15Aug2022 SBI - SBI FD rates / term deposit rates raised slightly wef 15Aug2022 

SBI Wecare deposit for senior citizens till 30Sep2022 > 

20Feb2023 NMDC Steel Ltd was listed on NSE and BSE today. The closing price of NMDC Steel Ltd today was Rs 31.75 per share (market cap Rs 9,304.67 crore). NMDC stock closed today on NSE at Rs 118.95 (market cap Rs 34,859.56 crore).

If you had stayed invested in NMDC Ltd between ex-date of spin off of NMDC Steel Ltd and now (NMDC Steel Ltd listed today), you'd have made an excellent return of 15.3 percent in just 17 weeks, in an otherwise sideways market.

The calculation > A week back, NMDC Ltd declared a dividend of Rs 3.75 per share -- for which the record date (ex-date) is 24Feb2023. The below calculation did not consider the dividend, because it's prospective.

10Nov2022 NMDC Limited - demerger of NMDC -  this is calculation of derived value of NMDC Steel Limited (which was demerged from NMDC Ltd in Oct2022) - 

- though the net book value of assets of NMDC Steel Ltd (resulting company) constitute 57.29% of the total as on the appointed date, the stock market is just giving a value of just 20.23% of the total to the resulting company as on ex-date of demerger - this is because NMDC Steel is yet to start its commercial operations and it will take some years for the resulting company to make any profits

- the net worth of the demerged company (NMDC Ltd) is 42.71% of the total, but the market cap is nearly 80% of the total as on ex-date of demerger

- please see the following two images for the above calculations and for capital gains tax purposes

27Oct2022 NMDC Limited - ex-date for demerger of NMDC Steel Ltd from NMDC Ltd is 27Oct2022 - the closing price of NMDC Ltd stock one trading before the ex-date (that is, on 25Oct2022) was Rs 130.75 per share (market cap Rs 38,300 crore) - And on ex-date (27Oct2022), the price fell by 20 per cent to Rs 104.35 (market cap Rs 30,580 crore) -- let us see at what price the shares of NMDC Steel Ltd (resulting company) will be listed at a future date

-NMDC Ltd stock traded on NSE and BSE on 25Oct22 and 27Oct22 with heavy volumes

17Oct2022 NMDC Limited - Apportionment of Cost of Acquisition of equity shares after demerger of NMDC Steel Ltd from NMDC Ltd - 

- the demerger is tax neutral in the hands of shareholders of NMDC Limited under the Income Tax Act in view of the exemption granted under Section 47(vi d) of the IT Act

- the appointed date of demerger scheme is 01Apr2021

- the date of acquisition of the Equity Shares issued pursuant to the Scheme by NMDC Steel Limited received by the shareholders of NMDC Limited will be the date of acquisition of the original shares of NMDC Limited as per Clause (g) of Explanation I to Section 2(42A) of the IT Act

 
-  the cost of acquisition of the Equity Shares issued pursuant to the Scheme by NMDC Steel Limited, as per Section 49 (2C) of the IT Act, shall be the amount which bears to the cost of acquisition of shares of NMDC Limited, the same proportion as the net book value of the assets transferred in the demerger bears to the net worth of the Demerged Company inunediately before the demerger

- The proportion: net book value of assets (on the appointed date 01Apr2021) of demerged co (NMDC Ltd) is Rs 12,707.60 crore (42.71%) and  that of resulting company (NMDC  Steel Ltd) is Rs 17,048.54 crore (57.29%)

 
-  the cost of acquisition of the original shares of NMDC Limited held by a shareholder, as per Section 49(2D) of the IT Act, shall be deemed to have been reduced by the cost of acquisition of shares of the Resulting Company (NMDC Steel Ltd)

11Oct2022 NMDC Limited - Scheme of Arrangement - demerger of NMDC Iron & Steel plant at Nagarnar, Chattisgarh - MCA order (for government companies, demerger or 'scheme of arrangmeent' process is decided by MCA or Mistry of Corporate Affars as per Sections 230 - 232 of the Companies Act of 2013 -- for non-gov't companies, such things are decided by NCLT) -

-- demerger ratio: one share of NMDC Steel Ltd (resulting company) of Rs 10 each will be given to every one share held in NMDC Ltd (demerged co) of Re 1 

-- record date and ex-date are yet to be decided for the demerger

 

11Sep2022 Trendlyne -  After NMDC Ltd stock was removed from Nifty CPSE index in Aug2022, CPSE ETF sold entire stake of 74.717 million shares in NMDC -- this big stake sale allowed several other mutual fund schemes (like, Parag Parikh Flexi cap and Parag Parikh Tax saver) to buy / accumulate NMDC shares in Aug2022

11Aug2022 Business Standard - HDFC - HDFC Bank merger could set off Rs 48,000 crore churn - "Closer to HDFC and HDFC Bank merger, both stocks are likely to be removed from Nifty 50 index, as per rules of Nifty Indices methodology" 

In Aug2022, NMDC Ltd stock was removed from Nifty CPSE index due to a demerger scheme of its Steel and Iron plant

Nifty Indices methodology document Aug2022 (page 177 for Summary of Corporation Action Adjustments, like, merger, demerger, spinoff, etc.)

Tweet 20Aug2020 - Index reconstitution - index eligibility criteria - 

Tweet 14Jul2021 - NMDC Ltd decided to hive off Nagarnar Steel Plant

Two images >

05JAN2023 vidoe - David Rubenstein talks to Mike Wirth, CEO of Chevron #Oil - crude oil -

- Oil is a cyclical industry, windfall tax may not bring in more taxes -- President Carter tried windfall profit tax in 1980 and it lowered the tax collection

- oil industry is a  price taker

- the US oil output is 12 million barrels per day (mbd) and consumption is nearly 20 mbd

- the US imports oil mostly from Canada via pipelines, trains and ships

- Chevron's worldwide oil output is 3 mbd, out of which 1.2 mbd is from the US

- Chevron has 36,000 employees in 100 countries 

- affordable energy is essential for economic prosperity

- energy security is key for national security

31Oct2018 video - David Rubenstein talks to Michael Milken, the former financier who is now chairman of the Milken Institute, a Los Angeles-based think tank - Milken is father of high-yield bonds aka junk bonds - #Anecdote 

- In response to a question what their children think of his pleding 50 percent of wealth to charity, Michael Milken responds: "My wife Lori (Anne Mackel) defines wealth as that she can buy any book she wants to and so I think that's been instilled in our children from the very beginning."  

- Micheale Milken and his wife Lori have been married for 50 years

- Milken switched majors at U.C. Berkeley from math and science to business after the 1965 Watts riots in Los Angeles, determined to democratize capital access - he was moved by the denial of financial support to African-Americans after some of them lost everything in Watts riots 

-  Milken was banned from the securities industry after pleading guilty to securities fraud in 1990. In February 2020, President Trump pardoned him.

- Michale Milken : "I remember we had a presentation on investing in an oil drilling business and an oil exploration business and we wanted to see their data and about an hour into the meeting I asked them what technique they use, they said 'closology' -- I never heard that word and I asked them what it meant  and it turned out their drilling technique was they see where others drill and they get as close as possible -- there's no geology there's nothing going on, so we decided not to finance that company." 

- Milken was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1993, in the same month he was released from prison - his cancer is currently (as of October 2018) in remission - He used Ayurveda, meditation, diet (just fruits and vegtables) and hormones to recover from cancer -

- Milken served 22 months in federal prison for criminal violations of securities laws

01Jun2022 video - David Rubenstein talks to Dawn Fitzpatrick, chief executive and chief investment officer of Soros Fund Management - #Anecdote

- As head of George Soros' family office, Fitzpatrick oversees about $28 billion

- Fitzpatrick's view on crypto currency: "It's here to stay and it’s gone mainstream with Fidelity just announcing you can put it in your 401(k). The one caveat I would say is first of all, climate impact is going to become increasingly in focus and in that context, Ethereum is likely to gain some more traction over Bitcoin."

-  European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde insisted that male domination of the banking industry made the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers more likely. As the Legarde put it if it had been Lehman Sisters rather Lehman Brothers the world might well look a lot different today.

24Aug2022 video -  David Rubenstein talks to John Doerr, Kleiner Perkins chairman and author of 'Speed and Scale,' - venture capital - climate change - #Anecdote - philanthropy -

- John Doerr's worst investment mistake: The billionaire chairman of Kleiner Perkins had the opportunity in 2007 to back “an ambitious, slightly crazy entrepreneur” named Elon Musk before he became the world’s richest man, but ultimately decided against it, as new car companies traditionally fail far more often than they succeed. 

- Doerr was an early investor in Amazon and Google

- Back in the 1990s, Doerr said: "The internet revolution is under-hyped" 

- When Doerr told told Andy Grove that he wanted to leave Intel and join a venture capital firm, Grove negatived the idea saying, "That's a real estate business. That's not a real business."

- Doerr: “Climate science is going to become the new computer science”

- Doerr started in 1975 at “a new small chip company” called Intel Corp. under Andy Grove

- Doerr: “I think it's important for successful venture investors to be entrepreneurs, to have a real connection with the challenges that teams are facing when they're trying to build businesses."

Biggest mistake investors make: Doerr replied, "They're too shortsighted. They sell too early. The great gains in Amazon or Google came long after the company went public."

John Doerr: "Do you remember Al Gore's first movie, 'An Inconvenient Truth'? Well, I took my family and some friends to see that. We went home for dinner and had a discussion. The science wasn't so clear then. But when it came to my 15-year-old daughter, Mary, she looked at me and said, 'Dad, I'm scared and I'm angry. Your generation created this problem. You better fix it.' And the room went silent."

15Mar2017 video - David Rubenstein talks to Duke men's basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski (poularly known as Coach K) - 

Mike Krzyzewski: "Good people will make you better"

Mike Krzyzewski: "We sit around and say how we're going to live. We talk about fundamental things: communication, we're going to look each other in the eye, we're going to tell each other the truth, we're going to have each other's back, we're going to show strong faces, we're never going to be late, we're going to be enthusiastic, we're going to win and lose together. Those are great standards."

Mike Krzyzewski: "The key word is to create ownership. Everybody owns it." 

Mike Krzyzewski: "Failure is never a destination" 

23Mar2022 video - David Rubenstein talks to Citadel founder and CEO Ken Griffin - Griffin runs hedge fund Citadel and founder of Citadel Securities -

#Anecdote

- While studying graduation at Harvard University in 1987, Ken Griffin  put a satellite dish on top of the dorm so that he would have access to real time stock quotes for stock trading

- Ken Griffin: "Be a problem solver" and "you've to be a good communicator"

11Aug2022 video - David Rubenstein talks to Anne Wojcicki, 23andMe CEO and co-founder - 23andMe uses technology developed by Illumina for genome sequencing after taking a saliva sample from a user - future health risks - ancestry -

- In 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick published the first description of the structure of DNA molecule (double helix) 

- On 26 June 2000, President Clinton, along with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, announced that the international Human Genome Project and Celera Genomics Corporation have both completed an initial sequencing of the human genome - the genetic blueprint for human beings. 

- even after more than 20 years of human genome mapping, why not much progress is made in preventing and / or curing several diseases? -- in response, Anne Wojcicki responds: "if I successfully keep you healthy up to 100 years age, you're not a profit centre for healthcare / pharma industry"

- the UK has a Biobank with half a million people consenting to use their genetic information for research - the US has totally fallen behind in this area - China has made made rapid strides with genetics via Beijing Genome Institute -

18Aug2022 video - David Rubenstein talks to Andrew Liveris, Chairman of Lucid Group, an electric vehicle startup - (video shot at Lucid showroom in New York) - Dow - Dupont - chemical engineer - problem solver - he is on the board of Saudi Aramco, IBM, etc. - 

- with 832-km range, Lucid Air has got the best range among electric vehicles - Lucid Air can recharged in just 22 minutes for up to 512 km - Lucid Air is a luxury car and aesthetic -

- At Dow Chemical Company, Andrew Liveris used to say they had three functions: "To invent, to make and to sell"

- Andrew Liveris: "When I was 12, I read all the 12 volumes of Encylopedia of Britannica"

 

 13Jul2022 video - David Rubenstein talks to Sam Zell, Equity Group Investments founder and chairman - real estate business - he wrote a book titled "Am I Being Too Subtle" -  #Anecdote

-- His nickname, The Grave Dancer, dates to 1975 when Zell wrote that his success came from reviving 'corpses' left behind by the last real estate crash - 

-- he's an US immigrant from Poland

-- "liquidity is the theme of the current markets"

-- "we have to reduce liquidity and raise rates to control inflation"

-- "Volcker is the only one Fed Chair, in 50 years, who did what he talked"

-- Zell was building his real estate business during his 4-year undergraduation in a law school

--   After graduation at 24 years of age, he did law practice only for four days and left law to start his own real estate business 

-- "I was very successful at listening to my own song and ignore the noise" 

-- "I think we put on our pants one leg at a time. We can't extract any more out of anybody."

-- Zell's $39 billion sale of office REIT Equity Office to Blackstone (in 2006) just before the market crashed in 2007 was among the largest real estate deals ever 

-- "As the head of a publicly listed company, I'm responsible for the shareholders." (on his decision to sell his company in 2006) 

-- "The US can't maintain the supremacy of the US dollar and standard of living while maintaining large deficits"

-- "When poeple ask me when I'm going to retire, and I say 'Retire from what?'"

27Jul2022 video - David Rubenstein talks to Nelson Peltz, Trian Partners CEO and founder partner - activist investor - at young age, he wanted to do skiing, but eneded up managing his father's food distribution business (Peltz was driving trucks initially) - #Anecdote 

The best advice I received is: "Sales up, Expenses down" > that was from my father > image >

14Apr2022 video - David Rubenstein talks to Sylvester Stallone, actor, director, scripwriter, producer and painter - Shot at Library of Congress, Washington, DC) -  #Anecdote

Stallone's film "Rocky" (1976) was selected in 2006 by Library of Congress for preservation in the US National Film Registry 

Stallone wrote script for Rocky (1976) movie in two days and a half

Stallone: "I don't own any rights in Rocky. There are some machinations. I'm an employee." 

Stallone: "I was the eleventh choice for Rambo (in "First Blood" movie)"

Stallone: "I probably have more stunt injuries than anyone in the film industry."

Stallone (how he came with the idea of 2010-movie "Expendables"): "That's when I came up with the idea of Expendables--where you can't do it alone but I'll take it together. I'll take a group of actors that are not doing so well. And you put it all together. And I got the idea when I took my wife to a rock and roll revival. You have like 20 groups and each one worse than the next.  But together it was an interesting ticket. Oh, look at this. I thought why  don't I do the same or take all these guys who perhaps on their own are struggling and including myself. Put them together in that. I want to see how this turns out. This is kind of interesting."

21Oct2021 video - David Rubenstein talks to Kenneth Lauren Burns (or simply Ken Burns), documentary filmmaker – Ken does grant-funded, philanthropic projects – he does documentaries for PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) – most of his works chronicle American history and culture – his famous documentaries include “TheCivil War,” “Muhammad Ali,” “Baseball,” “The Brooklyn Bridge,” and “Jazz” –

 

Ken Burns: “ It took seven years for me to make ‘Muhammad Ali.’”

 

Ken Burns: “Muhammad Ali was very disciplined.”

 

Ken Burns: “When my mother died when I was 11, I saw my father crying for the first time and he cried at a movie. That’s when I decided I should be a movie maker.”

 

When asked why he did not go the route of becoming the next George Lucas or Steven Spielberg and make enormous amount of money, Ken Burns replied: “I don’t know. It wasn’t for me. I really liked the idea of public broadcasting PBS. It's public but it's also that is not system it's service. I like that idea. I also think PBS has one foot tentatively in the marketplace and the other proudly out of it. Lots of what's best about this country is not necessarily in the marketplace which is of course one of the best things in this country as well. And so it's not making the other wrong. It's just saying that if I'd gone to a premium channel or gone to a streaming service it might have been easier to get the money but then they would own it. I own my films. They would also not permit me ten and a half years to do the "Vietnam." They'd want it in a couple of years. And the kind of corners that would be cut in that process was nothing that I wanted to do.”

 

Ken Burns: "Our Civil War is not a civil war, it's a sectional war." 

 

Ken Burns: "I think the divisions are huge and massive and threatening and have exposed the fragility of our institutions indeed our democracy and our future. But I also think deep down people if they're made aware of the fact that they share common everything I mean one of the fallacies of the Holocaust is just the myth of race. You know biologically it doesn't exist. You know we are all the same."

 

08Mar2018 video - David Rubenstein* talks to Marillyn A. Hewson, Chairman, President and CEO, Lockheed Martin Corporation - (shot at the The Economic Club of Washington, DC) - #Anecdote - F-22 to F-35 (what happened between 23 and 34?) - Hewson's mother to her when she was a child: "take USD 5 to a groecery store and bring back groceries worth USD 7" - unmanned helicopter - hypersonic aircraft - five defense companies in the US are Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman - 

(* most of David Rubenstein's shows are presented by Bloomberg)

26Jul2022 NYT - New York Times - Recession: What Does it Mean? by Paul Krugman - Tweet dated 29Jul2022 -

"NBER or National Bureau of Economic Research of the US doesn't declare a recession in the US based solely on a single metric, like, two consecutive quarters of negative real GDP growth rate.  

"To understand why, it helps to know a bit about the history of what is known as business cycle dating.

"A modern economy is a constantly changing thing, in which individual industries rise and fall all the time. (Remember video rental stores?) At some point in the 19th century, however, it became obvious that there were periods when almost all industries were declining at the same time — recessions — and other periods during which most industries were expanding.

"To understand these fluctuations, economists wanted to compare different recessions and search for common features.

"Since 1978 the NBER has had a standing group of experts called the Business Cycle Dating Committee, which decides — with a lag — when a recession began and ended based on multiple criteria, including employment, industrial production and so on. And the U.S. government accepts those rulings. So the official definition of a recession is that it is a period that the committee has declared a recession; it’s an expert judgment call, not a formula.

"The NBER doesn’t make recession calls in real time. For example, while the Great Recession is now considered to have begun in December 2007, the dating committee didn’t make that call until December 2008. Also, other nations don’t have any equivalent of the N.B.E.R. So there has always been an incentive to look for simple formulas, not dependent on judgment, that can quickly determine a recession."

"So it would be foolish to declare that we’re in a recession even if Thursday’s number is negative and the first-quarter number isn’t revised upward."

Nov2011 Ted Talks - video  - Shlomo Benartzi - Saving for tomorrow, tomorrow - behavioural finance - loss aversion - instant gratification - retirement saving - #Anecdote -

image > video 9' to 11' > "No, no, no, this is a real study and it's got a lot to do with behavioral economics. One group of monkeys gets an apple, they're pretty happy. The other group gets two apples, one is taken away. They still have an apple left. They're really mad. Why have you taken our apple? This is the notion of loss aversion. We hate losing stuff, even if it doesn't mean a lot of risk."

26Jul2022 TED Talks - video - David Wengrow - A new understanding of human reality and roots of inequality - agriculture - civilisation > #Anecdote > video 12' to 14' >

"Actually, the city where Hernan Cortéz found his military allies, the ones who enabled his successful assault on the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán, was exactly one such city without rulers: an indigenous republic by the name of Tlaxcala, governed by an urban parliament, which had some pretty interesting initiation rituals for would-be politicians. They'd be periodically whipped and subject to public abuse by their constituents to sort of break down their egos and remind them who's really in charge. It's a little bit different from what we expect of our politicians today."

21Jul2022 TE -  The European Central Bank (ECB) raised interest rates by 50 basis points in the euro area (eurozone) for the first time in 11 years; the main refinancing rate is now 0.5 percent (earlier 0 percent) - image >

19Jul2022 CCIL India - USD - INR exchange rate - Indian rupee touched an all-time-low of Rs  80.05 today versus US dollar >

19Jul2022 City Guide - Washington Post - Local guide for Bombay or Mumbai -  Chor Bazaar, Bandra West, Cafe Madras, Colaba, Persian Darbar, 145 Bandra, Kamala Nehru Park, Royal Opera House, etc.

19Jul2022 Treasury Department, USA -  Treasury International Capital (TIC) data for May2022 PDF - Portfolio Holdings of US and Foreign Securities >

China's holding of US Treasuries (as part of Bank of China's forex reserves) are below USD 1 trillion for the first time in 12 years. China now, as of May2022, holds USD 981 billion of US debt. Japan is the biggest holder of US Treasuries at USD 1.21 trillion.   

Major holders that have reduced their US debt holdings in the past one year are: Japan, China, Brazil, Taiwan, India, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, etc.

Major holders that have increased thier US sovereign debt in the past one year are: the UK, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium, France, Canada, Germany, Australia, etc.

14Jul2022 > Blog 14Aug2021: As described in the blog, India has suffered three bouts of high inflation in the past three decades:

1) 1990 to 1999: This high inflation period was a result of: oil price (imported) inflation from 1991 Gulf War; Balance of Payments (BoP) crisis of 1991; 1991 devaluation of rupee; and others

2) 2008 to 2015: The high inflation was from a combination of factors: 2008 Global Finance Crisis (GFC) after Lehman Brothers' Collapse; monsoon failure; high increase in minimum support prices (MSPs), higher global commodity prices; high government borrowing; reckless government dole-outs; growth slowdown; 2013 Fed Taper Tantrum leading to exchange rate crisis for Indian rupee; and others

14Jul2022: How many times in the past the monetary tightening by the US Federal Reserve led to recession in the US?

Since 1954, there are ten instances when the Fed tightening led to a recession in the US--but every instance of Fed tightening need not result in a recession. 

It is yet to be seen whether the current bout of Fed monetary tightening (in the form of forward guidance, Federal Funds rate hikes and quantitative tightening or QT--QT is withdrawal of liquidity or reduction of Fed balance sheet) since September 2021 will lead to a hard landing (global recession) or soft landing (a blend of lower levesl of GDP growth and modest inflation).

10Aug2022 New York Fed > Global Supply Chain Pressure Index (GSCPI) > the index integrates transportation cost data and manufacturing indicators to provide a gauge of global supply chain conditions. -- As per this index, global supply chain pressures declined in July 2022 (index estimate at 1.84) --

14Jul2022 Chicago Fed  > National Financial Conditions Index or NFCI >

The Chicago Fed’s National Financial Conditions Index provides a comprehensive weekly update on U.S. financial conditions based on 105 measures of financial activity. 

The index accounts for conditions in money markets, debt and equity markets, and the traditional and “shadow” banking systems, using weekly, monthly, and quarterly data.

Some well-known and key measures are:

3-5 year AAA CMBS OAS spread

ABS / 5-year Treasury yield spread

2-year interest rate swap / treasury yield spread

CBOE market volatility index VIX

3-month Eurodollar spread

commercial paper outstanding

RBI Speech 24Jun2022 > "The overnight weighted average call money rate is the operating target of monetary policy of Reserve Bank of India." 

Flexible Inflation Targeting (FIT): RBI accountability > monetary policy credibility >

"The RBI Act mandates that in the case of the inflation target not being met for three consecutive quarters, the RBI shall set out in a report to the Central Government:

(a) the reasons for failure to achieve the inflation target; 

(b) remedial actions proposed to be taken; and 

(c) an estimate of the time-period within which the inflation target shall be achieved pursuant to timely implementation of proposed remedial actions. 

What constitutes failure has been notified by the Central Government in the Official Gazette of India as (a) average inflation being more than the upper tolerance level of the inflation target for any three consecutive quarters; or (b) average inflation being less than the lower tolerance level of the inflation target for any three consecutive quarters." 

 

Tweets on Flexible Inflation Targeting (FIT) > FIT was formally adopted in June 2016 >  Monetary policy framework of MPF > inflatin target > CPI inflation > Urjit Patel panel >

Tweet 02Mar2015

Tweet 10Oct2020

Tweet 23Jan2021 

 

15Feb2021 The Algebra of Wealth - video - Prof Scott Galloway - wealth creation >

Algebra of wealth = Focus + [stoicism x time x diversification]

the circumstances of your birth, unfortunately, make a lot of difference -- received free education, grew up in age of internet, etc.

don't conflate luck with talent

Focus on what you're great at

focus on something you can do better 

focus on something people will pay for 

focus on positioning yourself for success--getting certified, getting to a city where you can meet and play against the best in your league; focus on industries / companies that are poised for growth

focus on investing in the right relationships--business and personal

stocism -- stoics are clear about what is in their control and what is not in their control

living below your means is in your control; your spending habits are a big factor in wealth creation

stoics have good temperance and discipline--control your temptations for consumption of goods / services

upgrading your lifestyle (lifestyle creep) is not sustainable

in the long term, time is your friend and in the short term, it's your enemy

don't squander your time

don't be generous with your time

in investing, diversification is your kevlar

get rich slowly

08Sep2022 CCI antitrust order on JSW Paints vs Asian Paints -

27Jun2022 Asian Paints - Investor Presentation -  new products and services - business update - decorative business - Beautiful Homes - wood solutions - safe painting service - Sabysachi design - home decor business - 

'share of surface' to 'share of space'

- Beautiful Homes Stores - furnitue -rugs - wall paper - designer lighting - wardrobes - vanities - designer tiles - kitchen ware - Sleek - Ess Ess - doors and windows - White Teack - Weatherseal - Bathsense Canvas range - sanitaryware - faucets - fittings - tiles -

26Jun2022 Guardian - Concerns that India is ‘back door’ into Europe for Russian oil - crude oil - Russia - Ukraine - shipping - "going dark" - ship-to-ship oil cargo transfers mid-sea -

"Industry sources said tracking shipments of Russian oil to Europe via India is proving very difficult. “You’ll find that several shipments of crude will arrive at a port from different countries and be blended together. Tracking a hydrocarbon is basically impossible.”

There are several tactics shippers are using to hide the origin of Russian oil, sources said. Financially, paying in Chinese currency – rather than the industry standard dollar – is an option. Yuan-rouble trading volumes have surged 1,067% since February’s invasion of Ukraine. Transfers of oil cargoes from ship-to-ship have also spiked, suggesting oil is being switched from Russian flagged-vessels to other ships. Increasing numbers of vessels have been “going dark” by switching off their automative identification systems as thousands of gallons of the black stuff are transferred on the waves.

A third, more niche option to hide Russian transactions is to cut out using a currency and trade oil directly for other products, such as gold, food or weapons. Iran has previously taken payment from trading partners in gold rather than dollars.

“If a country or oil operator wants to hide the source of crude or oil products, it can very easily do so,” said Ajay Parmar, an oil market analyst at ICIS." - image >

05Mar2022 Tweet -  Top Ramen's lost brother found in Coimbatore! - #Advertising - #Imitation -noodles -

09Mar2022 Tweet - Frederik Gieschen - Neckar Value - What makes a great investor? Longevity. "The best returns that you could earn for the longest period of time, which usually aren’t the highest returns that are out there" "If Buffett had retired at age 60, no one would’ve ever heard of him."

09Mar2022 Tweet - Simon Kuestenmacher - hacking - cyber security - "Time it takes a hacker to brute force your passwords in 2022" - 

18Mar2022 Tweet - Shashi Tharoor's tweet on Happy Holi - "What They Need" and "What We Need" - 

17Apr2015 Video - Sufi Soul - William Dalrymple's documentary for Channel 4 on the Mystic Music of Islam -  

William Dalrymple: "Sufism has two registers: high philosophy & folk mysticism. At the latter level it takes on local colouring- influenced by Coptic folk cults in Egypt & by a variety of Hindu ascetic & mystical practices across S Asia. I've written about this in 'From the Holy Mountain & Nine Lives.'"

Oct2021 demilked -  30 Times Architects Impressed Everyone Around The World (New Pics) - #Architecture - 30 famous buildings and structures around the globe -

20Mar2022 Rabih Alameddine - Entrance Gate Of The St. Petersburg Mosque, Russia. Designed By Architect Nikolai Vasilyev  - #Architecture - (there are more images in the Tweet thread) -

27May2022 CNBC - UK slaps one-off tax on oil and gas giants to ease the pain of soaring household energy bills - - "temporary energy profits levy" - windfall tax - inflation - energy crisis - 

27May2022 Yahoo Finance - Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who seized additional power this week with a state of emergency, said that large companies ranging from energy to airlines will have to turn over their “extra profit” to shore up the nation’s ailing budget - windfall tax - inflation - energy crisis -

26May2022 India INX Global Access -  India INX is started by BSE Limited - how to access global stock markets -

26May2022 UTIITSL -  UTI Infrastructure Technology And Services Limited (Govt of India company) for providing PAN services - new PAN card, change in PAN card, etc.

Another firm that offers PAN services is Protean e-Gov Technologies Ltd (formerly NSDL e-Governance)

02May2022 Tweet - Srinivas Kodali: "Cameras won't solve crime, Flyovers won't solve traffic, electric vehicles (EVs) won't stop climate change. The faster people understand this the better society will be."

20Apr2022 Tweet -  50 Timeless Naval Ravikant quotes visualised - visual experiments - images more powerful than words -

20May2022 CNBC TV18 - according to media reports, German retailer Metro AG is scouting for a partner to sell its stake in its Indian subsidiary Metro Cash & Carry India - Foreign companies exiting India?

Why do foreign companies sell out their India operations so frequently? Recently, Holcim of Netherlands has decided to sell their AmbujaCements and ACC Ltd to Adani Group; other foreign firms that quit India in recent years are: Ford Motor Co, General Motors (left after 21 years), Harley Davidson, Honda Cars, MAN Trucks, Cairn Energy, Hutchison Telecom, Lafarge, Carrefour, Daichi Sankyo, Citibank, Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland, Nokia, United Motors, Cleveland Motorcycles, Ssangyong Motor Company, etc.

some possible reasons:

-- they are unable to understand Indian consumer mind

-- inability to  understand price-sensitive Indian consumers

--  they find better opportunities elesewhere

-- lack of income mobility for Indians (low per capital income)

-- unable to sell and make profits

-- unbale to compete with local firms and gain market share

-- Foriegn owners unable to provide right management (agency conflict or principal-agent problem)

-- failure to catch new trends in the market

-- some industry people feel that governments favour local companies (they cite how Govt of India and Indian regulators favoured Reliance Industries when it rolled out telecom operations in India in 2016; how Adani Group was favoured when comes to takeover of ports and airports; and how government banks seem to favour Ambani Group and Adani Group when it comes to loan sanctions) - aka crony capitalism -

-- restructuring by foreign companies or sale or amalgamation of entire foreign group

-- Indian tax policies more adverse to foreign companies in India

-- capricious policy changes by governments (central and states)

-- onerous safety and emission norms (related to automobile firms)

-- Indian economic growth rates have faltered in the past five years (2017 - 2022)

-- draconian shutdown of India during the Pandemic (March to June 2022) had impacted several businesses in India adversely

- foreigners are unable to navigate Indian bureaucracy

-- maybe, cost of doing business is high in India

 

16Feb2023 Crisil MF Ranking - Crisil Mutual Fund Ranking as on Dec2022 PDF - Mutual fund categories >Equity, hybrid and debt mutual funds > Index funds and ETFs are clubbed together >

17Dec2022 Crisil MF Ranking - Crisil Mutual Fund Ranking as on Sep2022 PDF - Mutual fund categories >Equity, hybrid and debt mutual funds > Index funds and ETFs are clubbed together >

22Aug2022 Crisil MF Ranking - Crisil Mutual Fund Ranking as on June 2022 PDF - Mutual fund categories >Equity, hybrid and debt mutual funds > Index funds and ETFs are clubbed together >

26May2022 CRISIL PDF -  CRISIL Limited's Mutual Fund Rankings in India as on 31Mar2022 - Mutual fund categories >Equity, hybrid and debt mutual funds > Index funds and ETFs are clubbed together >

21May2022 XE - USD - RUB exchange rate - US dollar to Russian rouble (ruble) - one-year USD - RUB chart recovery of RUB since 10Mar2022 when it touched 10-year low (low for rouble) of 135.80 and rouble surged to 62 by 21May2022 - 10-year chart is also added here -

19May2022 CNBC -  A 1955 Mercedes just nabbed $143 million at auction, making it the most expensive car ever sold 

Stock market excesses we witnessed in 2021 are nothing compared to the auction market >

14Dec2022 WPI Inflation - India wholesale price index (in the West, WPI is known as producer price index or PPI) - India WPI inflation fell to 5.85% in Nov2022 - 

 

20May2022 WPI Inflation - India wholesale price index (in the West, WPI is known as producer price index or PPI) -

"The annual wholesale price inflation rate in India rose to 15.08 percent in April 2022 from 14.55 percent month earlier and above market forecasts of 14.48 percent. This was the highest reading since December 1998, amid a broad-based price increase due to disruption in global supply chains caused by Russia-Ukraine conflict" 

 

23Jul2022 BSE - merger / amalgamation of Mindtree into L&T Infotech - valuation - share exchange ratio - DCF - market multiples - NAV - valuation based on IVS 104 - Tweet dated 23Jul2022 - 

15Jul2022 ET - Higher LTCG Tax for Those Betting on Mergers - (this article has implications for those holding Mindtree Ltd shares that were bought before 01Feb2018 -- Mindtree is slated to merge with L&T Infotech Ltd in 2022/2023 subject to regulatory approvals)

Economic Times article dated 09Oct2018 - By Pavan Burugula

Investors of at least two dozen companies, including Capital First, Ultra Tech Cement, Bharat Financial, will have to shell out higher capital gains tax. This is because the ‘grandfathering’ benefit for taxes on longterm capital gains — reintroduced in this year’s Union Budget — doesn’t cover mergers and demergers. Grandfathering refers to exemptions on the gains made prior to enactment of a new law from the ambit of the new law.

The government said longterm capital gains tax will be calculated based on the Jan 31 trading price of a stock. However, this benefit applies only to stocks acquired or purchased before Jan 31, 2018. If the shares were non-existent or unlisted as on Jan 31 long-term capital gains tax would be calculated based on original cost of purchase.

In mergers, investors of the company getting acquired receive shares of the new company in exchange for their original shares. Such shares would be considered as acquired after Jan 31. As a result, long-term capital tax would be calculated based on original cost of acquisition.

“In cases where a company merges with another company after February 1, 2018, grandfathering provisions do not apply and the taxpayers of amalgamating company will have to pay capital gains tax on entire gains computed with reference to original cost basis,” said Bhavin Shah, partner, PWC India.

For instance, consider the ongoing merger of IDFC Bank and Capital First. Assume a shareholder ‘A’ had purchased 10 shares of Capital First in 2011 and is still holding the stock. The companies have agreed to a swap ratio of 139:10. Hence, the shareholder ‘A’ will get 139 shares of IDFC Bank in exchange for his 10 Capital First shares. Since these 139 shares ‘A’ gets were created after Jan 31, the grandfathering benefit will not apply. Hence, when ‘A’ decides to sell his IDFC Bank shares in future, the cost of acquisition will be the price at which he purchased the shares back in 2011. The tax outgo would be at least 5-6 times higher in this case since Capital First shares have gained nearly 300 per cent since 2011. Had there been a grandfathering exemption on these deals, ‘A’ would have to pay tax only on the gains made after January 31.

As per latest rules, selling of any stock held for less than a year will be subject to short-term capital gains tax while the ones held more than a year are subject to long-term capital gains tax. Short-term capital gains tax on stocks and equity mutual funds is charged at a rate of 15 per cent while it is 10 per cent for the long-term.

The rules are different for the acquiring company. In the earlier scenario, if ‘A’ had purchased IDFC Bank shares in 2011 and sold them now, he wouldn’t be needed to pay tax on gains made before January 31.

06May2022 Mindtree Limited - After closure of market hours today, Mindtree Ltd announced its merger / amalgamation with L&T Infotech Ltd

(there were rumours in the media of LTI - Mindtree merger two weeks prior to this formal merger announcement)

press release and investor presentation

- Mindtree Ltd (amalgamating company) will be merged with L&T Infotech Ltd (amalgamated company)

- 73 fully paid-up equity shares of Re 1 each of LTI will be issued and allotted for every 100 fully paid-up equity shares of Rs 10 each held in Mindtree (share exchange ratio or swap ratio)

-  closing price of LTI on 06May2022: Rs 4,593.10; market cap Rs 80,518 crore (as per bseindia.com)

-  closing price of Mindtree on 06May2022: Rs 3,374.65; market cap Rs 55,627 crore (as per bseindia.com)

- after the amalgmation, Mindtree will stand dissolved without being 

- post-merger, the common promoter (of both LTI and Mindtree) Larsen & Toubro Ltd will hold 68.73 per cent stake in the combined entity, called LTIMindtree Limited

 - record date (ex-date) for merger is yet to be announced

- valuation ratios of two firms as at the end of 06May2022 >

04May2022 RBI - In an unscheduled meeting on 04May22, RBI raised its LAF repo rate by 40 basis points to 4.40% with immediate effect; and alose raised CRR by 50 basis points to 4.50% wef 21May22

- RBI's monetary policy committee (MPC) has continued with its 'accommodative' stance

- the announcement during market hours on 04May2022 had surprised and shocked the Indian bond market, as well as Indian stock market

28Feb2022 Tweet - PD Mangan - #Health

get sun exposure--good for Vitamin D and cardiovascular (CV) health

get cold exposure (e.g., cold shower at 20-degree Centigrade) for 2 to 5 minutes 

bare feet contact could improve zeta potential of red blood cells, key for CV health

blood donation -- prevents high levels of body iron

standing desk -- reduces risk of diabetes and heart disease

From other tweets of PD Mangan:

protein and strength training are key to longevity

How to get and stay insulin sensitive: 1) eat real whole foods only, and cut carbs if necessary; 2) resistance training aka lifting weights, which lead to good body composition, i.e., low body fat and relatively high muscle mass.

Age-related diseases are largely diseases of excess body fat, inadequate muscle, a garbage diet, and a sedentary lifestyle. All these factors are easily fixable.

 

03May2022 TEDx Talks -  Cynthia Thurlow - Intermittent Fasting: Transformational Technique > #Health

"Follow 16-8 rule -- 16 hours of fasting and 8 hours of eating

duirng fasting, you can take plain water, plain tea or plain coffee

Focus on real and whole foods

To break the fast, eat best protein available for your budget--ideally pasteured meat or wild-caught fish

Healthy fats, crucial for building healthy hormones, are also important for satiety making sure our taste buds light up and making us happy

Focus on things like avocadoes, coconut oil, grass-fed butter and nuts, unprocessed carbohydrates

Eat low-glycemic berries, green leafy vegetables, squach, quinoa, sweet potatoes (avoid bread and pasta)

Limit sugar and alcohol

Keep yourself well hydrated"

01May2022 Fred data -  high yield spread (the key indicator to understand US economy--the higher the spread, the greater the borrowing costs for US businesses and households) -  ICE BofA US High Yield Index Option-Adjusted Spread - 

The graph below > rising graph in Dec2018 was during Fed tightening; again Jan-Apr2022 is during the current Fed tightening and rising interest rates

29Apr2022 RBI - RBI Currency & Finance Report  - RBI Report on Currency and Finance - Revive and Reconstruct - 

Tweet 18Mar2017 - RBI stopped publishing this C&F Report b/w 2013 and 2020

 

11Mar2022 Grant Williams Podcast - Here, Williams talking to Luke Gromen, publisher of Forest For The Trees (FFTT) - full transcript - gold

 

31Aug2021 Judgment - Diary No 14414 / 2014 - Civil Appeal No 5041 / 2021 - Suprement Court of India judgment copy - Supertech Limited vs Emerald Court Owner Resident Welfare Association & Others - judgment by Justices DY Chandrachud and MR Shah -

(Supertech's "Twin Towers" in NOIDA were demolished on 28Aug2022 -- actual names of these towers were Apex and Ceyane) - Indian Kanoon weblink - 

Part G, pages 127 to 130, of the above Supreme Court (SC) Judgment > 

- SC upholds Allahabad High Court order of 11Apr2014 for demolition of "Twin Towers" - namely T - 16 (Ceyane) and T - 17 (Apex)

- all costs incidental to demolition shall be borne by the appelant (that is, builder Supertech Ltd)

- sanctions given by NOIDA for the construction of "Twin Towers" are violative of minimum distance required under NBR 2006 and other national building rules

- the towers are constructed viollating safety norms

- the appelant's argument that both the towers were a single tower is false

- constructing the "Twin Towers" in place of a planned park is violative of government rules

- The illegal construction of "Twin Towers" has been achieved through acts of collusion between the officers of NOIDA and the appellant and its
management

22Apr2022 Judgment - Diary No 31272 / 2019 - Supreme Court of India judgment copy - 63 Moon Technologies Ltd (formerly, Financial Technologies) vs State of Maharashtra -  National Spot Exchange scam - NSEL - Jignesh Shah -

20Nov2013 video - Man on Wire (2008) Official Trailer #1 - Documentary HD -

02Nov2021 video - 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible - Official Trailer - Netflix - mountaineering -

12Aug2018 video - Free Solo - Trailer - National Geographic - Alex Honnold - mountaineering - 

08Apr2022 Tweet - "The most powerful feature that Twitter has: Advanced search Until recently I hadn't even heard of it, but now I use it all the time. Here are 6 twitter advanced search features that will revolutionise the way you search for what to read:" - thread follows... on Twitter search function -

06Apr2022 Tweet -  "Enter the URL of an article you found valuable into Twitter search and you'll see other people who shared that article. It's a great way to find people with similar interests to follow or connect with."

25Apr2022 Tweet - Melvin Capital founder Gabe Plotkin's apology letter to investors 

24Apr2022 Tweet - 400 million years of Evolution #Cartoon by Dan Piraro >

19Aug2022 BSE - ACC open offer by Maritius-based Endeavour Trade and Investment Ltd (of Gautam Adani family) - Letter of Offer - final schedule of activity - closing market price of ACC stock on 19Aug2022 is Rs 2,339 (market cap of Rs 43,923 crore) -

 

25May2022 Business Standard - ACC open offer -  Open Offer for ACC Ltd and Ambuja Cements Ltd by Adani Group - history of open offers in India >

15May2022 BSE - ACC open offer by Adani Group

23May2022 BSE -  public announcement - (tentative schedule of activity -- like start of open offer, etc., are available in the weblink) - ACC open offer for Rs 2,300 per equity share by Adani Group

19May2022 Livemint - India cement oligopoly in five charts

25Apr2022 ET -  Kumar Mangalam Birla of UltraTech Cement weighs ACC, Ambuja bid, move may invite regulator scrutiny - Holcim - cement industry - anti-trust - CCI - India cement capacity

"Of India's 540 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) capacity, UltraTech has 117 MTPA while ACC and Ambuja together are at 66 MTPA." 

Kumar Mangalam Birla weighs ACC, Ambuja bid, move may invite regulator scrutiny

Read more at:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/indl-goods/svs/cement/move-to-invite-competition-regulators-scrutiny-kumar-mangalam-birla-weighs-acc-ambuja-bid/articleshow/91060644.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

Kumar Mangalam Birla weighs ACC, Ambuja bid, move may invite regulator scrutiny

Read more at:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/indl-goods/svs/cement/move-to-invite-competition-regulators-scrutiny-kumar-mangalam-birla-weighs-acc-ambuja-bid/articleshow/91060644.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

Kumar Mangalam Birla weighs ACC, Ambuja bid, move may invite regulator scrutiny

Read more at:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/indl-goods/svs/cement/move-to-invite-competition-regulators-scrutiny-kumar-mangalam-birla-weighs-acc-ambuja-bid/articleshow/91060644.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

21Apr2022 Tweet - Media headline says Indian stocks lose value on "FPI selling." In the past six months, Sensex barely lost four per cent of its value though foreign investors' outflows were more than Rs 150,000 crore or nearly USD 20 billion in the same period. Why is the narrative changing now?

Context: In the past three or four years, we've been repeatedly told that foreign investors (conversely suggesting Indian retail and institutions are "mature" enough to take care of themselves) don't matter for our stock market. Now, this narrative is making a 180-degree turn?

20Jul2022 - Netflix Inc lost 970,000 subscribers duirng Apr-Jun2022 quarter. As of now, its total paid subscribers globally are 221 million. Netflix lost 200,000 subscribers in Jan-Mar2022 quarter, its first decline of paid subscribers in more than a decade. Its current market price is USD 201.63 per share with a market cap of USD 89.58 billion

21Apr2022 CNBC - On 20Apr2022, Netflix fell by 34% in a single day to USD 226.19 per share (with market cap of USD 100 billion) after it lost 200,000 subscribers in Jan-Mar2022 quarter.

19Apr2022 CNBC - Netflix estimates 100 million global households (of those, 30 million in the US and Canada) are sharing passwords and suggests a global crackdown on such subscribers is coming 

Meanwhile, Netflix Inc reported its quarterly earnings (Jan-Mar2022) on 19Apr2022. The stock closed USD 348.61 per share (market cap USD 155 billion) on 19Apr2022. Once the quarterly results were out,  the stock is down 27.2 per cent to USD 253.84 per share as Netflix announced loss of 200,000 subcribers during the Jan-Mar2022 quarter

04May2022 Zydus Wellness Ltd - As per this graphic, e-commerce penetration in total trade in India is only 5%, but there is so pushback againt e-commerce from politicians, why? 

18Jan2023: - stock investing - promoter fraud - #Corporate #Fraud #Governance

The stock continues to fall heavily losing more than two-thirds of its value since listing >

FSN E-Commerce Ventures Ltd (Nykaa.com) - Bonus Issue Charade - Chronology of events > see image 

 

Tweet 18Jan2023 Nykaa's independent directors are also directors in the following listed companies >

 

20Nov2022: - stock investing - promoter fraud - #Corporate #Fraud #Governance

 

FSN E-Commerce Ventures Ltd (Nykaa.com) - Bonus Issue Charade - Chronology of events > see image > 

The company promoted by Falguni Nayar seems to be working against the interests of minority shareholders by arbitrarily changing the record date of the bonus issue from earlier 03Nov2022 to 11Nov2022 -- mind you the revised record date 11Nov2022 is exactly one year from the IPO listing (Nykaa stock listed on 10Nov2021) thereby denying minority shareholders the opportunity to sell shares immediately on the date the lock-in period ended. 

 

As per SEBI norms, Nykaa's bonus shares will be credited to the demat accounts of eligible shareholders "within two months from the date of approval of bonus issue by Board of Directors," that is on or before 02Dec2022 (Nykaa's board met on 03Oct2022 and approved 5:1 bonus issue)

 

BSE filings: 28Sep2022, 03Oct2022,  28Oct2022 and 12Nov2022

 

Moneycontrol article 10Nov2022 by  N Mahalakshmi

 

Moneycontrol articles 14Nov2022 and  19Nov2022

 

Vidya Rajarao, founder and CEO of  Fraudopedia criticises Nykaa's independent directors for failing to protect minority shareholders - MC 19Nov2022

 

Shriram Subramanian, founder of InGovern Research Services, criticised the nykaa bonuss issue as a "stupid move" - Tweet thread 11Nov2022

19Oct2022: - stock investing -  #Corporate #Investing

 

Dollar Industries (discussed by Eknath Mittal of Katalyst Wealth) -- its CMP is Rs 497 per share, with a market cap of Rs 2,800 crore as on 22Oct2022

 

-- its rival mid-size firms are Lux Inds (CMP Rs 1,668, market cap RS 5,000 crore) and Rupa & Co (CMP Rs 300, market cap Rs 2,400 crore)

 

17Oct2022: - stock investing - #Corporate #Investing

 

Indian Energy Exchange  Ltd or IEX - Brief Analysis: 

CMP Rs 139; market cap Rs 12,500 crore (close of 17Oct2022)

 

Business model

 

- IEX, India's first power exchange,  has been operating since 27 June 2008

- IEX offers various compelling choices to trade in – Electricity Market, Green Market and Certificates

 

-  IEX is an automated trading platform for physical delivery of electricity and renewable energy

 

- its market share in power trading is between 85% and 90% currently 

 

- As per Accounting Standard AS 108, the company has only one operating segment, that is, power segment

- India’s total generation was 1483 billion units of electricity in financial year 2022 as per CEA data, out of which 75% was generated from thermal, 10% from hydro, 11% from renewables, and 3% from nuclear (IEX annual report FY 2021-22) 

 

-  India's installed capacity in power sector (FY 2021-22):

 

   Total 399 GW

   Thermal 236 GW (59.1%)

   Renewables 110 (27.5%)

   Hydro 47 GW (11.8%)

   Nuclear 7 GW (1.7%)

- The Plant Load Factor (PLF) of thermal power plants monitored by the Central Electricity Authority stood at 58.9% in financial year 2021-22, compared to 54.6% in financial year 2020.

- IEX established a gas exchange also, named Indian Gas Exchange (IGX)

 

- IGX is India's first automated gas exchange for gas trading

- IGX started operations on 10Dec2020 after taking Gas Trading Platform license from Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB)

-- IGX is promoted by IEX and NSE Ltd; IGX's strategic investors include Gail (India) Ltd, ONGC Ltd, Indian Oil Corporation, Adani Gas and Torrent Gas

Listing

 

- IEX share was listed on BSE and NSE on 23Oct2017

 

Risks

 

- "Market coupling" mechanism by CERC whereby 'order matching' and 'price discovery' will be done via an independent Market Coupling Authority

Competition

 

- competition is growing for IEX, with another two players starting operations

 

- IEX is practically a monopoly, but this could change in the next few years

- As on 17Oct2022, there are three power exchanges (PE) in India

 

- Power Exchange India Ltd (PXIL) is India's second PE

 

- PXIL is promoterd by NSE Ltd and NCDEX Ltd

- Hindustan Power Exchange (HPX) (erstwhile Pranurja Solutions Limited) is India's third PE 

 

- HPX is promoted by PTC India Ltd, BSE Ltd and ICICI Bank

- HPX started commercial operations on 06Jul2022

 

Shareholding 

- As per the latest shareholding (30Jun2022), IEX doesn't have any promoters; it's professionally managed

 

- FPIs hold 21% stake; DIIs 22% and public 57%

 

- Aquamarine Master Fund (Guy Spier's Aquamrine Capital Mgmt) holds 1.47% stake (consistently since Sep2019, as per available records)

 

Solvency

 

- its debt-equity ratio is zero (a cash-rich company)

Valuation as on 17Oct2022

 

-At CMP of Rs 139 (market cap Rs 12,500 crore), its TTM P/E ratio is 40.2, P/B is 18.1 and P/S ratio is 28.5

- the share's all-time high (ATH) is Rs 318 on 19Oct2021; and it's down 57% from its ATH

 

Profitability

 

- Its OPM (operating profit margin) is between 80% and 85% in the past 3 years

 

-  its NPM (net profit margin) is between 65% and 71% in the past three years

 

- its sales growth has decelerated in the past two quarters (FY 2020-21 and 21-22 were high sales growth years for the company)

- its tax rate is between 22% and 24% in the past three years

- its ROCE is between 57% and 63% in the past three years

-- its annualised sales growth is 19% in the past 3 years

- its annualised net profit growth is 24% in the past 3 years

- its dividend payout ratio is b/w 42% and 59% in the past 3 years 

- free cash available is Rs 650 crore (out of which Rs 90 crore will be paid as dividend after AGM) as on 30Jun2022

 

Weblinks

 ICICI Direct 26Jul22

ICICI Direct 29Apr22

ICICI Direct 25Jan22

ICICI Direct 22Oct21

ICICI Direct 16Mar21

 

Abbreviations

 

DAM - day-ahead market (physical power trading market)

RTM - real time market

DAM and RTM are the same

GDAM - green DAM

TAM - term-ahead market (11 days ahead market)

REC - renewable electricity certificate

ESC - energy saving certificate

GTAM - green term ahead market

Regulatory Overhang

 

- CERC vide its order dt 29Sep22 directed further extension of price cap from 01Oct22 to 31Dec22

 

- CERC originally put price cap (range of Re 0 / kwh to Rs 12 / kwh) effective from 06May22 to 30Jun22 and later extended the price cap further from 01Jul22 to 30Sep22

 

- PXIL Circulars - for CERC orders and others

- PIB press release 07Oct2021 - 10-year-long CERC - SEBI turf war on power market resolved by India's Supreme Court: "Both SEBI and CERC have come to an agreement that CERC will regulate all the physical delivery based forward contracts whereas the financial derivatives will be regulated by SEBI. Ministry of power issued suitable order on 10.07.2020.

This has opened the gate for introduction of longer duration delivery-based contracts in the power exchanges which has been currently restricted to only 11 days due to the pendency of the case. This will enable the Discoms and other large consumers to plan their short term power procurement more efficiently. Similarly, the commodity exchanges viz. MCX etc. can now introduce financial products viz. Electricity futures etc. which will enable the Discoms and other large consumers to effectively hedge their risks of power procurement. This is a significant development and has the potential to change the landscape of the power market in the country. This will bring newer products in the power/commodity exchanges and attract increased participation from Genco, Discoms, large consumers etc. which will eventually deepen the power market.

This will further deepen the power market from the present level of approx. 5.5% of the volume to the targeted volume of 25% by 2024-25."

 

- IEX is regulated by the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC)

 

- CERC had been set up by Govt of India under the provisions of the Electricity Regulatory Commission Act, 1998 and is deemed to be constituted as per Electricity Act, 2003, which has repealed  the Electricity Regulatory Commission Act, 1998

 

- CERC is under the ambit of Ministry of Power, Coal and New & Renewable Energy, Govt of India 

 

- power exchanges in India are also guided by the provisions of Govt of India' s Central Electricity Authority (CEA) 

 

To Sum Up

 

Though regulatory overhang (especially the recent price cap of Rs 12/ kwh on power exchanges) and growing competition threatening the monopoly of Indian Energy Exchange Ltd (IEX), at the CMP of Rs 139, the stock appears to be attractive for long term investment of three to five years given its high profitability, big opportunity in power trading in the next five years, zero debt, clean balance sheet, high cash levels, possibility of a share buyback by the company, stock's market neglect and others.

-- this is just my personal opinion and for information purposes only; this should not be construed as investment advice and investors should consult their own advisors before taking any plunge

 

Article dated 22Dec2021 - Power Exchanges in India – Overview and Way Forward

Raveena K Sethia, Shreeyash U Lalit & Aribba Siddique

 

 

Abstract  

Currently, two energy exchanges in India, the Indian Energy Exchange and Power Exchange of India Ltd, are operating under the guidance of the CERC. Surprisingly, the development of an electricity market is the responsibility of regulators, in accordance with Section 66 of the Indian Electricity Act, 2003. This piece aims at understanding the legal provisions governing these exchanges and the best way forward for them to achieve the best possible fair trading of power.

Keywords: Energy exchanges, IEX, PXIL, Electricity trading

Introduction

The concept of trading through an exchange allows traders to determine the right market price and the best consumer or seller for trade. Power exchanges or platforms for trading energy were constituted to increase competition and transparency in such markets. Hence, it can be said that power exchangesincrease market transparency and reduce counterparty credit risk. Today, there are approximatelythirty-six power exchanges in operation. 

The ratification of theIndian Electricity Act 2003 (Act) has made electricity trading a separate and distinct activity in India. Over-the-counter transactions allowpower market participants to sell or purchase electricity from these respective energy exchanges or from power traders who are registered with the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC). At present, in India, two energy exchanges are functioning with guidance from the CERC, i.e., the Indian Energy Exchange (IEX) and Power Exchange of India Ltd. (PXI). Interestingly, in accordance with Section 66 of theIndian Electricity Act, 2003, the regulators are responsible for the development of power market in India.

Overview of the IEX and PXI 

TheIndian Energy Exchange (IEX) is India’s first and largest power and electricity exchange. It commands a market share of over98 percent of the traded volume in power, as well as a broad participant base of over 6300. IEX facilitates effective price discovery and allows players by providing an automated trading platform for the physical delivery of electricity, trade in energy contracts, Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs), and ES Certs (Energy Saving Certificates). The exchange platform improves India’s electricity market’s accessibility and transparency, as well as the speed and efficiency with which trades are executed. The CERC has sanctioned and controlled IEX from its inception on 27 June, 2008.

It is pertinent to note that PXI is our country’s first institutionally endorsed power exchange, providing innovative and different solutions to improve the Indian power markets. The National Stock Exchange of India Limited (NSE) and the National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange Limited (NCDEL) are partners in PXI. West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Company Limited, Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam Limited, Power Finance Corporation Limited, Madhya Pradesh Power Trading Company Limited, JSW Energy Limited, GMR Energy Limited, and Tata Power Trading Company Limited are among the other parties involved. PXI’s distinctive combination of local insights and world context helps its stakeholders in ensuring to make better-informed business and investment decisions, moreover, improve the regulation of power markets, and shape policies and projects thereby assisting in the creation of the power market that India deserves.

Legislative Landscape

The Act is India’s primary piece of legislation governing the generation, transmission, distribution, trade, and use of electricity. It also establishes a complex framework of bodies to monitor the activities under the Act. The primary objectives of the Electricity Act are:

• As a means of promoting competition.
• In order to protect the interests of the consumers who are involved in the Electricity trading.
• Ensuring supply of electricity to all areas, as well as tariff rationalisation.
• Providing policies that are transparent in the interest of efficiency. 

Under the Act, the setting up of a market for electricity is upon the regulators to carry out. Accordingly,Section 76 of the Act establishes the constitution of the CERC, which is responsible for regulating the tariffs of central generating stations as well as all interstate generation, transmission, and electricity supply. Furthermore, at the state level, there are several State Electricity Regulation Commissions whose primary functions are to ascertain bulk and retail tariffs to be charged to customers, as well as to regulate intrastate transmission operations between states. 

In 2010, thePower Market Regulations were issued by the CERC to govern transactions involving power trading on IEX and PXI. However, in February 2021, the CERC notified thePower Market Regulations, 2021 (2021 Regulations). These 2021 Regulations supersede the previous regulations of 2010. The 2021 Regulations have increased access to the power market by introducing trade through the over-the-counter platform. Among other changes, the 2021 Regulations also note market oversight to be an objective, which includes detecting and preventing market manipulation. The2021 Regulations also initiated market coupling, or the disclosure of a uniform market-clearing price for the real-time market (RTM) or day-ahead market (DAM); optimal use of transmission system; and maximisation of surplus value after accounting for all bid types and generating a simultaneous seller-purchaser surplus.

Current Environment 

At present, the IEX and PXI operate in the following markets: 

• TheDay-Ahead-Market (or DAM as mentioned above) is a physical power trading market for deliveries commencing at midnight for any/some/all fifteen minute time blocks in the next twenty four A mutually closed auction bidding mechanism determines the prices and quantum of power to be traded. The transactions are carried out following the Central Transmission Utility’s (PGCIL) ‘Procedure for scheduling of collective transactions,’ the CERC (Open Access in Inter-State Transmission) Regulations, 2008 (CERC 2008 Regulations).
• TheTerm-Ahead-Market (TAM) offers a range of products that allow power players involved to buy and sell electricity on a term basis for up to eleven days ahead of time. The transactions are conducted according to the PGCIL’s ‘Procedures for Scheduling of Bilateral Transactions’ issued as part of theCERC 2008 Regulations.
• TheGreen Day Ahead Market provides for an anonymous and double-sided closed collective auction in renewable energy. For most exchanges, the clearing occurs in a sequential order, first with the renewable segment, which has a must-run status due to transmission corridor availability and then moving on to the conventional segment.
• Following CERC authorization, As a new market segment for trading renewable energy, theGreen-Term Ahead Market (G-TAM) was established. This new market category includes contracts such as Green-Intraday, Green-Day-ahead Contingency, Green-Daily, and Green-Weekly. Green-Intraday, Green-DAC, and Green-Daily contracts are traded continuously/spot, while Green-Weekly contracts are traded using a double-sided open auction procedure.CERC Power Market Regulations, 2010;CERC 2008 Regulations; andCERC Indian Electricity Grid Code Regulations, 2010 govern the operations. 

Further, when trade was initiated with Nepal in its Day-Ahead Electricity Market on 17 April 2021, IEX pioneeredCross Border Electricity Trade (CBET). This is an attempt to expand the Indian power market in order to create an integrated South Asian power market. For starters, grid-connected south Asian countries, including Nepal, Bhutan, and Bangladesh, will be able to join in IEX’s Day ahead Market and Term ahead Market. As grid connectivity expands to additional southern countries, the market will grow even more. There are numerous advantages to having integrated south as a power market, with improved energy accessibility and security, Competitive power prices, and an Integrated Power Market that is transparent and efficient in optimising resources. The Cross-Border Electricity Trade operations is governed by the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission’s Cross Border Trade of Electricity Regulations, 2019.

The Central Electricity Regulatory Commission established theRenewable Energy Certificate (REC) framework to make it easier for state utilities and obligated organisations to purchase renewable energy, especially those in states with limited renewable energy resources. The REC framework aims to establish a nationwide market for renewable energy generators to recuperate their costs. One REC equals one megawatt-hour of electricity generated from renewable sources. 

Under the scheme ofPerform Achieve and Trade, as part of the National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency, PXI began trading ES Certs, or energy saving certificates, a regulatory instrument to reduce specific energy consumption in energy-intensive industries, with an associated market-based mechanism to improve cost-effectiveness through certification of excess energy savings that can be traded.

Therefore, the analysis above indicates that both the entities startedRTM trading in June 2020 to meet global standards and facilitate real-time trade. The RTM is structured as a half-hourly market, with forty-eight auction sessions lasting fifteen minutes each. The auction sessions are held in even-numbered hour blocks, with delivery typically beginning one hour after the close of the trade session. 

Further, both exchanges also facilitate green energy trading, which is definitely a forward-looking move, given the global shift to renewable energy resources. In fact,IEX also provides a value-added services platform for green generators. With the introduction of ES Certs and other tools to indicate energy saving, the exchanges provide indications of enterprises that value energy efficiency and not just energy output/generation, a welcome step given the environmental changes the world is currently facing. Having indicators to assess how ‘green’ an entity also helps in inculcating a mindset of valuing green efficiency amongst consumers and persons viewing the indexes to obtain an indication of a company’s worth. 

Therefore, in other words, both entities have adapted well to the changing market scenarios and aim to keep up with new facets of energy trading.

Monopoly and Energy Exchanges

Today, IEX has an absolutemonopoly over the “order matching” and “price discovery” processes that take place at the exchange level. This indicates that for their orders to be matched and completed, both the buyer and the seller must be on the same platform (IEX or PXI). Electricity buyers are aware that all electricity sellers trade on the IEX rather than the PXI. Even if buyers are ready to pay a premium price for power, they will be unable to do so on PXI due to a lack of sellers they may wish to purchase from.

Similarly, the sellers are aware that most buyers attempt to purchase electricity on the IEX. If the sellers desire to sell on PXI, they may be unable to sell the entire quantity they desire, even if the price is lower than on IEX.

In order to address this, the CERC has introducedmarket coupling, which will undertake “order matching” and “price discovery” through an independentMarket Coupling Authority. This simply implies that there will be greater price and output transparency between the exchanges. In fact, theMD of PXI has commented and welcomed the move by stating that “a competitive marketplace can thrive on a strong foundation of an enabling market structure like market coupling, fair rules that allow competition to thrive and ensure ease of participation on various marketplaces.” However, it is yet to be seen whether the introduction of the Market Coupling Authority reduces the role and importance of IEX in this market.

Way Forward

It is worth noting that IEX has a98 percent market share in terms of electricity traded volume and a diverse registered participant base of over 6300. IEX traded6,540 million units of power volume in May 2021, achieving9 percent year-on-year growth despite the continuation of Covid-19 lockdowns and cyclonic disturbances that impacted overall power demand in the country. Therefore, its presence is stronger than that of PXI. Given that the Act entrusts the regulator to promote competition in this market, the size and importance of IEX over PXI appear stark and worth reflecting upon. The 2021 Regulations and their aim to introduce market coupling and over-the-counter trading may further increase transparency in energy trade across these platforms. 

Interestingly, the CERC has authorised the registration ofICICI Bank-led Pranurja Solution Ltd,  PTC and BSE to launch the country’s third power exchange. Hopefully, introducing a third exchange backed by strong names may pave the way for a more competitive market for power exchanges in India and bring about further transparency and optimal power utilization. 

Given that India is likely to have an energy surplus of 6.4 percent and a peak surplus of 9.1 percent for the year 2021-22, according to the Central Electricity Authority’s recentLoad Generation Balance Report, this is a welcome move to ensure the best possible utilization of the energy generated in India in the most transparent and competitive manner.

Disclaimer

The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the article belong solely to the authors, and not necessarily to their employers, organizations, committees or other groups or individuals to which they are affiliated.

About the Authors  

Ms. Raveena K Sethia is an Associate at Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas.

Mr. Shreeyash U Lalit is an Advocate at Supreme Court of India.

Ms. Aribba Siddique is a 3rd year student at Amity Law School Kolkata, and is an Associate Editor at IJPIEL.

 

02Oct2022: - stock investing - #Corporate #Investing

 Sharda Cropchem Ltd - Brief Analysis: 

 

- Its stock price is Rs 443; with a market cap of Rs 4,000 crore as on 30Sep2022

-- it's an agrochemical company in the generic crop protection chemicals industry 

- asset light business model

 

- identifies generic molecules, prepares dossiers,  applies for regulatory registrations; markets and distributes formulations through third party distributors and / or own sales force

 

- manufacturing of active ingredients and formulations is outsourced

- its has more than 2,700 registrations so far and growing

 

- 51% of sales comes from Europe; 31% from NAFTA and 13% from LATAM (Apr-Jun2022 quarter)

 

- the recent steep depreciation of Euro versus US dollar will negatively impact Sharda Cropchem's margins during Jul-Sep2022 quarter

 

- its inventory levels are traditionally higher (versus industry) due to large-scale stock-keeping units and seasonality in operating regions

 

- its non-agrochemical segment (mainly conveyor belts, dyes and intermediaries) is growing at a faster clip and it has higher margins compared to agro segment

- promoter stake is 74.8 per cent with no pledged shares

 

- FPI holding is 2% and DII holding 13%; the rest by public

 

- Its profitablity ratios are good; ROCE 26%; ROE 20%; OPM 16%; PAT margin 10% (all as of 31Mar22)

 

- OPM has come down to 6% during Apr-Jun2022 quarter mainly due to Euro loss vs USD, higher freight costs and Rs 43 crore forex loss (50% of company's revenues is in Euro whereas its raw materials are sourced from China paid in USD currency)

 

- strong liquidity: its debt is practically nil; total debt is Rs 62 crore and cash & cash equivalents at Rs 254 crore -- both as on 30Jun2022

 

- its capex during FY 2022-23 is likely to be in the range of Rs 400 crore to Rs 450 crore (its capex in FY 2021-22 was Rs 422 crore, funded from internal accruals, for product development and registrations)

- in future, cash accruals are likely to be around Rs 600 croe to Rs 700 crore per year, which should take care of future maintenance capex and future-growth capex

- the company invests continuosly in identifying generic molecules going off patent, prepares dossiers and seeks regulatory registrations in its own name (resulting in intangible assets of Rs 577 crore plus intangibles under development Rs 213 crore as on 31Mar22; on the P&L a/c, the amortisiation & depreciation exp is Rs 245 crore for FY 2021-22)

 

- the major risks include:  working capital intensive operations; issue of high trade receivables in certain countries; large intangible assets and concomittant amortisation; business is susceptible to truant monsoons; high regulations in agrochemical industry; sudden Euro depreciation and others

- valuation ratios: At CMP of Rs 443 and market cap of Rs 4,000 crore, its trailing P/E is 12, P/B of 2 and P/S of 1, with a dividend yield of 1.4% (it's to be seen whether the company will announce any buyback in the next one or two quarters to use its excess cash in the balance sheet) 

 

- the stock's 52-week high (also all-time high) is Rs 767 on 24May2022; and its price has since fallen 42% from its 52-week high

 

- its median P/E ratio for the past five years is 15.8

- its dividend payout ratio is in the range of 16% to 22% in the past three years

- to sum up: Sharda Cropchem has a healthy financial profile (annual report FY 2021-22) with strong cash flows and cash & cash equivalents of Rs 254 crore (as on 30Jun22) though its OPM was negatively impacted by Euro depreciation vs USD in recent quarters; its business has been growing at a decent growth with healthy product registrations dominating in Europe and NAFTA; it has large product registrations and wide distribution network in highly regulated markets of Europe and NAFTA; its future growth in sales is expected to be between 18% to 20% based on past performance; at CMP of Rs 443, the stock in my opinion looks attractive for a period of three to five years (investors should have the risk appetite to bear 20% to 25% price decline from current levels in the next few quarters due to any global / Indian turmoil in financial markekts)

- this is neither a recommendation nor investment advice to trade in the stock -- this is just for educational purposes

04Aug2022: - stock investing - #Corporate #Investing

 

Opinion on IndiaBulls Housing Finance Ltd (IBHFL): Like CG Power & Indl Solutions, IBHFL is undergoing changes in promoter holding. One of the original promoters of IndiaBulls Group, Sameer Gehlaut (the other is Gagan Banga) has reduced his stake in the company considerably and is likely to be moved from promoter category shareholder to public shareholder.

 

The housing finance company has gone through a catharsis after the IL&FS default in 2018, and reduced its balance sheet size considerably in the last four years. Its capital adequacy is north of 30 percent (31Dec2021), of which Tier 1 capital is 25%+. It raised fresh equity capital recently and shed some non-core businesses—which resulted in higher capital adequacy.

 

The prospects of the company depend on how fast the company can increase its asset size (sales) and raise future capital, while controlling the potential bad assets. Currently, its loan portfolio related to commercial real estate (realty developer loans) is weak; though the retail loan segment is doing okay. There are some pending court cases / legal disputes against the company.

 

The fresh loan disbursement by the company is not strong (could be one of the reasons why the stock price remains subdued), though its liquidity and asset-liability profile are strong.

 

If you’re lucky, the company is likely to move to a better hands (the reputation of the original promoters of this group has been under suspicion for long). Now, a nominee director from LIC of India is on the board of IBHFL. SS Mundra (former RBI deputy governor) is made non-executive chairman of the company. IBHFL’s name may be changed in future, and it may be run professionally with backing from reputed institutions.

 

But the market is still suspicious of the company (only seeing is believing). And the market would like to see more of the new management and how the quarterly results of IBHFL pan out in the next few quarters / years. The poison some promoters inject into a company’s culture takes time to be flushed out.

 

Gross / net NPA rations and provisioning coverage ratios are reasonable.

 

The housing finance business of the company is okay in my opinion.

 

I hate to say this but one could hold the stock (CMP Rs 122, market cap Rs 5,770 crore on 04Aug2022) for the time being, provided one believes in the official numbers of the company. If the turnaround in management and board supervision happens as expected, one could make decent returns in the stock, but your position in the stock should be smaller to limit any potential risk. Good luck!

04Sep2022 HBL - MCX in talks with 63 Moons to renew service contract

MCX Limited - #Investing #Corporate - stock investing - 

-- Check annual reports of MCX Ltd and 63 Moons Technologies on the row over renwal of service contract / migration of technology platform - the service contract expires on 30Sep2022 -

17May2022 MCX Limited - #Investing #Corporate - stock investing - 

 

- company investor presentation of Jan-Mar2022 (Q4) results

 

- conference call transcript for Oct-Dec2021 quarterly resutls  

- MCX Ltd is Multi Commodity Exchange of India Ltd

 

- MCX's market share in India's commmodity futures market is 93.6% in FY 2021-22 (NCDEX 6.3%) 

- MCX focuses on trading of precius metals, energy and base metals

 

- of the total turnover of MCX for FY 2021-22; silver is 21.1%, natural gas 18.4%, gold 18.1%, crude oil 17.1%, copper 9.7%, nickel 6.6% and so on 

- put differently, of the total MCX turnover in FY 2021-22, precious metals share is 39.2%; energy 35.6% and base metals 22.3%

- its rival NCDEX focuses agricultural commodities

- MCX's share in precious metals (silver and gold) is 100% of India's total for FY 2021-22

- MCX's share in energy and base metals is also 100% of India's total

- MCX's share in 20% of total market for agri commodities for FY 2021-22

 

- it pays most of its profits as dividend

 

- as such, it is not investing its cash flows for future growth

 

- it dividend yield is moderate to high compared to Nifty 50 companies

 

- the company on 16May2022 declared a dividend of Rs 17.40 per equity share to be paid in the next few months, which is lower by 37% compared to previous year's dividend of Rs 27.60 (the company's EPS is donw 36% in FY 2021-22 year on year)

 

- its sales / revenue growth is not great in recent years

 

- it is a play on increased commodity trading

 

- its profitability is decent though return on equity is modest

 

- it has no promoters, it is run by professionals

 

- its biggest stakeholder is 15% Kotak Mahindra Bank

 

- other shareholders are FPIs (27%), mutual funds and insurers (33%) and public (25%)

 

- its earnings per share (EPS) for FY 2021-22 is Rs 28.18, down 36% year on year

 

- its sales for FY 2021-22 are Rs 367 crore, down 32% 

- its operating cash flow (CFO) for FY 2021-22 is Rs 291 crore

 

- its P/E ratio is about 42, appears high

 

- but in this case, P/E ratio is not a good valuation metric for investing

 

- its price to book or P/B ratio is 4.2

 

- its price to sales or P/S ratio is 16.4

 

- its cash & cash equivalents as on 31Mar2022 are Rs 975 crore

 

- if there is any increase in commodity prices, that should help the company’s revenues indirectly

 

- stock price has fallen 45% from its 52-week high

 

- but stocks that fall 50% or more tend to fall more

 

- this is risk of catching falling knives, so to say

 

- there should be some bounce back with results declared yesterday night

 

- its share price was listed on stock exchanges (BSE and NSE) on 09Mar2012

 

- at the CMP of Rs 1,178 (market cap Rs 6,000 crore) as at close of 16May2022, the CMP looks interesting for a short term perspective of one to three months

 

- but the risks are any collapse in commodity prices going forward should reduce its revenues

 

- how the US stock markets behave (right now, they are extremely weak) also will have some impact on MCX price in the short term

 

- my guesstimate is trading in commodities will grow with a wider reach and participation with the higher usage of digital tools in India (of course, this should play out in the long term)

 

Zydus Wellness Ltd - #Investing #Corporate - stock investing - 

Zydus Wellness Ltd (ZWL) and Zydus Lifesciences Ltd or ZYL (then Cadila Healthcare Ltd) jointly acquired Heinz India consumer biz (with brands, like, Glucon-D, Complan, Nycil and Sampriti Ghee) for Rs 4,595 crore--in a deal brokered by Avendus

The deal was announced in October 2018 and completed in 2019 for a total cash consideration of Rs 4,667 crore - page 30 of ZWL annual report 2018-19

The deal was funded by ZWL with issuance of fresh equity of Rs 2,575 crore (including share premium) and also funds borrowed in the form of non-convertible debentures of Rs 1,500 crore. 

In 2018-19, ZWL issued fresh equity shares of 1,85,92,055 Equity Shares at price of Rs 1,385/- (including a premium of Rs 1,375/-) per equity share via QIP issue--total money raised was Rs 2,575 crore -- ZWL's promoter Zydus Lifesciences Ltd participated in the QIP by acquiring 84.84 lakh shares of ZWL for Rs 1,175 crore.

As of 31Mar2022, promoters hold 64.8% in ZWL; the biggest promoter is ZYL with a stake of 57.6%

 

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15May2022: part 3 of 3 - Portfolio perspective: - stock investing – corporate – investing -

 

A portfolio needs to be a blend of defensive and growth stocks. As wealth preservation is most important, at least 65 per cent to 75 per cent of the portfolio (PF) should be in solid companies with quality management and decent growth prospects. 

 

The rest of the money, depending on one’s risk appetite and personal financial situation, can be invested in high growth stocks—which could be preferably from mid / small cap stocks--taking selective bets on a slightly higher risk spectrum.

 

As per the list, there are 27 stocks—of which 10 stocks are in Pharma, six are banks / financial services, four are big IT stocks, and seven are other sectors. This is not a balanced portfolio in my opinion.

 

Twenty-seven stocks is a big number assuming you’re starting this portfolio with a long term objective. While constructing a PF, we could ideally start with six to 12 stocks and build the portfolio over a period of three to five years. Ideally, individual investors should not have more than 20 to 30 stocks—not initially but, say, after seven or ten years of portfolio construction.

 

By holding 10 stocks in a single sector, you’re spreading your butter too thin. Because they are exposed to the same underlying risks. A wise man once said: one-third returns of a particular stock come from a country’s future, one third from the sector and one third from the specific stock. If you believe this, prices of many stocks (there will be some exceptions always) in a sector move in tandem.

 

As we’ve seen yesterday, stock prices of Exide Inds and Amara Raja Batteries move in tandem over long periods of time—because their business models are similar and so are the risks. If you don’t believe me, you can take some stocks in a particular sector and check the comparison of stocks on trendlyne.com. 

 

You could check also stock prices of Asahi India Glass and Maruti Suzuki—both may have different biz models, but look at their 10-year price chart comparison.

 

In recent years, with bank financing being the major part of automobile sales; the fortunes of finance stocks (especially, NBFCs) are linked closely to the dynamics of automobile sector in India. This gets reflected in the stock prices of these two sectors.

 

Another comparison is big IT stocks. All the four big IT stocks in your list move in lock step with one another—occasionally they diverge in their price action for some periods—but over longer periods, they move in tandem. If their business models and price charts are similar, why should anyone hold four stocks simultaneously?

 

In portfolio theory, one should not hold correlated assets. Correlation means the relation between two stock prices and how much they tend to vary with one another. To reduce risk, it’s better to hold uncorrelated assets in a portfolio.

 

As you know, prices of stocks, bonds and gold move differently from one another. I’ve a written some articles on this, you can check my blog. The idea is if we lose money in a particular year in one asset, we may gain in another asset. This way, our risk is reduced and we may get optimal returns overall.

 

For example, earlier it was thought crypto assets (Bitcoin, etc.) move differently from big tech stocks (in Nasdaq). As such, investors believed that they can hold both crypto assets as well as FAANG stocks in their portfolios. But in recent quarters, what we’ve been observing is that whenever Nasdaq falls, crypto assets too are falling and vice versa.

 

If two asset price movements follow one another, why hold both? Why can’t one hold only one instead of two? Moreover, managing a big number of stocks over long periods of time is a pain—because we need to track them for corporate actions (dividend, bonus, stock split, buyback, etc.)—and it takes a lot of time to track them.

 

As you may have observed, PM Modi gov’t has introduced an extra layer of pain with the introduction of 10% tax on LTCG, tax on dividends and serpentine method of reporting in income tax returns. Of course, one can outsource these tasks if one is holding large portfolios.

 

Coming back to the portfolio, Nifty Bank (underlying of Bank BeES) has 27% in HDFC Bk, 23% ICICI Bk, 12% Kotak Mahindra Bk, 11% SBI and so on. If you’re holding Bank BeES, why should you hold additionally HDFC Bank and other banks which have exposures in Bank BeES?

 

I’m not very sure about AMC business. Equity mutual funds have been doing a bad job due to high competition in the past five to six years. Their assets have grown hugely impacting the returns of equity mutual funds adversely. To put it  crudely: మంది ఎక్కువైతే, మజ్జిగ పలుచన అవుతుంది.

 

As you’re aware, most of the income for AMCs comes from expense ratios of equity funds (debt funds’ expense ratios are low). With humungous growth of passive funds (index funds and ETFs), the profit pool of AMCs has diminished—in addition, PMS (portfolio management services) managers are snapping at the heels of mutual fund managers.

 

In future, consolidation may happen in the MF industry, as was the case with the steel and mobile telephony in India. Once consolidation takes hold, the pricing power of any industry improves—leading to higher profit for the industry. I think for AMCs, such a scenario is a long way off.

 

Most of the stocks in the list belong to large-cap stocks. Except Eris Lifesciences, FDC Ltd, Avanti Feeds, Caplin Labs, India Pesticides and CCL Products, most of the stocks are large-cap ones. Growth kicker needs to come from mid- and small-cap stocks.

 

Supreme Industries is a fundamentally strong company. Profitability metrics of the company are strong. Company’s liquidity is strong. This is a good one!

 

I end this on this joyous note. This is my honest opinion. I could change my opinion in future and my opinion could turn out to be incorrect over time—but that’s how life goes! 

 

Happy  investing, ********hna garu!

 

 

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13May2022: part 2 of 3 - Portfolio perspective- stock investing – corporate – investing -

 

Solar Industries India Ltd

GHCL Ltd

Schaefler India Ltd

CRISIL Ltd

Great Eastern Shipping Co

Blue Dart Express Ltd

Varun Beverages Ltd

Fine Organic Industries Ltd

KSB Ltd

ABB India Ltd

Blue Star Ltd

Tube Investments of India Ltd

Jamna Auto Inds Ltd

GNA Axles Ltd

 

I mentioned the above stocks this morning—these are just for observation and further study purpose only. These are stocks that passed the first filter. We need to pass them through more filters so that we can know about the companies in and out and their business models.

 

Portfolio perspective

 

Defensive and growth stocks—wealth preservation is most important, that’s why at least 65 per cent to 75 per cent of the PF should be in solid companies with quality management and decent growth prospects. The rest of the money, depending on one’s risk appetite and personal financial situation, can be invested in high growth stocks taking selective bets on a slightly higher risk spectrum.

 

It's a zoo of stocks, because 27 stocks in a portfolio while starting to create a portfolio is crazy.

 

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12May2022: Part 1 of 3: Portfolio perspective  - stock investing – corporate – investing -

 

1. Based on price action, the following stocks look set for good returns in future:

 

Though overall stock market in India (like, other markets globally) has weakened in the past few weeks, the following stocks may provide some resilience and future returns:

 

Solar Industries India Ltd

GHCL Ltd

Schaefler India Ltd

CRISIL Ltd

Great Eastern Shipping Co

Blue Dart Express Ltd

Varun Beverages Ltd

Fine Organic Industries Ltd

KSB Ltd

ABB India Ltd

Blue Star Ltd

Tube Investments of India Ltd

Jamna Auto Inds Ltd

 

Note: GE Shipping is highly volatile stock; may not be suitable for conservative investors Many hotel stocks also appear to show positive price signals, but many of these companies are debt-ridden; hence we can’t invest in them. 

 

Though Adani Group stocks (Adani Power, Adani Total Gas, Adani Enterprises and Adani Green Energy) appear strong technically, we can’t buy them due to problems with their fundamentals and concerns on the Group’s feverish expansionist activities.

 

Even some public sector stocks (Power Grid, Bharat Dynamics, Hindustan Aeronautics, NTPC and Bharat Electronics), appear to be showing positive signs price-wise. Based on promoter (Govt of India is a lousy promoter on all counts) concerns, these stocks are untouchable—however, one can take exposure to a few stocks from a portfolio perspective, not owning more than 5% to 8% of one’s portfolio depending on investor’s risk appetite.

 

2. Banking pack:

 

The whole banking pack appears very weak; except SBI and ICICI Bank. If at all you want to consider, one can consider these two stocks in the whole banking pack.

 

However, AU Small Finance Bank, Bandhan Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank are showing some signs of resilience—one can watch them for the next three months and then take a call.

 

Though the business models of HDFC Bank and HDFC are not bad, I am not in favour of buying them.

 

3. Auto pack:

 

In the auto pack, most of them are weak. We need to watch them for another three to six months before taking a call. However, Maruti Suzuki, Mahindra & Mahindra and Bajaj Auto are the stocks to watch.

 

4. Pharma sector:

 

As discussed previously, pharma is highly complicated from a sector point of view. Here too most of the stocks show no signs of recovering in the near future. Having said that I’d like to add some stocks may be worth considering from a long-term view—like, Sun Pharmceutical Industries, Eris Life Sciences, IPCA Labs and JB Chemicals & Pharma. We’ve already discussed about Zydus Lifesciences Ltd.

 

Ajanta Pharma and Caplin Point Labs look okay. I would not consider Natco Pharma and Aurobindo Pharma.

 

I’m not very positive on stocks of Divi’s Labs and Larus Labs—my view is from a future price performance perspective; though their business models are good. I’ve some concerns on Laurus Labs—low promoter stake, high debt, giving dividends when you’ve high debt, over-enthusiasm to expand business with debt, etc.

 

5. Neglected stocks:

 

There are several stocks that are ignored by market or have no market fancy. Such neglected stocks can be good picks provided we do our homework properly while selecting them. Two areas of neglect are: auto stocks and MNC stocks. 

 

More will follow…

 

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06May2022: Avanti Feeds Ltd: - stock investing – corporate – investing -

 

Last three-year performance:

 

sales growth is 6.5% compounded

net profit growth is minus 10%, though corp tax rate was cut from 34% to 22%

Net profit margin (NPM) was impacted by high growth in raw material (RM) cost, but RM cost is down in Oct-Dec2021 quarter

NPM was impacted by RM cost and hike in depreciation

Last year, there were shrimp product recalls in the US

Product recall is due to safety concerns

due to COVID-19, demand is lower for finished products in FY 2020-21—but improved later

Sudden MEIS withdrawal by GOI negatively impacted the company

MEIS is replaced by RODTEP—even then, the MEIS withdrawal is net negative

Non-availability of shipping containers is negative

In addition, freight rates are up recently

Such supply bottlenecks my continue in future

Company’s market share is around 45 to 50%

Dividend payout ratio increased from 12% to 24%

 

Other highlights:

 

Zero debt company

Strong cash / cash equivalent balances of > Rs 1,000 crore as on 31Mar2021

Capex may be around Rs 100 crore

Promoters hold 43.7% of shares; steady in the past three years

No pledging of shares by promoters

Low DII share of 8.2% (14.6% of free float) in equity shares

DII share is traditionally low in this company*

FII share is decent at 15.2% (27% of free float)

Public share is high at 30.3% (54% of free float)

If the service economy opens up more, shrimp consumption may increase

Opening of malls and restaurants / hotels, higher air travel may augur well

It seems Gov't of India recently allowed GM soya import—this may counter RM price hikes

At the current market price of Rs 427 (market cap Rs 5,800 crore), the stock’s PE ratio is 26, higher than the long term average of 20. The current high PE ratio is obviously due to lower net profits in recent quarters / years. With regard to the management quality, there seems to be no serious red flags.

The share has potential to grow, subject to consumer demand and economic growth revival globally. But profitability has suffered in recent quarters due to declining operating profit margin.

Bottomline: Avanti Feeds Ltd is a strong company financially, with zero debt and favourable capital allocation. Business-wise it has suffered due to COVID-19 and so are its profit margins. The declining profitability in recent quarters has dented my confidence in the company’s ability to grow its profits sustainably in future. As such, I’m not very positive on the stock.

 

* one could argue a low DII share is an opportunity for small / individual shareholders to hold shares in a company provided they do their homework properly — institutional investing is way different from individual investors’ style of investing — institutional investor suffer from various constraints, such constraints are occasionally an opportunity for individual investors

 

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04May2022 Tweet on Eris Lifesciences Ltd - - #Investing #Corporate - stock investing -

This is a decent listed company. 

It's a zero-debt company as of yesterday.   

By the end of this month, it'll become a company with a debt-equity ratio of less than 0.20.  

Because it's acquiring an unlisted company this month for a cash consideration of Rs 650 crore.  

How is it acquiring this unlisted company? 

It's raising a debt of Rs 350 crore (term loan) from Bajaj Finance to close the deal for acquiring the unlisted company--the remaining Rs 300 crore obviously comes from internal resources.  

By this time, you'd have guessed the listed company's name--it's Eris Lifesciences Ltd. 

It's acquiring Oaknet Healthcare Pvt Ltd--the deal may be closed by the end of this month.  

I'm sure CRISIL Ratings Ltd will come out with its latest credit rating on Eris Lifesciences post-term loan of Rs 350 crore from Bajaj Finance. The minimum long-term rating Eris could get is AA (pronounced double A).

Eris Lifesciences: its CMP is Rs 674 with a market cap of Rs 9,160 crore (end-02May2022).Its P/E ratio is 22.6 based on its EPS of Rs 29.88 for FY 2021-22; P/B is 4.8 and P/S 6.8.

Its IPO was in 2017--listed on BSE and NSE on 29Jun2017.

Promoter holding is decent at 52.7%; FPIs 13.3%; DIIs 10.5% and public 23.5%.

The top management of Eris seems to be youngish and they have 'skin in the game,' so to say.

It declared its fourth quarter results yesterday.  

Eris Lifesciences: The stock price should react to the proposed acquisition and the quarterly results. 

In my opinion, the reaction could be positive. 

This is not a recommendation, this is just for informational purpose. 

Three-fourths of Eris Lifesciences' sales comes from its manufacturing plant at Guwahati, Assam--from which it avails some income tax incentives (till FY 2023-24) and GST subsidies (till 2024-25) (source: Annual Report 2021-21). 

That's why its tax rate is low between 8% to 11% in the past five years. 

As per Lexico, Eris is a Greek goddess of strife and discord. 😃 

 

30Apr2022 Delta Corp Ltd - #Investing #Corporate - stock investing -

- Jaydev Mukund Mody is chairman of the company

- Goodwill (intangible assets) is Rs 391 crore as on 31Mar2022 as per consolidated B/S

- Due to acquisition of adda52.com, the goodwill in Delta Corp B/S surged by Rs 261.83 crore in FY 2017-18 and goodwill reached Rs 394.55 crore as on 31Mar2018 (source: annual report FY 2017-18)

-  Delta Corp acquired adda52.com (Gaussian Networks Pvt Ltd), an online gaming company, in 2017--the acquistion became effective in the balance sheet of FY 2017-18

- As of 30Apr2022, Gaussian Networks Pvt Ltd is a 100% subsidiary of Delta Corp Ltd

- as of  31Mar2022, 71% gross revenue comes from casino gaming segment; 21% from online skill gaming and 8% from hospitality segment--gross revenue for FY 2021-22 is Rs 765 crore (this gross revenue includes GST of Rs 133 crore)--during FY 2021-22, only casino gaming is profit making while online skill gaming and hospitality segments are loss-making as per segement results (Ind AS 108) 

- as per company BSE filing dated 11Jan2022, Delta Corp's Board of Directors approved the potential public issue (IPO listing) of its subsidiary Gaussian Networks Pvt Ltd (adda52.com) to raise money for business expansion

- Delat Corp's depends mainly on tourists coming to Goa for its casino gaming business

- Gaussinan Networks Pvt Ltd is now rechristened as Deltatech Gaming Pvt Ltd -- the proposed IPO will consist of OFS (offer for sale) and primary issue of equity shares

- Delta Corp's debt-equity ratio is zero

- The CMP of Delta Corp is Rs 266 per share, end-29Apr2022, with a market cap of Rs 7,100 crore--P/E ratio is 99, P/B ratio 3.5 and P/S ratio 11.6

- promoters' stake 33.2%; FPIs 6%; DIIs 11% and public 50%

- the profitability of Delta Corp is low (low ROCE), though its OPM is decent (it has been devasted by COVID-19 Pandemic and draconian COVID-19 lockdown of 2020) 

- the company did a QIP (qualified institutions placement) in May 2017 raising equity shares at an issue price of Rs 155 per share

- it did a buyback of equity shares in June-October 2020

- casino gaming (with vessels on Mandovi river, Panaji) has become a political football for several years--there have been demands that these vessels be removed from Mandovi river by politicians and others citing environmental, social morality issues

- casino gaming is allowed only in Goa and Sikkim states and Daman (UT)

- Delta Corp's big competitor is Pride Group in Goa

- Big Daddy is also a competitor

- prospectus dated 22Mar2021 of Nazar Technologies (gaming and sports media platform) - final offer document - 

- ICICI Direct's Nazara Technologies IPO report

- majority of the online gaming in India is done via mobile phones, and small portion comes from consoles (like, Sony PlayStation and Xbox) and personal computer (PC)--cheaper mobile tariffs helped the growth of online gamining in India--higher usage of smartphones in India is helping the online gamining business

- in contrast, the online gaming in the US is driven mainly by consoles, followed by mobiiles and PC  

- In Jan2022, Microsoft acquired, for USD 69 billion, Activision Blizzard Inc., a leader in game development and interactive entertainment content publisher

- globally, online gaming is a big industry--it's said to be bigger than movies and theatres industry

 

- JM Mody's wife is Zia Mody, who is a founder-partner of AZB & Partners

- Zia Mody's full name is Ziabai Jaydev Mody

- Zia Mody is daughter of late Soli Sorbajee, former attorney general of India

- Zia and Jaydev have three daughters — Anjali, Aarti and Aditi 

- Zia Mody is a dealmaker and corporate lawyer

- she specialises in mergers, acquisition and restructuring

- her firm's big deals include HDFC-HDFC Bank merger; Tata Motors' JLR acquisition; L&T's Mindtree takeover, Vedanta's takeover of Cairn India; Facebook's stake buy of Reliance Jio Platforms; Tata's buyout of Air India and Tata Steel's purchase of Bhushal Steel

- Urvi Piramal (promoter of Peninsula Land Ltd) is sister of JM Mody

- Peninsula Land belongs to Ashok Pirmal Group

- Urvi Piramal is wife of late Ashok Piramal

- Ajay Pirmal is younger brother of late Ashok Piramal

- Dilip Piramal (of VIP Industries) is elder brother of Ajay Piramal 

- Kalpana Singhania is sister of JM Mody

- Pratap Pandit is son-in-law of JM Mody

 

27Apr2022 Indian Pesticides Ltd -  stock investing - #Investing - #Corporate -

India Pesticides Ltd was listed less than a year ago (on 05Jul2021)--hence, it's hard to know the company. 

But it's a zero debt company. 

Promoter holding is decent at 67%; public at 30% and 3% by FPIs and DIIs. It's a zero debt company. 

The promoters are widely experienced in the field. Of all the agrochem firms in India, this has got a unique business model. They manufacture generic technical technicals that are used in the manufacture of pesticides and fungicides--here their customers include Sharda Cropchem, MNCs such as Syngenta and UPL and others. 

The company also manufactures and sells other pesticides and fungicides directly (it calls this formulations division). Technicals sales share is 72% and 28% from formulations. 

Its profitability is good with good operating margins. The company is currently in expansion stage--it's likely to use internal resources for the expansion. 

More than 50% revenue comes from exports. Maybe, this company needs a little more IPO seasoning?

As we've seen in the case of Bandhan Bank, all IPOs need some IPO seasoning before you can seriously consider investing in them. 

20Apr2022 Zydus Lifesciences Ltd (formerly Cadila Healthcare Ltd) - #Investing - #Corporate - stock investing - current market price is Rs 356 (end-19Apr2022) with a market cap of Rs 36,480 crore - 

Assumptions: 

Company is going through tough times

Hence, valuation is reasonable now

P/E ratio is 7.5 based on TTM EPS 

Neglected stock, with little market fancy

May test a long term investor's patience

Minimum holding period is three years

reasonable debt now

exceptional gain of Rs 2,492 crore for the company in Jul-Sep2021 quarter due to sale of Animal Health Established Markets Undertaking--the sale resulted in debt reduction

 

images captured at 8.15 am on 20Apr2022 > 

24Apr2022 HUDCO - Opinion on HUDCO > #Investing - #Corporate - stock investing -

- Govt of India owns 81.8% and LIC 5.8%; totaling 87.6%

- free float is only 12.4%; price charts are uselss with such low free float

- low free float also means high manipulation by unscrupulous operators--but as this 87.6% govt-owned--there is little scope for manipulation

- it's a AAA-rated company; not because its profitability and business operations are excellent; but only because of GOI ownership

- it's a nodal agency for govt projects for social housing and urban infrastructure; as such, the projects are on relatively safer ground (low credit risk) which is reflected in low gross and net NPA ratios of HUDCO 

- gross and net NPA ratios are 4.9% and 1.1% respectively as on 31Dec2021

- it's a preferred lender for state govt projects and public sector agencies

- of the total loan book, a whopping 97% is to the public sector

- govt projects mean low profit margin and late realisations; creating cash flow problem for HUDCO; this is creating pressure on interest coverage ratio

- it's capital adequacy ratio is high at 65%; with comfortable capital to grow its advances portfolio

- as it's a GOI company, there is a high scope for govt to arm twist the company to meet govt's political needs; which may not be in alignment with the needs of shareholders

- HUDCO undertakes some projects for state governments; like, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana; the company could face problems with regard to timely realisations of monies from state governments; financial profile of several state governments is weak now

- there is a regulatory overhang on the company; as of now, the company does not meet RBI's norms to become a housing finance company (HFC, part of NBFC); HUDCO is seeking extension for meeting regulatory norms; future re-financing window from NHB is also doubtful

- profitability is low; ROCE is just 11%, below cost of capital

- its price to book value is deceptively low at 0.53; because market seems to be finding the company's shares less attractive

- Gross advances have remained stagnant in the past three years; which means its new loan disbursements have fallen in recent years as it's unable to fund new projects

- Its current market price is Rs 36.50 per share; with a market cap of Rs 7,300 crore

- Overall, my opinion is negative on the HUDCO's equity shares

20Apr2022 Deepak Nitrite Ltd - #Investing - #Corporate - stock investing -

 My opinion on Deepak Nitrite: "The company appears to be a decent business. But I won't buy this at this time (CMP is Rs 2,210 / share with market cap of Rs 30,150 crore). Huge capex of Rs 2,400 crore in the next 2/3 years. The company may raise equity via QIP. Company's raw materials are dependent on crude oil prices. Moreover, my understanding of chemicals business is limited. It's tough to buy a chemical company that has a Price to Book value (P/BV) of 10.5. Chemicals are basically commodity businesses. But some global events have turned positive for several Indian companies in the past two or three years. I'm sure the global events will be positive for chemical firms in India. But business positivity may not turn into higher stock prices in the future. It seems they've a plant in Telangana. Maybe, we can visit the plant to know more about it? My assumptions may go wrong, but that's how it is."

 

20Apr2022 - Over the past 10 years, Indian stocks that were expensive in the past have become more expensive--creating enormous wealth for investors. In general, low P/E (price-earnings ratio), low P/BV (price to book value ratio) stocks have not given much returns; but stocks with high P/E , high P/B ratios have delivered superior returns in India as well in the US. Value stocks grossly underperformed growth stocks in the US during the period 2020 to 2021. There is no guarantee this trend will continue in the future. Picking up stocks based solely on valuation ratios (like, P/E, P/B, P/S, etc.) may not always work. This is a presentation on price multiples. 

 

19Apr2022 RP Sanjiv Goenka Group and RPG Enterprises Group - Sanjiv Goenka and Harsh Vardhan Goenka -  #Investing - #Corporate - stock investing -

 

Dec2023 Motial Oswal - web archive -  (you can download WCS of all these years from the weblink - choose drop dwon menu 'Wealth Creation Study' under Thematic) - 28th Annual Motilal Oswal Wealth Creation Study - Hockey Stick Retunrs - The Power of Economic Profit -

 

Dec2022 Motilal Oswal - web archive -  (you can download WCS of all these years from the weblink - choose drop dwon menu 'Wealth Creation Study' under Thematic) - 27th Annual Motilal Oswal Wealth Creation Study - Constents & Volatiles - The two dimensions on wealth creation - 

key highlights:

- page 7 of the study: provides actual examples of consistenst and voltiles; and their characteristics, like, kpricing power, nature business, industry leadership, competition, esxecution, future profits, govt influence, RoE, dividends, valuation, valuation range, etc.

- page 8 delineates sources of consistens & volatiles

- page 9: Michael Porter's Five Forces framework

- page 10: value migration

- page 14: consistent and volatile sectors

Dec2021 Motilal Oswal - 26th Annual Motilal Oswal Wealth Creation Study - Atoms to Bits - Wealth Creation in Digital Era - 

Dec2020 Motilal Oswal - 25th Annual Motilal Oswal Wealth Creation Study - The QGLP Checklist  -25 Questions, 25 Frameworks - 

Dec 2019 Motilal Oswal - 24th Annual Motilal Oswal Wealth Creation Study - Management Integrity - Understanding Sharp Practices - 

Dec2018 Motilal Oswal - 23rd Annual Motilal Oswal Wealth Creation Study - Valuation Insights - What Works, What Doesn't - 

Dec2017 Motilal Oswal - 22nd Wealth Creation Study - CAP & GAP - Power of Longevity in WC 

Dec2016 Motilal Oswal - 21st Wealth Creation Study - Focussed Investing - Power of Allocation in WC - 

Dec2015 Motilal Oswal - 2oth Wealth Creation Study - Mid- to Mega- - Power of Industry Leadership in WC -

Dec2014 Motilal Oswal 100x - 19th Annual Motilal Oswal Wealth Creation Study  - The Power of Growth in Wealth Creation - Thomas Phelps book "100 to 1 in the Stock Market" - 100-baggers - 100-bagger stocks - investing - value migration - 

The determinants of quality of business:

 
1. Profit Pool
2. Value Migration
3. Dominant market shares
4. Niche opportunity
5. Low competitive intensity
6. Competitive advantage / Economic Moat
7. Favorable demand-supply dynamics

 

12Oct2022 JPY - Japanese Yen has been weakening non-stop against the US dollar since the first week of March 2022 - Since the 1st week of Mar2022, the USD has gained by 27 percent, from a level of 115 to 146 now (which is a 24-year low for the JPY vs USD) - USD-JPY - 

 

"The Japanese yen weakened past 146 per dollar, sinking to its lowest in 24 years and moving past levels that prompted Japanese authorities to intervene in the currency markets last month for the first time since 1998. The yen has come under constant pressure due to a widening policy divergence, as the Bank of Japan committed to ultra-easy policies to support a fragile economy while the US Federal Reserve aggressively raised interest rates to combat surging inflation. This has led to even broader interest rate differentials, with the benchmark 10-year US yield trading about 375 basis points higher than its Japanese counterpart. Rising raw materials and energy costs also weighed on the currency, as it forces Japanese firms to purchase even more dollars to settle imports. Meanwhile, Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki said that authorities will take necessary steps if needed, but added that the speed of change rather than the level is a more important factor."

 

 

14Apr2022 Tweet - The almighty US dollar lost two-thirds of its value against the Japanese Yen in the past 40 years (since Nixon ended $35 gold peg https://federalreservehistory.org/essays/gold-convertibility-ends). Now, analysts are worried USD gained 14 per cent versus JPY in the past one year. (USD - JPY) https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DEXJPUS

14Apr2022 YT - YouTube video -  How to add Power Point presentation in Blogger (Google Blog) or website

13Dec2022 TE - India CPI inflation rate fell  to 5.88% in Nov2022

13May2022 TE - India CPI inflation rate surged to 7.79% in Apr2022

13Apr2022 TE - India CPI inflation rate surged to 6.95% in Mar2022 

14Jul2022 TE - The US CPI inflation rate spiked to 9.1% in Jun2022

12Jun2022 TE - The US CPI inflation rate spiked to 8.6% in May2022

13May2022 TE - The US CPI inflation rate cooled down to 8.3% in Apr2022

13Apr2022 TE - The US CPI inflation rate surged to 8.5% in Mar2022

 

14Jul2022 TE - US dollar index reaches all-time high of 109.29 on 14Jul2022, before cooling off to 107 or so on 20Jul2022 - USDX - DXY is strong due to JPY weakness and Euro reaching parity with USD (for the first time since December 1999) on 14Jul2022 - image > 

12Apr2022 CNBC - US dollar index reaches 100 again today (actually it touched 100 on 08Apr2022 for the first time after May 2020) - DXY - USDX 

11Apr2022 RBI press release - RBI restored bond market and other markets' timing (market trading hours) to pre-Pandemic level of 9 am to 3.30 pm 

24Feb2022 NSE Indices - NSE Indices Press Release -  Revision in criteria and replacements in indices - Exclusions and inclusions of stocks in Nifty 50, Nifty next 50, Nifty 500 etc. - these index changes are effective 31Mar2022 - 

 31Mar2023 BSE - BSE market cap as on 31Mar2023 is Rs 258.20 lakh crore

30Dec2022 BSE - BSE Market cap as at close of 30Dec2022 (last working day of 2022) is Rs 282.38 lakh crore > 

 

31Oct2022 BSE - BSE Market cap as at close of 31Oct2022 is Rs 279.92 lakh crore >

 

 

30Jun2022 BSE - BSE Market cap as at close of 30Jun2022 is Rs 243.75 lakh crore >

 

31Mar2022 BSE - BSE Market cap as at close of 31Mar2022 is Rs 264.07 lakh crore >

30Mar2022 RBI - RBI Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) schedule of meetings for FY 2022-23 > MPC will meet six times in the next FY >

28Mar2022 CNBC - During intra-day on 28Mar2022, both the 5-year and 30-year US Treasury yields were quoting exactly at 2.541 per cent - For Posterity > 

27Mar2022 IGY Foundation -  Nomad Investment Partnership Letters to Partners 2001 - 2014 by Nick Sleep and Qais Zakaria - PDF of Letters - #Investing - Twitter NeckarValue -

25Mar2022 WaPo - Will Russian Bonds Default? Investors Keep Watch - Russia default - sovereign defaults since 1998 - Argentina - Greece - Venezuela -

25Mar2022 NSE - NSE holidays 2022 - stock market 

25Mar2022 TG - Telangana bank holidays 2022 - NI Act - 

24Mar2022 Bloomberg -  Putin and Xi Exposed the Great Illusion of Capitalism - Russia - Ukraine - Globalisation - Keynes - Bretton Woods - global trade - share of trade in GDP declining -

Share of global GDP by country and level of freedom based on political rights and civil liberties >

23Mar2022 WaPo - Tree rings from centuries past may help reveal a warming planet’s future - Dendrochrology  - Andrew Elliott Douglass - climate change - the largest collection of its kind in the world, that is, 700,000 samples and counting - Rings reveal a tree’s age, with thin rings indicating drier years and wide rings, wetter years - Climate variability drives tree-ring variability - they use a slim metal increment borer that slides into a trunk and removes a drinking-straw-size sliver of wood - University of Arizona's Laboratory of Tree-ring Research, Tucson, Arizona -

24Mar2022 WaPo - How Chip Neutrality Scuppered Nvidia Deal to Buy Arm - ARM Ltd - chips - semiconductor -

4. What went wrong?

Critics said the attempted Nvidia takeover would threaten a cornerstone of Arm’s success: its neutrality. Arm’s technology has been used across the $550 billion semiconductor industry on the understanding that no one would get privileged access. Apple, Samsung and others had an incentive to use it as the basis for their innovation because of Arm’s ecosystem of compatible software and the legions of engineers who know and use it. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission sued to block the purchase in December, saying it would hobble innovation and undermine Nvidia’s rivals. The European Union and the U.K. also investigated, with authorities in London highlighting Arm’s role in critical national infrastructure and military equipment. Chinese technology companies that rely on Arm, including communications giant Huawei Technologies Co., complained to local regulators too. They were concerned that Nvidia -- under pressure from the U.S. government -- might force Arm to cut off Chinese clients. A dispute between Arm and the head of its China business complicated things further. After the deal collapsed, SoftBank began pursuing an IPO for Arm, reverting to a plan from prior to the Nvidia offer.

21Mar2022 Rupee Vest - compare mid-cap funds - Top 10 stocks of select mid cap equity funds

14Mar2022 BS - Quit India movement? by Akash Prakash of Amansa Holdings -- why are FPIs selling Indian stocks? 

28Jun2014 SM - The U.S. Confiscated Half a Billion Dollars in Private Property During WWI -

#Ancedote "Russia’s removal of intellectual property protections during wartime is not without precedent. Smithsonian Magazine describes how the German company Bayer lost its American patent on aspirin as the U.S. government seized property (during World War I) from firms associated with its enemies."

 

13Mar2022 WaPo - Russia says its businesses can steal patents from anyone in ‘unfriendly’ countries - brands - trademarks - intellectual property rights (IPRs) - 

#Ancedote "Russia’s removal of intellectual property protections during wartime is not without precedent. Smithsonian Magazine describes how the German company Bayer lost its American patent on aspirin as the U.S. government seized property (during World War I) from firms associated with its enemies." 

24Mar2022 CNBC - Moscow Exchange (MOEX) opened on 24Mar2022 for the first time after its closure on 25Feb2022 (MOEX was shut down following Russian invasion of Ukaraine) -

11Mar2022 BBG - Lessons for Russia From Long Stock Market Shutdowns: QuickTake - benchmark index MOEX index -

12Mar2022 BQ -  The Moscow Exchange (stock exchange) will remain shut until at least 18Mar2022 - it was closed since 25Feb2022 (Russia invaded Ukraine on 24Feb2022) -

12Nov2021 Carnegie Endowment - Ukraine: Putin's Unfinished Business by Eugene Rumer and Andrew S Weiss -  good article on what does Putin want - Russia invades Ukraine - 

 - Russia under Putin wants to be recognised as a major superpower

 - Biden admin waived sanctions on Nord Stream 2 pipeline (Russia to Germany) in May 2021

 - Combating climate change and promoting global energy transition took a backseat with soaring energy prices (Europe largely depends on Russian gas and oil)

- Russia break-even crude oil price is USD 40 / barrel (Putin runs a tight fiscal policy)

 - Russian sees US political divide as a sign of American weakness

 - Putin is closer to China's Xi

 - Putin in his 22 years rule provided political stability, increased Russia's military strength, avoided ecomic reforms (for fear of creating sources of unpredictability), decidedly halted NATO's further expansion around Russia, etc.

 - Putin is interested in self-protection, wants to leave a legacy (he is 70-year old) and expand Russia (like Stanlin) in order to protect Russia from foreign invasion

 - Strategic depth—the buffer between the Russian heartland and powerful European adversaries—has long been critical for Russian security

 - with the collapse of the Soviet Union and NATO expansion, Russia lost its strategic depth

 - Putin wants to restore Russian empire and wants Ukraine in his fold

 - Under Putin, Russia became a major force in the Middle East (Russian military in Syria supporting Asad regime)

 - Putin wrongly believes Ukraine is part of Russia

 - Since Crimea annexation by Russia in 2014, Ukrainians are more determined to fight Moscow internvention in their internal affairs

 - Since 2014, Ukraine is gaining strength militarily

 - Kremlin increasingly views Ukraine as a Western aircraft carrier parked just across from Russia

 - Putin has a tendecy to act emotionally

19Nov2021 WSJ - For Putin, the Great Prize Has Always Been Ukraine by Eugene Romer and Andrew S Weiss - 

- Putin wants make Ukraine a satellete state (vassal state)

- Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko tried to funnel Middle Easterners and others to Belarus border with Poland as a payback for EU sanctions

- Putin's meddling in Ukraine in 2004 Orange Revolution and 2014 "Revolution of Dignity" have created strong anti-Russia sentiment in Ukraine over the years

11Mar2022 TE - The US CPI inflation in February 2022 soared to 7.9 per cent, 40-year high, driven mainly by energy, gasoline, food, used cars, new cars, etc. > 

10Mar2022 IE - After today's results of assembly elections, political map  of India  >

09Jan2015 The Week - Senator John McCain: "Look, Russia is a gas station masquerading as a country."  - Russia invasion of Ukraine -

24Feb2022 GZero - The Graphic Truth: Oil prices surge over Ukraine war- denouement of Russian invasion and how the oil market played ahead of the Feb24th war (events from 10Nov2021 to 24Feb2022) - 

01Apr2022 IBJA - Gold and silver rates / prices >rupee gold price >

10Mar2022 IBJA - Rupee gold price spiked up since Russia invaded Ukraine on 24Feb2022, due to a combination of rupee depreciation and rising gold rate -

24Feb2022 BSE - Cadila Healthcare Ltd is now Zydus Lifesciences Ltd

09Mar2022 RBI - press release on NaBFID - The National Bank for Financing Infrastructure and Development set up as a developmental financial institution (DFI) is regulated by RBI as an all-India Finacial Institution (AIFI) - It shall be the fifth AIFI after EXIM Bank, NABARD, NHB and SIDBI -

11Mar2022 Sensex - BSE Sensex closed today at 55,550, the same level as it was mid-Aug2021, seven months back >

08Mar2022 BSE - Sensex movement / historical data from 14Oct2021 to 08Mar2022 > all-time high for Sensex was 61,766 on 18Oct2021; it hit a low of 55,822 on 20Dec2021, but after Russia-Ukraine war it hit a fresh low of 52,842 on 07Mar2022 (a drawdown of 14.5 per cent in less than five months) > Not sure whether the index will hold this low in the next three months >

 

08Mar2022 BSE - BSE 200 movement / historical data from 14Oct2021 to 08Mar2022 > all-time high for BSE 200 was 8,025 on 18Oct2021; it hit a low of 7,200 on 20Dec2021, but after Russia-Ukraine war it hit a fresh low of 6,857 on 07Mar2022 (a drawdown of 14.6 per cent in less than five months) > Not sure whether the index will hold this low in the next three months >

 

 

04Feb2023  S&P 500 index - US stock market - valuation - 

09Jan2023  S&P 500 index - US stock market - valuation -

During calendar year 2022, S&P 500 fell by 19.4% (price return); with main contribution from forward P/E contraction of 21.5%. The growth in S&P 500 forward earnings, driven by rising inflation, is just 2.6% in the same period. So far, analysts haven't yet downgraded the forward earnings.

previous month >

11Nov2022 Stock Indices - S&P 500, Nasdaq, Nifty 50, Bitcoin > Interesting movements in US stock and Indian stock indices and Bitcoin (USD) >

28Oct2022 Stock Indices - S&P 500, Nasdaq, Nifty 50, Bitcoin > Interesting movements in US stock and Indian stock indices and Bitcoin (USD) > Nasdaq and Nifty IT index have strong correlation > Nifty sectoral indices have different levels of 52-week highs and lows > Nifty Bank, Nifty FMCG and Nifty Auto indices are close to  their all-time highs now > Though stocks have recovered in June to August 2022 period, Nasdaq and Bitcoin are still down 32% and 70% respectively from their 52-week highs >

03Sep2022 Stock Indices - S&P 500, Nasdaq, Nifty 50, Bitcoin > Interesting movements in US stock and Indian stock indices and Bitcoin (USD) > Nasdaq and Nifty IT index have strong correlation > Nifty sectoral indices have different levels of 52-week highs and lows > Nifty FMCG and Nifty Auto indices continue to be at their all-time highs now > Though stocks have recovered in June to August 2022 period, Nasdaq and Bitcoin are still down 28% and 71% respectively from their 52-week highs >

 

13Aug2022 Stock Indices - S&P 500, Nasdaq, Nifty 50, Bitcoin > Interesting movements in US stock and Indian stock indices and Bitcoin (USD) > Nasdaq and Nifty IT index have strong correlation > Nifty sectoral indices have different levels of 52-week highs and lows > Nifty FMCG and Nifty Auto indices continue to be at their all-time highs now > Though stocks have recovered in the past eight weeks, Nasdaq and Bitcoin are still down 20% and 64% respectively from their 52-week highs >

21Jul2022 Stock Indices - S&P 500, Nasdaq, Nifty 50, Bitcoin > Interesting movements in US stock and Indian stock indices and Bitcoin (USD) > Nasdaq and Nifty IT index have strong correlation > Nifty sectoral indices have different levels of 52-week highs and lows > Nifty FMCG and Nifty Auto indices are at their all-time highs now >

 

11Nov2022 NSE - Nifty 50 movement / historical data from 18Oct2021 to 11Nov2022 >

 28Oct2022 NSE - Nifty 50 movement / historical data from 18Oct2021 to 28Oct2022 > In the past one year or so, Nifty 50 has been oscillating randomly -- on average, every 30 / 45 days, it's gyrating from low levels to high levels and from high to low again; and now it's just 3 percent or so away from its all time high (ATH) >

 

 

03Sep2022 NSE - Nifty 50 movement / historical data from 18Oct2021 to 02Sep2022 > In the past ten months or so, Nifty 50 has been oscillating randomly -- on average, every 30 / 45 days, it's gyrating from low levels to high levels and from high to low again >

13Aug2022 NSE - Nifty 50 movement / historical data from 18Oct2021 to 12Aug2022 > In the past ten months or so, Nifty 50 has been oscillating randomly -- on average, every 30 days, it's gyrating from low levels to high levels and from high to low again > but in the past eight weeks, it is going up steadily moving closer to its all-time highs (just 4.2 per cent away from all-time high) > see image >

21Jul2022 NSE - Nifty 50 movement / historical data from 18Oct2021 to 20Jul2022 > In the past six to seven months, Nifty 50 has been oscillating randomly -- on average, every 30 days, it's gyrating from low levels to high levels and from high to low again > see image >

24Jun2022 NSE - Nifty 50 movement / historical data from 07Mar2022 to 24Jun2022 > all-time-high (ATH) for Nifty 50 was 18,477 on 18Oct2021; it hit a recent low of 15,293 on 17Jun2022; a drawdown of 15 per cent since ATH of 18Oct2021 > Heightened volatility in global indices, though a bit lower with Indian indices > fears of recession, Fed rate hikes, inflation scare and growth slump are plaguing global stocks and other assets >

As shown in the below image, between 17Jan22 and 07Mar22, Nifty 50 lost 13.4%; b/w 07Mar22 and 04Apr22, it gained 13.8%; b/w 04Apr22 and 13May22, it again lost 12.6%; b/w 13May22 and 30May22, it gained 5.6%; and since 30May22, it lost 5.7% till now muddling the minds of investors >

 

08Mar2022 NSE - Nifty 50 movement / historical data from 14Oct2021 to 08Mar2022 > all-time high for Nifty 50 was 18,477 on 18Oct2021; it hit a low of 16,614 on 20Dec2021, but after Russia-Ukraine war it hit a fresh low of 15,863 on 07Mar2022 (a drawdown of 14.1 per cent in less than five months) > Not sure whether the index will hold this low in the next three months >

25Feb2022 Finology - Everything about Stock Markt crash 2022 - Indian stocks - biggest single day Sensex fall between 1992 and 2022 -

03Mar2022 Bloomberg - MSCI, FTSE Russell remove 'uninvestable' Russia from key indexes - Russia Ukraine invasion - 

An overwhelming majority of market participants see the Russian market as “uninvestable” and its securities will be removed from emerging markets indexes effective March 9, MSCI said. FTSE Russell will delete Russia constituents listed on the Moscow Exchange at a zero value on March 7. Meanwhile, trading in 28 depositary receipts for Russian companies have been suspended on the LSE, Chief Executive Officer David Schwimmer said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Thursday.

 Norway’s $1.3 trillion sovereign wealth fund, which has seen the value of its holdings in Russia slump about 91% so far this year, is another asset manager grappling with the question of exiting Russian assets. The fund’s loss on its Russian equity stakes could amount to just under $2.8 billion under current estimates, with the stake now considered to be worth about 2.5 billion kroner ($280 million), down from 27 billion kroner at the end of last year.  

 The London Stock Exchange’s move to suspend Russian depositary receipts is “in connection with events in Ukraine, in light of market conditions, and in order to maintain orderly markets,” LSE said in a statement.

02Mar2022 FTSE Russell -  Russia will be deleted from all FTSE Russell Equity Indices effective from the open on Monday 07 March 2022. Also, Russia index constituents that are listed on the MOEX (Russian stock exchange index) will be deleted at a zero value, effective from the
open on Monday 07 March 2022. - Russia Ukraine invasion - Western sanctins on Russia -

05Mar2014 WaPo - Henry Kissinger: To settle the Ukraine crisis, start at the end - Russia - Ukraine - balanced dissatisfaction -

 

Kissinger wrote "The Black Sea Fleet — Russia’s means of projecting power in the Mediterranean — is based by long-term lease in Sevastopol, in Crimea. Even such famed dissidents as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Joseph Brodsky insisted that Ukraine was an integral part of Russian history and, indeed, of Russia." #Anecdote 

Kissinger further wrote that "The Ukrainians are the decisive element. They live in a country with a complex history and a polyglot composition. The Western part was incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1939 , when Stalin and Hitler divided up the spoils. Crimea, 60 percent of whose population is Russian , became part of Ukraine only in 1954 , when Nikita Khrushchev, a Ukrainian by birth, awarded it as part of the 300th-year celebration of a Russian agreement with the Cossacks. The west is largely Catholic; the east largely Russian Orthodox. The west speaks Ukrainian; the east speaks mostly Russian. Any attempt by one wing of Ukraine to dominate the other — as has been the pattern — would lead eventually to civil war or break up. To treat Ukraine as part of an East-West confrontation would scuttle for decades any prospect to bring Russia and the West — especially Russia and Europe — into a cooperative international system. Ukraine has been independent for only 23 years; it had previously been under some kind of foreign rule since the 14th century."

Jul-Aug2010 HBR - How Will You Measure Your Life? - Clayton Chrisstensen - personal ethics - disruptive tech - disruption - integrity -

Key highlights from above:

 

Three key questions:

First, how can I be sure that I’ll be happy in my career? Second, how can I be sure that my relationships with my spouse and my family become an enduring source of happiness? Third, how to live an honest life (stay out of jail)? 

 

The powerful motivator in our lives isn’t money; it’s the opportunity to learn, grow in responsibilities, contribute to others, and be recognized for achievements.  

 

Create a strategy for your life. Figure out the pupose of your life. Keep the purpose of your life front and center as they decided how to spend their time, talents, and energy.

 

The choice and successful pursuit of a profession is but one tool for achieving your purpose. But without a purpose, life can become hollow.

 

Your decisions about allocating your personal time, energy, and talent ultimately shape your life’s strategy.

 

Many people have this unconscious propensity to underinvest in their families and overinvest in their careers--this may be not very helpful in the long term. Don't look of immediate gratification.

 

Children build self-esteem by doing things that are hard and learning what works.

 

Avoid the “Marginal Costs” Mistake: We’re taught in finance that in evaluating alternative investments, we should ignore sunk and fixed costs, and instead base decisions on the marginal costs and marginal revenues. What worked in the past is not likely to work in the future.

Unconsciously, we often apply the marginal cost doctrine in our personal lives when we choose between right and wrong. A voice in our head says, “Look, I know that as a general rule, most people shouldn’t do this. But in this specific case, just this once, it’s okay.” The marginal cost of doing something wrong “just this once” always seems alluringly low. It suckers you in. 

Value humility: One characteristic of  humble people is that they had a high level of self-esteem. They knew who they were, and they felt good about who they were. Humility was defined not by self-deprecating behavior but by the esteem with which you regard others. Good behavior flows naturally from that kind of humility.

Choose the Right Yardstick: Don’t worry about the level of individual succes you have achieved; worry about the individuals you have helped become better people. This is my final recommendation: Think about the metric by which your life will be judged, and make a resolution to live every day so that in the end, your life will be judged a success.

03Mar2022 Wapo - How Putin tried — and failed — to protect the ruble from sanctions - Russia  Ukraine invasion - 

 

Feb2022 International Institute of Finance (IIF) - Russia Sanctions: Climbing the Escalation Ladder

 

01Mar2022 WaPo - In move to sanction Russia, Switzerland breaks from long tradition - sanctions - Russia - Ukraine - Swiss neutrality -

01Mar2022 Ray Dalio - The Changing World Order: Focusing on External Conflict and the Russia-Ukraine-NATO Situation

 

 

01Nov2022 RBI - Policy rates  RBI current rates: Policy rates / Reserve rates / exchange rates / lending - deposit rates: https://rbi.org.in/Home.aspx/GetKeywords - RBI Get Key words - repo rate - reverse repo - CRR - SLR - base rate - MCLR - call rates

 

30Sep2022 RBI - Policy rates  RBI current rates: Policy rates / Reserve rates / exchange rates / lending - deposit rates: https://rbi.org.in/Home.aspx/GetKeywords - RBI Get Key words - repo rate - reverse repo - CRR - SLR - base rate - MCLR - call rates

 

09Jun2022 RBI - Policy rates  RBI current rates: Policy rates / Reserve rates / exchange rates / lending - deposit rates: https://rbi.org.in/Home.aspx/GetKeywords - RBI Get Key words - repo rate - reverse repo - CRR - SLR - base rate - MCLR - call rates 

 

01Jun2022 RBI - Policy rates  RBI current rates: Policy rates / Reserve rates / exchange rates / lending - deposit rates: https://rbi.org.in/Home.aspx/GetKeywords - RBI Get Key words - repo rate - reverse repo - CRR - SLR - base rate - MCLR - call rates

04May2022 RBI - Policy rates  RBI current rates: Policy rates / Reserve rates / exchange rates / lending - deposit rates: https://rbi.org.in/Home.aspx/GetKeywords - RBI Get Key words - repo rate - reverse repo - CRR - SLR - base rate - MCLR - call rates 

 

 02May2022 RBI - Policy rates  RBI current rates: Policy rates / Reserve rates / exchange rates / lending - deposit rates: https://rbi.org.in/Home.aspx/GetKeywords - RBI Get Key words - repo rate - reverse repo - CRR - SLR - base rate - MCLR - call rates

 

02Mar2022 RBI - Policy rates  RBI current rates: Policy rates / Reserve rates / exchange rates / lending - deposit rates: https://rbi.org.in/Home.aspx/GetKeywords - RBI Get Key words - repo rate - reverse repo - CRR - SLR - base rate - MCLR - call rates 

 

26Feb2022 Berkshire Hathway 2021 Annual Letter - Shareholder letter - Warren Buffett - Charlie Munger -  PDF -

 

26Feb2022 White House -  Joint Statement on Further Restrictive Economic Measures - European Union - Russia invades Ukraine -

"Specifically, we commit to undertake the following measures:

First, we commit to ensuring that selected Russian banks are removed from the SWIFT messaging system. This will ensure that these banks are disconnected from the international financial system and harm their ability to operate globally.

Second, we commit to imposing restrictive measures that will prevent the Russian Central Bank from deploying its international reserves in ways that undermine the impact of our sanctions.

Third, we commit to acting against the people and entities who facilitate the war in Ukraine and the harmful activities of the Russian government. Specifically, we commit to taking measures to limit the sale of citizenship—so called golden passports—that let wealthy Russians connected to the Russian government become citizens of our countries and gain access to our financial systems.

Fourth, we commit to launching this coming week a transatlantic task force that will ensure the effective implementation of our financial sanctions by identifying and freezing the assets of sanctioned individuals and companies that exist within our jurisdictions. As a part of this effort we are committed to employing sanctions and other financial and enforcement measures on additional Russian officials and elites close to the Russian government, as well as their families, and their enablers to identify and freeze the assets they hold in our jurisdictions. We will also engage other governments and work to detect and disrupt the movement of ill-gotten gains, and to deny these individuals the ability to hide their assets in jurisdictions across the world.

Finally, we will step up our coordination against disinformation and other forms of hybrid warfare.

We stand with the Ukrainian people in this dark hour. Even beyond the measures we are announcing today, we are prepared to take further measures to hold Russia to account for its attack on Ukraine."

 

 

27Feb2022 NYT -  An Iranian director's rule: always focus on the ordinary - #Anecdote - "Was it worth it?" - Director Asghar Farhadi - prize bicycle -

25Feb2022: Two sources of non-taxable income for people in low income bracket in India: rental income and interest on PPF (public provident fund)

One can postpone paying taxes with investment in post office 5-year NSC (national savings certificate)

If you invest in debt mutual funds with higher safety of principle, you can postpone paying taxes every year -- with bank fixed deposits, TDS (tax deducted at source) get deducted every half-year of yearly and depositors lose the benefit of compounding

24Feb2022 NSE - India VIX up 30% today, after Russia officially invaded Ukraine -

CBOE VIX is up 19% today (at 5.50 pm on 24Feb2022), after Russia officially invaded Ukraine - 

 24Feb2022 Stable Investor - Biggest Nifty 50 Falls - one-day Nifty 50 fall - stock investing -

 

23Feb2022 - Asahi India Glass Ltd (AIS) - stock investing - #Investing - #Corporate

 

two segments - auto and architectural glass

large proposed capex

74% mkt share in auto glass passenger vehicle segment

18% mkt share in architectural glass

revenue mix - auto OEM 56% (cyclical); architectural 44%

20% mkt share in auto aftermarket

tech support from AGC Inc 

OPM healthy at 17 to 20% over last 5 years

 

architectural glass - improved price realisation of float glass in last 3 fiscal years

over last 2 years, float glass benefited from anti-dumping duties on Malaysia imports

float glass imports from China reduced due to decarbonisation by China (which helped Indian domestic industry)

healthy financial risk profile

unutilised bank lines of over Rs 250 crore

profitability likely to improve in future

interest rate coverage to improve to 6 in FY 2021-22 (3.5 earlier)

capex of Rs 1,500 crore in next 3 fiscals FY 2022-25

healthy cash accrual of Rs 500 to 550 crore per year in next 3 fiscals

 

AGC Inc is global leader with 12% market share in float glass; and 30% market share in auto glass

asset turnover of AIS over last 5 years is 3.5% to 6.0%

 

totoal fund-based limit of Rs 485 crore has modest utilisation of 42% over 11 months till Dec2021

AIS has negative working capital cycle

archi glass is float, soft coat, hard coat, archi processing

16Feb2022 ET - Text > Crude price to go over $100 if deal with Iran not reached in 3 weeks: Fereidun Fesharaki of FGE - ET video - oil market dynamics - 

 

IEA short-term energy outlook dated 08Feb2022  - liquid fuels - crude oil

-

 

16Feb2022 Nasscom Strategic Review 2022 - "Resilience to Resurgence" Technology Sector in India 2022 - In FY 2021-22, Indian IT industry revenues crossed USD 200 billion (estimated to reach USD 227 billion, a growth of 15.5% over FY 2020-21) and five million in total direct workforce - In FY 2021-22, Indian IT achieved highest-ever net addition of 445,000 workforce - (one can download the executive summary) - 

Nasscom press release PDF

Six major global megatrends that will refocus policies, strategies, and investments at a global scale, not just in 2022, but for the coming 5-8 years and even beyond. These trends include:

• Global Talent Pool Transformation
• Global Supply Chain Replanning
• Global Big Tech Regulation
• ESG-Led Business Models
• Formalization of Circular Economy
• Technology for Good @Pace and Scale

  

15Feb2022 - HDFC got dethroned in NBFC space - Bajaj Finance Ltd's market cap, on 15Feb2022, surpassed that of HDFC Ltd for the first time - The former's market cap is Rs 430,840 crore (CMP Rs 7,142) and that of HDFC Ltd is Rs 423,876 crore (CMP Rs 2,340) -

 

14Feb2022 TE - India CPI inflation jumps to 6.01% in Jan2022

17May2022 LIC IPO - Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC of India) - issue price is Rs 949 per share - LIC share listed on NSE and BSE on 17May2022 - total equity shares are 6,324,997,701 (100%) - First day closing market cap is Rs 553,595.42 crore based on NSE closing  price of Rs 875.25 as at close of 17May2022 - 

LIC market cap would have been Rs 600,242.28 crore had it closed at issue price of Rs 949 on first day of listing

28Apr2022 BSE - LIC of India IPO - LIC IPO - details of book building - cumulative bid details - cumulative demand schedule -

 

26Apr2022 SEBI - LIC of India IPO offer document dt 27Apr2022 - 663 pages -  red herring prospectus or RHP - LIC IPO -

Key highlights from the RHP >

 

- price band Rs 902 - 949 per share

 

- discount of Rs.45 per Equity Share to Retail and Eligible Employee Category and 

 

- discount of Rs. 60 Equity Share to LIC  Policy Holder Category

 

- minimum bid is 15 shares and in multiples of 15 shares thereafter

 

- issue opens 04May2022 to 09May2022

 

- issue size is cut to 22,13,74,920 equity shares (3.5% of total) 

 

- Up to 10% of the issue size is reserved for LIC policyholders

 

13Feb2022 SEBI -  LIC of India IPO draft offer document dt 13Feb2022 - 652 pages - draft red herring prospectus - LIC IPO -

Key highlights from the draft >

 

- page 582 to 630 - embedded value reports 

- p. 588 - LIC's embedded value is Rs 539,686 crore as on 30Sep2021

 

- type of IPO: offer for sale by Govt of India (President of India)

- offer for sale through book building process

- offer size: 316,249,885 equity shares (5% of total equity)

- number of equity shares: 6,324,997,701 (100% held by GOI)

- weighted average cost of acquisition for GOI: Re 0.16 (16 paise) per share

- face value of equity share: Rs 10 /share

 

- embedded value definition: "Present value of shareholders’ interests in the earnings distributable from the assets of the life insurance business after an allowance for the aggregate risks in the existing life insurance business of the entity for the relevant date share"

 

- Page 70 - summary of consolidated statement of assets & liabilities

- paid-up equity capital is Rs 6,325 crore

- page 71 and 72 - summary of revenue account

- page 108 & 109 - growth of India's middle class (CRISIL Research)

- p. 122 - high expense ratios of insurance products

- p. 147 - table comparing AUM of life insurance industry with mutual fund industry - for example, life insurance AUM is Rs 44,80,000 crore vs mutual fund AUM of Rs 31,42,800 crore, both as on 31Mar2021 - same table compare flows into life insurance and mutual fund industries -

 

- page 166 - LIC manages assets worth Rs 36.8 lakh crore as on 31Mar2021 

- page 151 to 176 - LIC and other players' business parameters - channel mix, gross written premium (GWP), product mix, new business premium (NBP), expense rations, commission ratios, customer mix, persistency ratios (page 165), gross yields, break-up of credit rating of debt securities, claims settlement ratio (p. 172), market shares (p. 174) -

 

- page 177 to 245 - LIC business

- p. 177 - LIC AUM as on 30Sep2021 is Rs 39.56 lakh crore

- p. 177 - LIC's investment in listed equities represent around 4% of NSE market cap as on 30Sep2021

- p. 222 & 223 - Of the Rs 39.56 lakh crore total investments (30Sep2021),  asset class share of investments is: central gov't secs Rs 14.81 lakh crore (37.45% of total); state G-Secs Rs 9.74 lakh crore (24.62%); equity Rs 9.80 lakh crore (24.77%); bonds Rs 3.19 lakh crore (8.07%); and the balance is from venture capital, money market instruments, etc.

 

 

-  p. 300 onwards - financial statements

- p. 624 - LIC is not subject to CSR (corporate social responsibility) norms

12Feb2022 MSCI EM index - India with a weight of 12.52 per cent climbed to third place (as on 31Jan2022), displacing South Korea, in MSCI EM index after a long time - Blog dated 03Aug2021

12Feb2022 Fred - the US 10-year/2-year yield spread on 11Feb2022 reached 42 basis points, the lowest since March of 2020 -

 

11Feb2022 TE - "The annual inflation rate in the US accelerated to 7.5% in January of 2022, the highest since February of 1982 and well above market forecasts of 7.3%, as soaring energy costs, labour shortages, and supply disruptions coupled with strong demand weigh. Energy remained the biggest contributor (27% vs 29.3% in December), with gasoline prices surging 40% (49.6% in December). Inflation accelerated for shelter (4.4% vs 4.1%); food (7% vs 6.3%), namely food at home (7.4% vs 6.5%); new vehicles (12.2% vs 11.8%); used cars and trucks (40.5% vs 37.3%); and medical care services (2.7% vs 2.5%). Excluding volatile energy and food categories, the CPI rose 6%, the most since August of 1982. On a monthly basis, consumer prices increased 0.6%, in line with forecasts."

 

03Feb2022 Tweet - Global asset classes by market cap > 

   (in USD trillion)

   326 real estate*

   124 bonds

   109 equities

     12 gold

   < 2 digital assets

  (* break-up: residential realty 258; agricultural land 35 and commercial   

      realty 33)

  

 

04Feb2022 Neckar Value - Baupost 2021 year-end letter PDF - Seth Klarman - #Investing - 

Topics discussed in this Baupost letter >

-- COVID-19 dominated life

-- fiscal and monetary support continued in the US

-- vaccine hesitancy in the US

-- economic revival in the US in 2021

-- S&P 500 at record high valuations

-- high inflows into global equities

-- household savings are confiscated by inflation and suppressed interest rates

-- supply chain bottlenecks

-- high commodity prices and elevated shipping rates

-- inflation is psychological and monetary phenomenon

-- IPO mania and FOMO in stock markets

-- China tech crackdown and Evergrande collapse

-- narrow market breadth

-- political divide and damage to social fabric

-- democracy is a precious gift

-- Warren Buffett: "Who's is the patsy at the poker table?"

-- value investing is searching for mispricings

-- For past 12 years, volatility in markets has mostly been absent

-- investment risks abound

-- due to relentless money printing, active Fed and fiscal largesse, investors have been lulled to sleep

-- high sovereign debt levels in the US are going to haunt the US in future

 

-- S&P 500's current valuations are driven more by multiple expansion and share buybacks rather than earnings growth

-- with bonds at historically low yields, investors look to equities

-- markets go through over-optimism bias and are vulnerable to noise

-- be open-minded and have open debates

-- organisations must strive to be better than the individuals 

-- market in short term a voting machine; in long term a weighing machine

 

01Feb2022 Capital Mind - India personal income tax rates from 1950-51 till now - Highest 97.75% during Indira Gandhi regime > 

 

01Feb2022 CNBC - Google parent Alphabet announces 20-for-1 stock split - "In 2012, Google added a third class of shares, Class C, with no voting rights. The company already had Class A shares, which carry one vote per share, and Class B shares, which are held closely by founders and early investors and carry 10 votes. The company maintained this stock structure through its 2015 rebrand to Alphabet." -

 

31Jan2022 MOSPI - "GDP growth rate quietly pared down from 4.0% to 3.7% in 2019-20." Initially overstate the print, later understate them so that currently we're always reporting higher print--making the data less legitimate! - Tweet dt 03Feb2022 -MOSPI - India GDP -

01Apr2022 NSE - NSE Index Dashboard monthly - broad indices - sectoral indices - as on 31Mar2022

 

01Feb2022 NSE - NSE dashboard monthly - broad indices and sectoral indices - as on 31Jan2022 - 

03Feb2022 TE -  Private businesses in the United States unexpectedly cut 301,000 workers in January of 2022, the first job loss since December of 2020 and the biggest since April 2020, as the spread of the omicron coronavirus variant hurt the job market.

 

01Feb2022 RBI - Policy rates  RBI current rates: Policy rates / Reserve rates / exchange rates / lending - deposit rates: https://rbi.org.in/Home.aspx/GetKeywords - RBI Get Key words - repo rate - reverse repo - CRR - SLR - base rate - MCLR - call rates

30Jan2022 PPFAS MF -  Fresh applications / subscriptions into Parag Parikh Flexi Cap are temporarily suspended, with a view to avoiding breaching of industry-wise limits (maximum limit by Indian mutual funds is USD 7 billion) as allowed by RBI and SEBI norms - Note dated 02Feb2022 by Rajeev Thakkar, CIO of PPFAS MF on the backdrop and road ahead for the RBI / SEBI limit of USD 7 billion foreign investment -

 

28Jan2022 - Brightcom Group Ltd and Affle India are into AdTech -- online digital advertising, mobile advertising, digital marketing, video advertising, Platform as a service or Paas -

 

28Jan2022 Mozilla Firefox browser - (second trick given in this article is easier) - How to Open Multiple Web Sites At Once--in A Single Tab--With A Single Click in Your Choice Browser - #productivity - tweet 10Jul2019

 

 

28Jan2022 Economic Times - Former Chief Statistician Pronab Sen answers to ET question: "It is not simply a question about inflationary expectations getting entrenched. There is something else which has happened which makes the inflation danger a little worse than it would have been otherwise. It is that corporate India’s market share has gone up and that means their pricing power has increased and this seems to be across the board. Despite fairly low capacity utilisation of sub-70%, - there has been a fair amount of price rise in corporate India products and that is because pricing power has shifted and is not going away in a hurry. Until the MSMEs come back in full strength, the pricing power will stay with the corporates.

"Under normal circumstances, inflationary expectations drive future inflation but that is when the inflation is essentially driven by demand. But in this particular case, a lot of the inflation is being driven not so much by the demand side but because of an increase in concentration of pricing power in the country and the ability of corporate India to pass on its cost increases as price increases rather than take a squeeze on their margins."

27Jan2022 CNBC TV video -

Fed Chair Jerome Powell holds news conference after rate decision — 26Jan2022 - 

My notes after listening to this news conference - This is what Fed chair Jerome Powell said:

• increasing rate (Fed funds rate) would be appropriate 

• elevated inflation

  strong labor market

  economic activity expanded

  fiscal / monetary support

  Omicron less virulent

  care giving needs / virus concerns holding back workers
  

  virus great hardship for healthcare workers

  wage rise at the fastest rate

  labor participation rate edges up

  inflation well above long-range normal

  waves of the virus

  price increases have reached wider and wider set of goods

  price stability 

  economy no longer needs sustained monetary and policy support

  need to be nimble to the evolving full range of plausible outcomes

  high inflation is more persistent than expected

  high level principles --> 1) rate adjustment is the primary tool 2) balance sheet reduction will happen after the process of rate hike has begun 3) no timeline as of now for balance sheet reduction

  no decision yet on path of rate policy

  humble and nimble

  guided by incoming data and evolving outlook

  strong labor market

  fiscal policy will be less supportive in 2022

  Fed balance sheet is much bigger --> 1) it has a shorter duration 2) inflation higher 3) economy stronger 4) be willing to move sooner than the last time and perhaps faster 

  First principle is rate adjustment is the primary tool; and we need to operationalise that; and we want the Fed balance sheet to be declining in a predictable manner and the decline will be done primary by adjusting reinvestments

  Monetary policy significantly works through expectations
  

  
  

27Jan2022 WaPo - U.S. economy grew 5.7 percent in 2021, fastest full-year clip since 1984, despite ongoing pandemic - BEA data -

27Jan2022 PIB press release -  Air India strategic disinvestment completed - "The Air India strategic disinvestment transaction has been completed today with Government receiving a consideration of Rs 2,700 crore from the Strategic Partner (M/s Talace Pvt Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of M/s Tata Sons Pvt Ltd), retaining debt of Rs 15,300 crore in Air India and AIXL and transferring shares of Air India (100% shares of Air India and its subsidiary AIXL and 50% shares of AISATS) to the Strategic Partner."

 

31Dec2011 SEBI - 10-year old data - SEBI Bulletin for January 2012 (data end-31Dec2011) - page 52 and 53 of this PDF contains Nifty 50 index components and their weights as on 31Dec2011 (but the weights given in the SEBI Bulletin are not based on free-float methodology -- they are based on full market cap) > 

 

27Jan2022 Free float methodology - Effective 01Sep2003, BSE Limited shifted its bellwether index Sensex to free-float methodology - but, BSE Limited launched India's first free-float based index BSE Teck on 11Jul2001 - free float market cap -

NSE of India Ltd was late in adopting free float methodology, which is a global norm - Nifty 50 index was shifted to free-float methodology on 26Jun2009 - free float market cap -

Tweet 30Jun2019 - Superior voting rights shares (SR Shares) or superior - SEBI norms - DVR Shares and dual class shares (US related) -

 

27Jan2022 SEBI - Fourteen SEBI registered Instructure Investment Trusts or InvITs as on today - of these, five are listed as per NSE -but only three, namely, Powergrid Infra InvIT, India Grid Trust and IRB InvIT Fund are actively traded - IRB InvIT Fund is India's first listed InvIT -

 

27Jan2022 SEBI - Four SEBI registered REITs as on today - Brookfield India REIT, Embassy REIT, IIFL REIT and Mindspace REIT -- of these, three are listed on NSE / BSE and one (IIF REIT) is not yet listed - Blog on real estate investment trust - 

 

20Jun2022 iShares - compare ETFs - IVV, EEM, AGG and IAU - S&P 500, MSCI EM Index, bonds and gold - data as of 17Jun2022 with screenshots captured on 20Jun2022 >  

20Jun2022 iShares - compare ETFs - IVV, IWM, EEM and AGG - S&P 500, Russell 200 index, MSCI EM Index and bonds - data as of 17Jun2022 with screenshots captured on 20Jun2022 >

27Jan2022 iShares - compare ETFs - IVV, EEM, AGG and IAU - S&P 500, MSCI EM Index, bonds and gold - data as of 31Dec2021 with screenshots captured on 27Jan2022 >

 

Tweet 24Apr2019 - Livemint 23Apr2019 - 'The Ongoing Churn in Indian Capitalism and the Sensex' by Niranjan Rajadhyaksha - Sensex changes - changes in Sensex -Sensex composition over three decades > see image below the article >

 

"The Indian equity market was in the midst of turmoil a hundred years ago, as the speculative boom after the end of World War 1 ended. The colonial government set up a committee in 1923 to take a closer look at the operations of the Native Share and Stock Brokers’ Association of Bombay, aka the Bombay Stock Exchange. The report of the committee has data on perhaps the first index of tradable securities — dominated by textile companies — with July 1914 prices as the base. “Considerable difficulty was experienced from the absence of daily official lists … It is desirable that the Bombay Stock Exchange should publish daily official lists on the lines of the London Stock Exchanges and similar exchanges. Where considerable fluctuations take place it is desirable that the opening, closing, highest and lowest prices should be known," the committee members complained in their report.

 

Such a lack of basic price information is worth recalling at a time when a lot of attention has been focused in recent days on the fortieth anniversary of the benchmark BSE Sensitive Index (Sensex). As Narendra Nathan pointed out in the Economic Times, the Sensex was set up only in 1986, though its base is 1979. The Reserve Bank of India constructed an index of traded securities in 1949, but Indian investors had to wait till 1986 for a credible daily gauge of market movements.

 

The list of 30 companies that make up the Sensex have changed since 1986. The changing composition of the benchmark index offers interesting clues about the changing nature of the Indian corporate sector.

 

The first iteration of the Sensex was dominated by the Tata Group. There were as many as six Tata companies in the index — ACC, Tata Power, Tata Steel, Tata Motors, Voltas and Indian Hotels. The extended Birla Group had another five — Century Textiles, Grasim, Indian Rayon, Hindalco and Hindustan Motors. The Sensex now is less dominated by a few groups although there are still three Tata companies in the list.

There has been a lot of churn in the Sensex over the decades. Corporate power in India seems to be more fragile than usually understood. Only a handful of companies such as Tata Motors, Hindustan Unilever, Mahindra & Mahindra, ITC, and Larsen & Toubro have managed to hold their place in the index. Many of the older industrial houses such as the Thapar group, the Walchand group and the Kirloskar group have slipped out of the benchmark index. Even the real estate and infrastructure giants who had a strong presence in the Sensex a decade ago — Jaiprakash Associates, Reliance Infrastructure and DLF, for example — are no longer in the index.

The frequent churn in the Sensex is as much as a testament to the dynamic nature of the Indian economy as the decline of a once-dominant airline, Jet Airways, which suspended operations last week. As these pages have pointed out earlier, the churn in top listed firms in India has been much more than even the US in the post-liberalization era.

A close look at the components of the Sensex also offers useful clues about the changing nature of the Indian economy. The first version of the Sensex was almost entirely dominated by manufacturing. As the services and non-tradable sectors have grown, the role of manufacturing has declined. The second reason is that areas that were once the monopoly of the public sector have been opened up to private sector participation after the 1991 reforms. Banking and telecom are two obvious examples. There are now nine financiers in the Sensex, if one includes HDFC and Bajaj Finance. Manufacturing companies in the Sensex have halved to 13 from 26 in 1988.

Eight of the current Sensex companies began operations, sometimes under a different name, before independence in 1947. These are Bajaj Auto (1943), Tata Motors (1945), ITC (1910), Mahindra & Mahindra (1945), Tata Steel (1907), Hindustan Unilever (1931), Asian Paints (1945) and Larsen & Toubro (1938). One could add the State Bank of India to the list if one traces its roots to the older Presidency Banks set up in the colonial era.

Some of the younger firms in the Sensex are Kotak Mahindra Bank (1985), Bharti Airtel (1984), Sun Pharmaceuticals (1983), Yes Bank (2004), Hero MotoCorp (1983), Infosys (1981), Maruti Suzuki (1983), HDFC Bank (1994), IndusInd Bank (1994) and Axis Bank (1994).

Another interesting trend is the decline on the multinational corporations (MNCs) that have foreign roots. Hindustan Unilever and ITC are the only two MNCs in the Sensex how. This is partly because of the fact that some MNCs have delisted their India subsidiaries over the years and also that newer MNCs that have expanded in India have decided not to list in the domestic stock market, narrowing the investment opportunities for Indian investors. There were seven MNCs in the Sensex in 1999 — Colgate Palmolive, Nestle, Glaxosmithkline Pharmaceuticals, Novartis, Hindustan Unilever, Castrol and ITC.

 The changing composition of the Sensex tells us two big stories — of the rise of a new generation of Indian firms as well as the shift from manufacturing towards services."

 

 

22Apr2020 Tweet - Sensex changes - changes in Sensex - Original composition of BSE Sensex or BSE Sensitive Index (1978-79 = 100) - BSE weblink - more Sensex data are here in the weblink - webarchive - Ashish Chauhan - 

21Nov2022 changes in Sensex (1986, 1996, 2006 and 2022) - Charles Darwin and the Sensex - ET Wealth - Sensex components change over the years - Sensex changes >

 

26Jan2022 Invesco MF -  changes in Sensex (end-2001, 2011 & 2021) - (these top 10 stocks shared in the image are based on full market cap, but not on free float market cap used for index weights) > Sensex changes >

25Jan2022 RBI - press release - The Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative Bank  (PMC Bank) branches to operate as Unity Small Finance Bank Ltd. branches from January 25, 2022 - Gazette notification -

 

25Jan2022 Bloombergquint - PMC Bank Resolution Scheme Approved By Government With Staggered Deposit Pay-Out -Unity SFB - depositors continue to be in soup (staggered payments in 10 years) - data of amalgmation - merger - Centrum group - Bharatpe -

 

24Jan2022 Warren Buffett - video "Why 2% Succeed and 98% Don't" - Buffett shares stories of two extraordinary people, Rose Blumkin (Nebraska Furniture Mart) and Jack C Taylor (Enterprise Rent-A-Car) - both start with a capital of just USD 2,500 - #Inspiration - #People - 

 

06Jan2023 FAO -  The FAO Food Price Index or FFPI - FFPI fell for a ninth month to 132.4 in Dec2022, the lowest since Sep2021 -Trading Economics 

 

 

 

04Nov2022 FAO - The FAO Food Price Index or FFPI - FFPI for Oct2022 is at 135.9, the same it was before Russia invasion of Ukraine; FFPI reached 10-year high in Mar2022 -Trading Economics 

02Sep2022 FAO - The FAO Food Price Index or FFPI - FFPI declined for the 5th consecutive month to 138 in Aug2022; FFPI reaches 10-year high in Mar2022 -Trading Economics

 

24Jan2022 FAO - The FAO Food Price Index or FFPI - FFPI rose by 23.1% in calendar year 2021; FFPI reaches 10-year high in 2021 -

 

24Jan2022 Market data - YTD, markets are highly volatile - Nasdaq lost 12% (Big Tech stocks are falling); S&P 500 lost 7.7%; FTSE, DAX, Sensex and Nifty 50 are almost flat; Hang Seng up 5.5%; US 10-year up 27 bp, India 10-y up 18 bp; Crude up 14%; gold flat; silver up 3.7%; BCI up 6.2%; Bitcoin in USD down 24%; US dollar index flat. (all data taken at 7.30 AM IST on 24Jan2022)

21Jan2022 Bloomberg - MicroStrategy Plummets as SEC Rejects Its Bitcoin Accounting - "U.S. generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP, offer no rules for reporting the value of digital assets. Nonbinding guidance from the American Institute of CPAs says companies should classify the currency as an intangible asset, as outlined in ASC 350. This means businesses that don’t qualify as investment firms would record cryptocurrency at historical cost and then only adjust it if the value declines. Once their holdings get written down, or impaired, companies can’t revise the value back up if the price recovers.

"For a volatile asset like Bitcoin, that’s a problem; on-the-books value can only be recorded as shrinking, never growing. For MicroStrategy, with material holdings of Bitcoin, downward swings in the digital currency’s value hit the company’s bottom line hard.

"For the quarter ending Sept. 30, 2021, MicroStrategy reported a net loss of $36.1 million. Adding back in its share-based compensation expense and the impairment of its digital assets made the company’s unofficial, or non-GAAP, income flip to $18.6 million, its filing shows." - USGAAP - intangible assets - FASB - 

16Feb2022 - defence / defense stocks? - Astra Microwave products (electronics); paras defence & space tech (drones), MTAR Tech (fuel), Bharat dynamics (missiles), HAL (Tejas), Data Patterns, Solar Inds, Mazgaon Docks, Cochin Shipyard, Midhani, Garden Reach ship building, etc.

 

19Jan2022 Nifty Indices  - NSE on 19Jan2022 launches Nifty India Defence Index - there are 10 stocks / components in the index, namely, Solar Industries, Bharat Electronics, HAL, BEML, MTAR Technologies, Astr Microwave Products, Bharat Dynamics, Cochin Shipyard, Mazgaon Dock Shipbuilders and Garden Reach S&E - factsheet -

 

20Jan2022 BS - cost of inflated LNG prices - CGD or city gas distribution - LNG import -

20Jan2022 Telugu Web Archive - Telugu - Literature - Public Library of India - Public Resource - అమృతం కురిసిన రాత్రి by Devarakonda Balagangadhara Tilak PDF - చింతామణి by Kallakuri Narayana Rao PDF (Subbi Shetty) - Letter of Chelam  tweet 30Jan2020 - courtesy @carlmalamud

14Jan2022 Livemint - YES Mutual Fund is now WhiteOak Capital MF 

 

19Jan2022 BS - Power stocks may remain electric - India power demand comprises of 1) industrial 40%, 2) domestic 20%, 3) agriculture 20%, 4) commercial 10% and 5) others 10% - 

 

 

ET 18Jan2022 - Can EVs Become Mainstream? BVR Subbu, independent director of Ola Electric - electric vehicle - EV - 

14Oct2022 video KPIT Technologies' Ravi Pandit on number of chips in a car - electric vehicle or EV - "Five years ago, an upmarket car like, Lexus, used to have 100 semiconductor chips (electronic control unit or ECU); now with architecture changes, it will only have 4 or 5 chips, one chip for say, power train, one for autonomous driving, one chip will take care of body controls, etc." - "Now, around computer software, a vehicle is built"

 

ET video 18Jan2022 -  Can EVs Became Mainstream?  Hormazd Sorabjee, Editor, Autocar India & BVR Subbu, Investor, Ola - electric vehicle - EV -

 

18Jan2022 CNBC - US 2-year Treasury note moved above 1.0% yield for the first time since Mar2020 > 

 

06Jan2022 BSE - Reliance Industries raises USD 4 billion in foreign currency bonds - biggest foreign currency bond issue by an Indian firm - bonds are rated BBB+ by S&P and Baaa2 by Moody's - more debt by RIL - issue includes 40-year note -

 

05Jan2022 Javier Blas tweet - "Kazakhstan re-imposes price for controls for LPG, gasoline and diesel after rare demonstrations over the last 24 hours over rising energy prices. The country is one of the world’s top oil producers and a member of the OPEC+ alliance" -  oil riots - inflation riots -

12Jan2022 Tech Crunch - Instagram still benefitting from Tiktok's ban in India - data from app intelligence firm Sensor Tower (rival of App Annie) - app downloads - global app market - app analytics - app market data -

 

15Jan2022 Praveen Swami Tweet - "I'm all for business synergies, but I'm wondering what patients will be thinking when they get in that ambulance..."- #Fun #Humour

06Oct2022 SEBI - SEBI has cancelled the registration of Brickwork Ratings India Pvt Ltd as credit rating agency (CRA) and ordered it should wind up its operations within six months from today - Livemint article

 

After this, India will be left with only six CRAs. 

 

17Jan2022 SEBI - As of now, there are seven credit rating agencies in India as per SEBI:

 

Crisil Ratings Ltd, 

ICRA Ltd, 

Care Ratings Ltd, 

India Ratings & Research (ex-Fitch Ratings), 

Brickwork Ratings India, 

Acuite Ratings & Research, and 

Infomerics Valuation & Rating

 

As per Basel II norms, companies need to go for credit rating to access bank loans.

17Jan2022 Business Standard - YTD two-wheeler sales in India are lowest in nine years - middle-class poorer - high taxes - motorcycles - motorbikes -

 

17Jan2022 Business Standard -  Indians are 99% hypocritical - proof? - "Chinese smartphones reduce Indian brands' market share to 1%" >

10Jan2022 Business Standard -  share buybacks in 2021 were lowest since 2015 - share buyback -

 

15Jan2022 Business Standard - "Aided by mid-, small-cap rally, 80% of PMS schemes beat Nifty in 2021" - portfolio management services - 249 PMS schemes manage assets worth Rs 22.7 lakh crore under discretionary PF -

 

04Mar2021 PIB - "During the period from 2015-16 EPFO prudently started investing in equity through exchange traded funds based on the NSE 50 and BSE 30 indices. The investment in equity assets started from 5 percent for FY 2015 and subsequently gone up to 15 percent of the incremental portfolio." -  Tweet 14Jan2018 - ETFs - ETF - Moneycontrol 17Nov2021 EPFO fetches poor returns from investments in CPSE  ETF and Bharat 22 ETF - Tweet 15Jan2018 on EPFO investment pattern -

 

07Jan2022 BSE - HCC -  Hindustan Construction Co on 31Dec2021 defaulted loans amounting to Rs 2,160 crore to several banks in India - tweet thread of 2019 on HCC conversion of debt to equity - bankers vs defaulters - 

 

05Jan2022 Tweet - "Keep money in two or three AMC's liquid funds" - avoid over-dependence on a single fund in emergencies and the COVID-19 Pandemic - fund house diversification - "Keep two or three withdrawal options... MFU is one, AMC app or site another, your agent yet another and once MF Central provides may be one more and yes RTA websites can also help in few cases... but if all go wrong togeather, then nobody can help... only cash in wife's purse can..." -

 

13Jan2022 DSP Mutual Fund - NETRA Jan2022 -  Early warning and signals - Nifty 50 valuation high - stock market breadth weakened - India G-Sec yield curve steepened -

 

12Jan2022 WaPo - Washington Post - Cryptocurrency is suddenly everywhere — except in the cash register - "Nearly 30,000 bitcoin ATMs now (the number was 4,000 at end-Dec2019 and 10,000 at end-Dec2020) dot the American landscape in gas stations, liquor stores and hair salons, up from 1,800 four years ago. About half of Coinstar’s 17,000 kiosks, which convert coins into cash, now sell bitcoin." - Bitcoin ATM - Bitcoin "whales" - crypto assets -

 

12Jan2022 Business Standard - Odds against BPCL - OMCs - PSU sale - disinvestment - 

 

30Jun2022 Nifty Indices - (see below for images as of 31Mar2022, 31Dec2021 and 30Nov2021) screenshots / images of NSE indices - data as at the end of 31Dec2021 -  sector and top 10 stock weights, returns, risk, P/E and P/B  - NSE indexogram - monthly factsheets -Nifty 50, Nifty Next 50, Nifty 500, Nifty Midcap 150, Nifty Smallcap 250, Nifty Total Market, Nifty Bank, Nifty IT and Nifty FMCG indices -

 

 

 

31Mar2022 Nifty Indices - (see below for images as of 31Dec2021 and 30Nov2021) screenshots / images of NSE indices - data as at the end of 31Dec2021 -  sector and top 10 stock weights, returns, risk, P/E and P/B  - NSE indexogram - monthly factsheets -Nifty 50, Nifty Next 50, Nifty 500, Nifty Midcap 150, Nifty Smallcap 250, Nifty Total Market, Nifty Bank, Nifty IT and Nifty FMCG indices -

  

 

 

31Dec2021 Nifty Indices - (see below for images as of 30Nov2021 - Nifty Indices) screenshots / images of NSE indices - data as at the end of 31Dec2021 -  sector and top 10 stock weights, returns, risk, P/E and P/B  - NSE indexogram - monthly factsheets -Nifty 50, Nifty Next 50, Nifty 500, Nifty Midcap 150, Nifty Smallcap 250, Nifty Total Market, Nifty Bank, Nifty IT and Nifty FMCG indices -

12Jan2022 TE - US CPI inflation hits 40-year high of 7.0 per cent in Dec2021 (last high was 7.1% in Jun1982)

 

12Jan2022 TE - India CPI inflation climbs to 5.59 per cent in Dec2021 

 

08Jan2022 Groww - "Groww gets one of the world’s best CEOs as an investor and advisor. Thrilled to have @satyanadella join us in our mission to make financial services accessible in India." - FinTech - startup capital - FinTech app - investing -

 

11Jan2022 BSE - All-time-high today for BSE market cap of all companies at Rs 275.21 lakh crore

 

10Jan2022 Ajay Shah - Worry about Middle India (middle class India) - Indian economy - low consumption demand - K shaped recovery - "Nifty 50 index is up 110% over the last 5 years, while the Shanghai Composite Index is up 20%; this is surely a vote of confidence on India, and a contrast with China's sulking retreat into the China model of nationalism, xenophobia and central planning. But we should worry more about middle India, as everything is inter-connected in macroeconomics." - stock market buoyancy important but middle India should not be ignored - shocks from cash ban / demonetisation, GST and Pandemic - lockdown - Omicron - higher household borrowing and lower consumption -

 

10Jan2022 Livemint -  Axis Bank executes first domestic trade deal on govt-backed blockchain platform - successfully executed industry-first blockchain-enabled domestic trade transaction (letter of credit or LC) with Arcelor Mittal Nippon Steel India, and Lalit Pipes & Pipes Ltd on Secured Logistics Document Exchange (SLDE), a government-backed platform - PIB press release 28Jun2021 on launch of SLDE by India's Commerce Ministry - blockchain - digitisation - banking - green agenda - logistics -

 

10Jan2022 MoneyLife - Tax Torture Season 2 (article by CA Ameet Patel) - income tax - problems / issues - faceless regime - 

25Oct2022 BSE - BSE launches electronic gold receipts - EGRs - EGR - "BSE introduced two new products of 995 and 999 purity during the Muhurat trading on Diwali and trading will be in multiples of 1 gram and deliveries in multiples of 10 gram and 100 gram"

- BSE circulars on trading members - one and two

 

- BSE weblinks   about EGR (salient features of EGR) and EGR Streamer

 

- EGR trading 9.00 AM to 9.30 PM (Monday to Friday) - trading via demat accounts - fungibility of vault - 

- SEBI on 10Jan22 issued norms for EGR

 

10Jan2022 SEBI - Gazette notification -  Electronic Gold Receipt (EGR) as security under SCRA, 1956 - EGR definition > "Electronic Gold Receipt" means an electronic receipt issued on the basis of deposit of underlying physical gold in accordance with the regulations made by the SEBI under section 31 of SCRA, 1956 <  SEBI circular dated 10Jan2022 on Framework for Operationlizing Gold Exchange in India (these norms meant for stock exchanges, clearing corporations, depositories and vault managers - new financial instrument in India - tweet 27Jun2019 on SEBI-recognised intermediaries / market infrastructure institutions (MIIs) -

 

07Jan2022 MOSPI - First Advance Estimates (FAE) of India GDP for FY 2021-22 -  Real GDP growth rate in FY 2021-22 will be 9.2% versus contraction of 7.3 per cent in 2020-21 - Real GDP or GDP at constant prices (2011-12) is estimated at Rs 147.54 lakh crore for FY 2021-22 -  tweet dated 24Nov2016 on FAE of India GDP -

05Jan2022 SEBI - Sebi chairman Ajay Tyagi's speech at the virtual event by NSE Limited to celebrate the 25 years of the launch of Nifty 50 index and 20 years of derivatives trading in India - Nifty 50 index was launched on 22Apr1996 - demat accounts now at 7.7 crore as of Nov2021 - 

 

05Jan2022 RBI - RBI releases “Eligibility criteria for entities to be categorised as Specified User under Credit Information Companies (Amendment) Regulations” - RBI allows FinTech firms to access credit bureaus - India now has four credit information bureaus TransUnion Cibil, Equifax, Experian and CRIF High Mark -  

 

03Jan2023 Mutual Fund AUM - AMFI data 31Dec2022 - three biggest players are SBI MF, ICICI MF and HDFC MF

 

04Apr2022 Mutual Fund AUM - AMFI data 31Mar2022 -MFs  / AMCs - three biggest players are SBI MF, ICICI Pru MF and HDFC MF in that order - 

 

05Jan2022 Mutual Fund AUM -  AMFI data 31Dec2021 -MFs  / AMCs - three biggest players are SBI MF, ICICI Pru MF and HDFC MF in that order - 

 

03Jan2022 StLouisFed - Dynamics of International Shipping Costs - "...the average global market price of shipping a 40-foot container increased eightfold from an average of $1,331 in the week of Feb. 28, 2020, to a peak of $11,109 in the week of Sept. 10, 2021."   

 

31Dec2021 TII - 2021 Lessons - reasons to sell - S&P 500 total return chart -

 

04Jan2022 T - India's FinTech landscape

 

Brokerages list for top picks for 2022 > 

03Jan2022 FT - Apple's market cap at USD 3 trillion - "The iPhone maker became a $1tn company in August 2018 and two years later became the first company to be valued at $2tn. On Monday, shares in the company rose by 3 per cent to $182.86, taking it past the latest milestone, before easing back to close at $182.01... Moody’s also upgraded Apple to triple-A in December 2021, making it only the third triple-A company assessed by the rating agency alongside Microsoft and Johnson & Johnson. S&P Global still rates Apple at double-A plus, one notch below triple-A."

 

04Jan2022 TV - On 03Jan2022, Apple Inc's market cap briefly touched USD 3 trillion market cap before closing for the day at USD 2.99 trillion (current market price is USD 182 per share) - Apple Inc is the first company in the world to touch USD 3 trillion mark - 

 

 

17May2022 RBI - Small savings data - RBI Bulleting monthly - Table 44 for receipts and outstandings (data as on 31Mar2021) of PPF, NSC, post office deposits, KVP, IVP, SCSS, etc. -- more data on small savings is available as per Table 112 and 113 of RBI DBIE - 

 

 

Tweet 17Dec2019 -  Several old acts (like PPF Act 1968, NSC Act, etc.) were subsumed into Government Savings Promotion Act, 1873 and these new rules are now notified as per this GSP Act of 1873.

 

 

Tweet 17Dec2019 -  12Dec2019 India Gazette Notification -  Government SAvings Promotion Act

 

Old PPF / NSC / SCSS / PO Savings rules rescinded & new rules notified by GOI. 

 

Forms / format given  

 

#PPF (pages 30 - 40)  

 

#NSC (113 - 123) 

 

SCSS (49 - 57) 

 

Small Savings Post Office Savings

 

 

Tweet 29Dec2019 -  Acts and Rules Governing Small Savings Schemes:  Retirement - small savings - PPF - NSC - SCSS - The Government Savings Banks Act, 1873 > The Government Savings Promotion General Rules, 2018 >  

 

 

31Mar2023 eGazette -  Gazette of India - Government Savings Promotion Act -  G.S.R.238(E) - page 18 of the PDF - Aadhaar and PAN are compulsory for opening new accounts as well existing accounts already opened - Moneylife Advisory - PPF, SSY, SCSS and post office small savings accounts - is it applicable for post office NSC?

31Mar2023 eGazette -  Gazette of India - Government Savings Promotion Act -  G.S.R.237(E) - page 10 of the PDF - new small savings scheme - Mahila Samman Savings Certificate, 2023 -

 

 

31Mar2023 DEA -  some of the small savings interest rates were changed ((except PPF) for Q1 of FY 2023-24 (Apr-Jun2023) by Govt of India weblink KPS - DEA, Govt of India weblink for interest rates -

 

 

 

30Dec2022 DEA - some of the small savings interest rates were changed (except PPF and another.) for Q4 of FY 2022-23 (Jan-Mar2023) by Govt of India - weblink KPS - DEA, Govt of India weblink for interest rates -

 

 

 

29Sep2022 DEA - most of the small savings interest rates kept unchanged (except, POMIS, SCSS, etc.) for Q3 of FY 2022-23 (Oct-Dec2022) by Govt of India -  earlier tweet 02Jul2021 - most of the small savings schemes' rates have been the same between April 2020 and December 2022 - DEA, Govt of India weblink for interest rates - VR article dated 30Sep2022 >

31Dec2021 DEA - small savings interest rates kept unchanged for Q4 of FY 2021-22 (Jan-Mar2022) by Govt of India -  earlier tweet 02Jul2021 - it may be noted that GOI has kept rates unchanged for eight quarters continuously, that is to say, rates have been the same between April 2020 and March 2022 - My Investment Ideas two images >

 

03Jan2022 JP Morgan - Economic and Market Update -  presented by David Kelly with just 12 slides of 67 slides of 'JP Morgan Guide to Markets' -- see below for brief details >

1) Corona Virus Pandemic continues but its impact on US economy diminished

2) Fiscal Policy support from the US gov't will be much less

3) US economy will continue its rebound until it reaches capacity limits

4) US unemployment has fallen and wages have risen

5) S&P 500 earnings could moderate from 2021 all-time-high --2022 earnings will be impacted by slower GDP growth, higher wage costs, higher interest rates, potentially higher corporate tax rates

6)  Inflation will moderate from its highs but remain above Fed's 2% target

7) Fed turns more hawkish with rate hikes on the horizon

8) Interest rates are likely to be on upward trajectory

9) Valuations are high for US equities

10) Best allocation will be a blend of 'value' and 'growth' -- value remains historically cheaper relative to growth -- value tends to do better in phases of above-trend economic activity and rising interest rates -- financials may benefit from higher interest rates 

11) International stocks offer cyclical and long-term opportunities 

12) S&P 500 valuation dispersions point to active management 

 

07Sep2022 TE - Heatmap of Macro indicators, like, GDP, population, inflation, interest rate, debt, currency, jobless rate, current a/c, debt-GDP ratio, etc. -  global GPD - world GDP - 

 

Of the 12 given in the below list, 10 nations suffer from negative real interest rates (CPI inflation rate higher than interest rate) -- of the 12, only Brazil and China are providing positive real interest rates

 

03Jan2022 TE - Heatmap of Macro indicators, like, GDP, population, inflation, interest rate, debt, currency, jobless rate, current a/c, debt-GDP ratio, etc. - two images as per GDP -

 

03Jan2022 TE - G20 inflation rates, like, US, UK, India and China - two images 

 

03Jan2022 TE - G20 interest rates, like, US, UK, India and China - two images 

 

30Dec2021 ICICI Direct - Market strategy 2022 - market outlook - 

 

31Dec2021 RBI -  RBI announces rate of interest on Floating Rate Savings Bond, 2020 (Taxable) - FRSB 2020 (T)  - for the half-year period 01Jan2022 to 30Jun2022 - 

 

31Dec2021 Nifty 50 monthly returns (Jan1994 to Dec2021) - Capital Mind 

 

 31Mar2023 CoinMarketCap - top crypto assets

 

 

 

 

10Nov2022 CoinMarketCap - Top crypto assets as on 10Nov2022 at 6.37 AM (IST) -  The total of all crypto assets (crypto market cap) is USD 808.94 billion with Bitcoin quoting at USD 16,317 and Ethereum at USD 1,147 -- Crypto currencies have lost more than USD 2 trillion of thier market cap since their all-time-peak last year 

 

- The rout of crypto assets in the past three days (between 07Nov22 and 10Nov22) is triggered by liquidity crunch at FTX (a cryto exchange started by Sam Bankman-Fried or SBF) and FTX's subsequent takeover by Binance, world's biggest crypto exchange 

 

CoinDesk updated story dated 02Nov2022 on ties between FTX and its trading firm Alameda Research -- which brought out the fact that Alameda Research's assets basically consist of FTT token, which is issued by FTX - related Bloomberg story dated 17Sep2022 on ties between FTX and Alamedia Research - original CoinDesk story reported in Yahoo on 02Nov2022

 

11Oct2022 CoinMarketCap - Top crypto assets as on 01Oct2022 at 5.30 AM (IST) -  The total of all crypto assets (crypto market cap) is USD 941 billion with Bitcoin quoting at USD 19,420 and Ethereum at USD 1,326 -- Crypto currencies have lost more than USD 2 trillion of thier market cap since their all-time-peak last year 

 

 
19Jul2022 CoinMarketCap - Top crypto assets as on 19Jul2022 at 7.40 AM (IST) -  The total of all crypto assets (crypto market cap) is USD 1,020 billion with Bitcoin quoting at USD 22,150 and Ethereum at USD 1,534 -After several months, crypto market cap is above USD one trillion >

 

01Jul2022 CoinMarketCap - Top crypto assets as on 01Jul2022 at 6.05 AM (IST) -  The total of all crypto assets is USD 880 billion with Bitcoin quoting at USD 20,467 and Ethereum at USD 1,087 - 

 

Crypto assets have experienced a meltdown during Apr-Jun2022 quarter >

 

01Apr2022 CoinMarketCap - Top crypto assets as on 01Apr2022 at 12.50 PM (IST) -  The total of all crypto assets is USD 2.062 trillion with Bitcoin quoting at USD 44,850 and Ethereum at USD 3,266 -

 

01Jan2022 CoinMarketCap - Top crypto assets as on 01Jan2022 at 11.30 PM (IST) -  The total of all crypto assets is USD 2.247 trillion with Bitcoin quoting at USD 47,827 and Ethereum at USD 3,759 -

 

29Apr2022 Tweet - On Wednesday, Facebook (aka Meta Platforms) was at 9th place by market cap in S&P 500 index. Thursday, it climbed to 7th place in the index after gaining USD 84 billion in market cap in a single day.

31Mar2023 Tradingview -  Top US firms market cap

12Oct2022 Tradingview - Top US firms market cap as at close of 11Oct2022 - the top five are Apple, Microsoft, Alphabeet, Amazon and Tesla > Facebook (Meta Platforms) in now dethroned to 12th place -- pushed down the ladder by Visa and Walmart >As at close of 11Oct2022, Meta Platforms share price is USD 128.54, with a market cap of USD 345.47 billion >

11Oct2022 Trading View - Top US firms market cap as on 30Sep2022 - the top five are Apple, Microsoft, Alphabeet, Amazon and Tesla > 

30Jun2022 Trading View - Top US firms market cap as on 30Jun2022 - the top five are Apple, Microsoft, Alphabeet, Amazon and Tesla > 

 

Facebook (Meta Platforms) is now at ninth place in S&P 500 index on market cap basis > 

Technology firms in the S&P 500 / Nasdaq Composite have lost thier market values heavily during Apr-Jun2022 quarter >

 

 

28Apr2022 Trading View - Top US firms market cap as on 27Apr2022 - the top five are Apple, Microsoft, Alphabeet, Amazon and Tesla >

 

month-to-date, Facebook / Meta Platforms Inc lost a lot of value and is now at 9th place in top US firms in S&P 500 by market cap; Nvidia too lost value--while United Health Group and J&J climbed up the ladder

 

01Apr2022 Trading View - Top US firms market cap as on 31Mar2022 - the top five are Apple, Microsoft, Alphabeet, Amazon and Tesla >

 

01Jan2022 Trading View - Top US firms market cap as on 31Dec2021 - the top five are Apple, Microsoft, Alphabeet, Amazon and Tesla >

 

01Jan2022 RBI Policy rates  RBI current rates: Policy rates / Reserve rates / exchange rates / lending - deposit rates: https://rbi.org.in/Home.aspx/GetKeywords - RBI Get Key words - repo rate - reverse repo - CRR - SLR - base rate - MCLR - call rates / For the first time since Sep2020, one-year bank fixed deposit rates changed from 4.90-5.50% range to 4.90-5.60% range as per RBI data. 

 

01Jan2022 Trading Economics - prices of metal, agricultural and industrial Commodities as of 31Dec2021 >

 

01Jan2022 BSE - market cap of all BSE listed companies is Rs 266 lakh crore as at the end of 31Dec2021 / total number of companies with listed equity capital are 4,789 as on 31Dec2021 > 

 

31Dec2021 Our World in Data - India vaccination rate vs world (data as of 29Dec2021) - COVID-19 - Corona Virus Pandemic -  tweet 12Jul2021

 

30Dec2021 Financial Express -  "FMCG distributors in Maharashtra are planning to stop selling select products of leading firm HUL (Hindustan Unilver) from January 1, as the company has not engaged in talks with them over the issue of price disparity between traditional distributors and organised B2B distributors." - Livemint on the same - organised (general trade) vs modern (business-to-business or B2B) retail trade -

 

30Dec2021 Crisil - Updated on Pidilite Industries credit rating - weblink 21Oct2021 on previous rating - interesting to note that credit rating companies have to publish bank-wise facilities of companies as per RBI norms - image > 

 

29Dec2021 Value Research - point-to-point (P2P) returns from 31Dec2019 to 29Dec2021 (starting point is before Corona Virus Outbreak to till now) of equity mutual funds excluding sector funds -- the top most fund generated an annualised return (CAGR) of 83.3 per cent versus the bottom CAGR of 12.3 per cent for all direct plans with growth option -- see images below >

tweet 17Jan2021 on P2P returns  -

 

28Dec2021 Quarterly report Jul-Sep2021 - Public Debt Management, DEA, Ministry of Finance, Govt of india - tweet 26Sep2020

27Dec2021 Business Standard - Rise of ETF Investing in India - ETFs now account for a tenth of MF assets -

 

30Dec2021 iShares -  iShares Core ETFs https://ishares.com/us/literature/brochure/ishares-product-list-en-us.pdf #ETF Compare Funds (ETFs) - IVV - EEM - AGG - IAU - US equity - EM equity - bonds - gold - tweet 17Apr2021 - The following four images are captured on 30Dec2021 (most data are at end-30Nov2021) >

 

29Jun2021 Truth or Fiction -  When Volvo invented the three-point seat belt in 1959, they made the patent free for all competitors to use in order to save lives, because "it had more value as a free life-saving tool than something to profit from." #Anecdote - (Like zero, unless it's free people won't use such inventions more frequently--higher use means it becomes common usage)

 

24Dec2021 Chellaney - "Tiny Lithuania, with a population smaller than the smallest second-tier Chinese city, has stood up to China's bullying in ways few other EU states have. Defying PRC's economic and diplomatic coercion, Lithuania has stood its ground on letting Taiwan open an office in its capital." 

 

01Nov2011 PIB press release - Roll out of new Annual Informatin Statement (AIS) - formerly statement of financial transactions (SFT) - 26AS - TIS or taxpayer information summary -  income tax - TRACES - ITR filing -

 

28Dec2021 RBI releases  Report on Trend and Progress of Banking in India 2020-21 - contours of CBDC or central bank digital currency, see page 29 and 39 of the PDF - crypto assets -

Shareholding pattern of 12 PSBs (as of 31Mar2021) >

As per the above RBI report, there are 21 private sector banks (PVBs) which inclue, J&K Bank Ltd and IDBI Bank Ltd. Interestingly, there are five PVBs (namely, Axis Bk, CSB Bk, HDFC Bk, ICICI Bk and IndusInd Bk) where non-residents hold more than 50 per cent of the equity capital.

 

There are 10 small finance banks (SFBs) and two local area banks (LABs). (all data as of 31Mar2021)

 

 27Dec2021 RBL Bank - Interesting price movements of 27Dec2021 after RBI appointed its representative Yogesh Dayal (as per Bank's  BSE filing on 26Dec2021, which was a market holiday, being a Sunday) as an additional director on the Board of RBL Bank Ltd. In addition, the current MD&CEO Vishwavir Ahuja was removed and in his place Rajeev Ahuja was appointed as interim MD&CEO.

 

RBL's stock price fell to Rs 130.20 or 24.7% intraday on 27Dec2021. But after RBI's clarification (stating that the Bank's financial position is sound and stable) at 12.46 PM on 27Dec2021, the stock price recovered partially and closed the day at Rs 140.95, a fall of 18.5% for the day.

As per media reports, Reserve Bank of India in the past appointed additional directors, under Section 36AB of the Banking Regulation Act 1949,  on the banks' Board: J&K Bank (Jul2019), Yes Bank (Mar2020), Dhanlaxmi Bank (Sep2020), Ujjivan SFB (Nov2021) and now RBL Bank (Dec2021).

 

Shareholding of RBL Bank equity by FPIs and mutual funds >

27Dec2021 Tweet - Scares. (majority vs minority) - article by Pew Research Center on population growth and religious composition

 

27Dec2021 CNBC -- Despite intense volatility in the past five weeks, S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite indices touched new all-time-highs (ATH) on 27Dec2021 and ended the day at 4,791 and 15,871 respectively. Dow Jones (ATH on 08Nov2021) and Russell 2000 (ATH on 08Nov2021) ended on 27Dec2021 at 36,302 and 2,261 respectively.

 

tweet 18Jun2021 - #QE  - old Tweet thread 14Feb2018

 

The US Fed's holding of assets (in billion USD) - Balance Sheet:

 

 8,790 22Dec2021 Now

4,312  11Mar2020 Corona virus outbreak when huge QE started once again

3,760  28Aug2019 recent low when Fed stopped its tapering / unwinding

 

4,444  03Jan2018  when Fed started its tapering cycle

 

4,484  12Apr2017 peak assets in 2017 

 

4,516  14Jan2015 peak assets in 2015

 

  879  28Nov2007 Ahead of Dec2007 US recession and QE1

 

The above Fed's QE data can be read in conjunction with my blog data on US Fed interest rate changes >

tweet 26Dec2021 -  #QE In the past 14 years, the US Fed's balance sheet has expanded by 10 times, or 900 per cent! 

 

28Nov2007* 879 billion 

 

22Dec2021 8,790 billion 

 

* just ahead of US recession in Dec2007 & QE  

 

1) https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WALCL 

2) https://federalreserve.gov/releases/h41/current/ 

3) https://federalreserve.gov/releases/h41/

Recent low of Fed's assets was USD 3,760 billion as on 28Aug2019. Image >

 

30Nov2021 NSE Nifty 50 index - sector and top 10 stock weights, returns, risk, P/E and P/B  - NSE indexogram - monthly factsheets - Nifty Indices -

30Nov2021 NSE Nifty Next 50 index - sector and top 10 stock weights, returns, risk, P/E and P/B  

30Nov2021 NSE Nifty 500 index - sector and top 10 stock weights, returns, risk, P/E and P/B 

30Nov2021 NSE Nifty Midcap 150 index - sector and top 10 stock weights, returns, risk, P/E and P/B  

30Nov2021 NSE Nifty Smallcap 250 index - sector and top 10 stock weights, returns, risk, P/E and P/B 

30Nov2021 NSE Nifty Total Market index - sectoral and top 10 stock weights, returns, risk, P/E and P/B 

30Nov2021 NSE Nifty Bank index - top 10 stock weights, returns, risk, P/E and P/B - one-year return of sector indices

30Nov2021 NSE Nifty IT index - sector and top 10 stock weights, returns, risk, P/E and P/B 

30Nov2021 NSE Nifty FMCG index - sector and top 10 stock weights, returns, risk, P/E and P/B   

   

 

BSE Allcap sector wise market cap (as on 24Dec2021) 

BSE Sensex sector wise market cap (as on 24Dec2021) 

 

23Dec2021 Bloomberg -  Tencent Hands Out $16 Billion of JD Stock in Crackdown-Led Shift - Chinese tech crackdown - "Tencent Holdings Ltd. plans to distribute more than $16 billion of JD.com Inc. shares as a one-time dividend. The unexpected move to divest most of its stake in China’s No. 2 online retailer comes as Beijing punishes the country’s tech giants for anti-competitive behavior, including maintaining closed ecosystems that favor certain companies at the expense of others. Tencent plans to give out 457.3 million Class A shares in JD, representing about 86.4% of its total stake and nearly 15% of the online retailer’s total issued shares, according to a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange."

 

25Dec2021 Compare funds Value Research - equity mutual funds - comparison of index funds based on Nifty Next 50 (formerly known as Nifty Junior index) index  - Rupee Vest - please click on the images below for a better view - as shown below, UTI Nifty Next index fund, ICICI Pru Nifty Next 50 index fund, IDBI Nifty Junior index fund and SBI Nifty Next 50 Index funds (all direct plans) have one of the low expense ratios - These funds have decent AUMs (total assets), except IDBI Junior Nifty index fund - Index funds based on Nifty Next 50 index (formerly knowns as Nifty Junior index) are expected to provide decent long term (more than five years) returns (this is not a recommendation, this is just for information purpose only) -

tweet 12Jun2021 - ETFs / index funds - compare funds 2021

 

tweet 07Jun2021 - ETFs / index funds - compare funds

tweet 20May2021 - ETFs / equity mutual funds - compare funds - Nippon India ETF Nifty BeES vs ETF Junior BeES > Expense ratios, AUM and return since 2002 / 2003 till now > Top Holdings, sector weights, Portfolio characteristics, trailing / qtr returns, etc. - Nifty 50 vs Nifty Next 50 index -

23Dec2021 Multipie Social - four types of Tech investors - #fun - TCS, Happiest Minds, Tanla Platforms and Paytm -

23Dec2021 Value Research - How to become an expert mutual fund investor series - seven-part series - equity mutual funds - debt mutual funds -

 

22Dec2021 Stock Trader's Almanac - The term 'Santa Claus Rally' was coined in 1972 by Yale Hirsch of Stock Trader's Almanac - #Anecdote

 

21Dec2021 BSE - HCL Technologies Ltd - grant of restricted stock units (RSU) to eligible staff -"The RSU Plan shall be implemented through a trust mechanism wherein the trust shall acquire the shares from the secondary market and transfer the same to the employees on exercise. No fresh shares shall be issued by the Company either to the trust or to the employees in terms of the RSU Plan." - trust shares - 

 

20Dec2021 CNN - China cuts key interest rate for the first time in 20 months - "China's central bank PBOC cut its main interest rate for the first time in 20 months, as authorities step up efforts to boost an economy that has been hit by pandemic-related curbs, a real estate slump and an unprecedented crackdown on private enterprises."  

 

20Dec2021 MacroAlf -   world stock market cap by country - US stock market represents 44% of world with GDP less than 25% share - why is this so? some reasons -- 1) sector differences (more technology firms in the US), 2) US Dollar reserve currency status / US enjoys safe haven status, 3) US runs trade deficit, and in turn other big nations invest in US Treasuries, 4) higher wealth concentration in  the US, 5) higher profit margins / sustainable profitability by US firms (markets value profits more than the income / GDP), 6) US firms have big share of revenues / profits from the rest of the world, 7) rule of law, 8) high innovation, 9) deep and highly liquid US markets, 10) unprecedented money printing (quantitative easing or QE) by the Federal Reserve in the past 13 years, etc.

 

17Dec2021 Value Research - change in promoter stake

16Dec2021 Value Research - credit risk funds: the journey so far - debt mutual funds

16Dec2021 Value Research - should you invest in them now - debt mutual funds

 

08Dec2021 CNBC video -  Andrew Ross Sorkin talks to Galleon Group's Raj Rajaratnam - dirty peephole - 16-second telephone conversation with Rajat Bose - Rajaratnam says: "My father told me, 'Raj, you should spend the first third of your life in learning, the second third in earning and the last third in giving.'" - #Anecdote - I had 110 people who visited me in prison (Raj was in prison for about 7 years) -

 

17Dec2021 RBI Policy rates  RBI current rates: Policy rates / Reserve rates / exchange rates / lending - deposit rates: https://rbi.org.in/Home.aspx/GetKeywords - RBI Get Key words - repo rate - reverse repo - CRR - SLR - base rate - MCLR - call rates / For the first time since Sep2020, one-year bank fixed deposit rates changed from 4.90-5.50% range to 4.90-5.60% range as per RBI data.

 

Dec2021 Motilal Oswal 26th Wealth Creation Study 64-page PDF - Atoms to Bits - wealth creation in digtial era - Bits to Atoms - network effects - Metcalfe's Law -

 

15Dec2021 Twitter Which SUV would you prefer and why?  MG Hector, Kia Seltos, Mahindra XUV700 or Hyundai Creta?- it gets 23,000 votes and Mahindra XUV700 wins hands down with 61% -

 

14Dec2021 Bloomberg Tata Doubles Down on Beauty Business as Startups Blaze the Trail - "Simone Tata, Noel Tata’s mother, helped create Lakme -- the French name for the Indian goddess of wealth, Lakshmi -- in 1953 as the country’s first cosmetics company. The group sold it to Unilever Plc’s local unit (Hindustan Lever, now Hindustan Unilever) in 1998." 

 

13Dec2021 Time 2021 Person of the Year Elon Musk - zillionaire - PayPal - South Africa - Canada - Mars economy - USD 465 million federal loan in 2010 - 

 

12Dec2021 WSJ ETF Inflows Top $1 Trillion for First Time - "This year’s inflows into ETFs world-wide crossed the $1 trillion mark for the first time at the end of November, surpassing last year’s total of $735.7 billion, according to Morningstar Inc. data. That wave of money, along with rising markets, pushed global ETF assets to nearly $9.5 trillion, more than double where the industry stood at the end of 2018." 

 

30Nov2022 BSE - As on 30Nov2022, India's market cap to GDP ratio is 1.11 -- based on market cap of all BSE firms (30Nov2022) which is Rs 288.51 lakh crore. GDP at current prices for the past four quarters (Oct2021-Sep2022) is Rs 259.44 lakh crore (or USD 3.191 trillion). Incidentally, Apple Inc's market cap as at close of 29Nov2022 is USD 2.246 trillion, which has fallen heavily in the last one year.

 

10Dec2021 BSE - As on 10Dec2021, India's market cap to GDP ratio is 1.23. Market cap of all BSE firms (10Dec2021) is Rs 267.68 lakh crore. GDP at current prices for the past four quarters (Oct2020-Sep2021) is Rs 218.08 lakh crore (or USD 2.88 trillion). Incidentally, Apple Inc's market cap as at close of 10Dec2021 is USD 2.944 trillion. -  tweet dated 26May2021 on this topic -

 

My past Twitter polls:  

 

28May2021 Bharti Airtel stock ignored, why? (50 votes)

23Feb2021 EV transition should be first for public transport? (30 votes)

15Feb2021 Should India legalise crypto currencies? (44 votes) #Bitcoin

12Feb2021 Your portfolio doubled since Pandemic low? (35 votes)

01Nov2020 mutual fund size drag on performance? (27 votes)

30Oct2020 Ahead of US polls, are you buying? (48 votes)

26Oct2020 Franklin Templeton India debt funds fiasco impacted its equity funds returns? (52 votes)

21Oct2020 Shall I fire my finance minister? (78 votes)

16Oct2020 your productivity rose in 6 months? (65 votes)

11Sep2020 My preferred vaccine is? (123 votes)

11Sep2020 SEBI circular on multi-cap fund categorisation be dumped in? (28 votes)

 

01Mar2021 video Jim Rogers talking to Raoul Pal of Real Vision: "Mark Twain who is a great American writer once said the definition of a goldmine is a hole in the ground with a liar standing at the top." #Anecdote 

 

10Dec2021 TE - US CPI inflation rate touched 6.8 per cent (year-on-year) in Nov2021, the highest since Jun1982. For nine months consecutively, the inflation has been above Fed's comfortable level of 2 per cent.

09Dec2021 Value Research - HDFC Long Term Advantage fund, along with some other funds, will be merged with HDFC Large and Mid cap fund wef 14Jan2022 #ELSS - Notice of HDFC MF PDF

 

NSE Download Macro Reports - RBI monetary policy, balance of payments, India GDP, etc.

 

Oct2021 NSE India's Investment Cycle: Traversing  rough terrain - page 8 high-frequeny indicators (HFI) of Indian economy

 

09Dec2021 CNN video - Dr Sanjay Gupta teaches her daughters how to make tea / chai

 

06Dec2021 Debashis Basu - Neo-Socialism: Modi Govt's Expanding Tech Biz - UPI - BHIM - RuPay - Fintech

 

06Dec2021 RBI -  RBI announces rate of interest on Government of India Floating Rate Bond, 2031 - FRB -

 

Bitcoin price - 07Dec2021 at 7.30 am - With Bitcoin above USD 50,000 a piece, we're all safe! - image >

13Mar2022 EV stocks - electric vechicle - unreliable source > 

17Jan2022 Livemint - Top five EV stocks as per Equitymaster - electric vehicle - Tata Power, IOC, BPCL, Reliance Industries and ABB India - 

 

05Dec2021 EV stocks  - electric vehicle - unreliable source >

 

Business Standard 06Dec2021 - Playing the Holding Company Card - Tata Investment, Bombay Burmah, Bajaj Holdings, Kama Holdings, Pilani Investments, etc. - holding company discount - image >

 

Update 06Dec2021 - vrk100 blog dated 03Aug2021 - MSCI Emerging Markets Index - MSCI EM index - update >

06Dec2021 Business Standard - Larsen & Toubro (L&T) losing to ill-equipped cos in India; isn’t it a pity: A M Naik

 

06Dec2021 China firms actively working with regulators abroad for US listing of Chinese stocks - Chinese securities regulator - US-listed China stocks, like, Alibaba, Pinduoduo, etc., lost more $1 trillion market value since Feb2021

03Dec2021 MoneyControl - Ten new firms want to set up mutual funds in India - Kenneth Andrade, firms backed by Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, Sachin Bhansal, Zerodhan, etc., are entering the fray

 

22Dec2017 The Times -  Foreign workers cost less than building robots - humans are better, at certain tasks, than robots -

"How do you pick an apple? The answer is: it depends. If you’re plucking a bramley apple, you simply pull it straight off the tree; same thing for a cox. If it’s a gala, you’re better off pushing it up against the tree and twisting. But don’t whatever you do push and twist a braeburn or a red windsor; for them you need to pull and twist.

You see, picking apples — picking them properly, at least — is a lot more complex than you might have assumed. It involves a mixture of analysis, recall, snap judgment and motor skills. You or I could follow those instructions. But, it turns out, a robot could not.

Or, at least, not yet. There exist in university laboratories around the world contraptions with computers and cameras that can detect different types of apples, as well as their size and quality. There are robots, some with mechanical hands, others with vacuum tubes, that could conceivably do the plucking. Even so, they only average about one apple plucked per minute. A human can manage 15.

 

04Dec2021 The Print -  Case against farmers, poor documentation — why PepsiCo India lost Lay’s variety potato rights - Pepsi - plant varieties - seeds - food - 

 

26Nov2021 Martin Kulldorff - "News of new Nu variant, but WHO is jumping the alphabet to call it Omicron, so they can avoid Xi."- Greek alphabet - SARS-CoV-2 - Corona Virus - WHO on 26Nov2021 declares Omicron variant as a variant of concern -

21Nov2021 Jessy Hilty - fun - "I truly think back pain relief on the bottom shelf is one of the worst thought through customer experiences"

 

03Dec2021 SEBI - Navi Blockchain Index Fund of Funds (FOF) draft SID

 

15Nov2021 Crisil Ltd corporate presentation  - global recovery - India macro indicators - global GDP vs others, like, Eurozone, China, India and the US - image >

 

12Dec2022 'RWM WisdomTree Crypto Index' - factsheet data - weights as on 09Dec2022 -- Bitcoin, Ethereum, Polygon, Chainlink, Polkadot, etc. - interestingly, as on 09Dec2022, the index does not hold any so-called stablecoins (which are cryptocurrencies tethered to government-issued currencies on a one-to-one ratio) - 

- the two biggest stablecoins today are Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC), with a market cap of USD 65.7 billion and USD 42.8 billion as of 12Dec2022 as per CoinMarketCap - 

- Coinbase Global Inc co-founded USD Coin with Circle Internet Financial in 2018

 

Index update 30Sep2022

 

- crypto assets - crypto - crypto currencies - DeFi - Metaverse - smart contract platform - NFT - Polygon - Ether - 

 

The RWM WisdomTree Crypto Index seeks to provide broad and diversified exposure to crypto assets, spanning layer-1 networks (e.g. payment systems, smart contract platforms), layer-2 protocols, oracle networks, crypto indexing services, decentralized finance (DeFi), and the metaverse. It is developed by Ritholtz Wealth Management and WisdomTree Investments.

 

The Index as currently constituted captures approximately 60% of the total crypto market capitalization, providing diversified exposure to the overall crypto economy while seeking to present unique growth opportunities.

 

 

 

 

22Jun2022 'RWM WisdomTree Crypto Index' - factsheet data - weights as on 16May2022 -- Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, Chainlink, etc. - DeFi - Metaverse - smart contract platform - NFT - Polygon - Ether - 

 

22Nov2021 Launch of 'RWM WisdomTree Crypto Index' - crypto assets - crypto currencies - Bitcoin - DeFi - Metaverse - smart contract platform - NFT - Polygon - Ether - 

02Dec2021 BSE - The IPO of Star Health and Allied Insurance Co Ltd closed on 02Dec2021, but it was not fully subscribed. It subscribed for only 0.79 times overall, though retail investor portion subscribed for 1.03 times.

 

02Dec2021 Screener - Infrastructure Investment Trust (InvIT) companies - Powergrid InvIT, India Grid Trust and IRB InvIT Fund 

30Nov2021 BigThink - Why technology often fails to replicate the “natural services” of ecosystems - Excerpts from Rob Dunn's new book "A Natural History of the Future: What the Laws of Biology Tell Us about the Destiny of the Human Species" #Nature

Spread Privacy 14Sep2017 - How to Live Without Google: Alternatives That Protect Your Privacy - alternatives are Vimeo, iOS, Apple Maps, Firefox, Wordpress, FaceTime, Signal, etc.

30Nov2021 FT Fed Chair Jerome Powell signals support for quicker ‘taper’ of Fed’s bond-buying scheme 

Powell's remarks from the above article: “The economy is very strong and inflationary pressures are high,” he said. “It is therefore appropriate in my view to consider wrapping up the taper of our asset purchases . . . perhaps a few months sooner.”

While Powell said he still expects inflation to abate “significantly” over the next year as supply and demand imbalances are resolved, he said it was no longer appropriate to describe price pressures as “transitory”.

“I think it’s probably a good time to retire that word and try to explain more clearly what we mean,” said Powell. 

28Sep2022 InCred - Multicap PF Aug2022 and Healthcare PF  Aug2022 >

10Aug2022 InCred - Multicap PF Jul2022 and Healthcare PF  Jul2022 > 

 

20Jul2022 InCred - Multicap PF Jun2022 and Healthcare PF  Jun2022 > 

 

12Jun2022 InCred - Multicap PF May2022 and Healthcare PF  > 

26Apr2022 InCred - Multicap PF Mar2022 and Healthcare PF  >

26Apr2022 InCred - Indian API opportunity - pharma sector - Indian API industry - case stury of Neuland Labs -

09Feb2022 InCred Multicap PF Dec2021 PDF and Healthcare PF Dec2021 PDF >

 

29Nov2021 InCred PMS downloads - Anshu Jain (ex-Deutsche Bank) - Aditya Khemka -  InCred Healthcare PF Oct2021 - InCred Multicap PF Oct2021  

 

Healthcare / Pharma PF 30Nov2021 > 

 

Healthcare / Pharma PF 31Oct2021 >

Multicap PF 30Nov2021 >

 

Multicap PF 30Sep2021 >

 

Healthcare / Pharma PF 31Jul2021 >

 

29Nov2011 RBI Policy rates  RBI current rates: Policy rates / Reserve rates / exchange rates / lending - deposit rates: https://rbi.org.in/Home.aspx/GetKeywords - RBI Get Key words - repo rate - reverse repo - CRR - SLR - base rate - MCLR - call rates 

 

26Nov2021 RBI report -  RBI IWG on Ownership Guidelines and Corporate Structure for Indian Private Sector Banks - accepted recommendations - RBI says no to giving bank licenses to corporates - Bloombergquint article - see below for listed PVBs

 

27Nov2021 Listed private sector banks  - (see above for RBI report) images below - listed PVBs with promoter stake of 26% equity and above, namely, IDBI Bank, Ujjivan SFB, Equitas SFB, Fino Payments Bank, CSB Bank, Bandhan Bank, IDFC First Bank, AU SFB, Suryoday SFB and Kotak Mahindra Bank

Listed PVBs with promoter stake of less than 26% equity, namely, Karnataka Bank, South Indian Bank, Dhanalaxmi Bank, CUB, Federal Bank, ICICI Bank, Yes Bank, RBL Bank, Karur Vysya Bank, Axis Bank, DCB, IndusInd Bank and HDFC Bank.

 

Communication skills - Warren Buffett -  "If you can’t communicate, it’s like winking at a girl in the dark — nothing happens. You can have all the brainpower in the world, but you have to be able to transmit it. And the transmission is communication."

 

03Nov2021 Una Galani - crypto assets - crypto currencies - "The really wild thing is that crypto adverts run side-by-side with adverts for regulated products like mutual funds. But adverts for mutual funds have more obvious and audible risk disclaimers, so it ends up appearing as if mutual fund investments are riskier than trading crypto!"

 

05Nov2021 NeckarValue - Tweet - Paul Tudor Jones,  George Soros, Steinhardt, Bruce Kovner, Julian Robertson, etc.

 

17Nov2021 Anish Moonka - The Business Model of Indian Hospitals Simplified

 

31Jan2022 Faheem Younus, MD - Home COVID treatment in resource-limited countries >

 

Ibuprofen 400mg 3 times a day for 3-5 days (acetaminophen or paracetamol is fine too) 

 

Oxymetazoline nasal spray twice a day for 3 days (for runny nose) 

 

Steam inhalation 2-3 times a day with Vicks Vaporub 

 

Lots of sleep

 

23Nov2021 Faheem Younus, MD -  COVID Treatments Summary: 

 

WHAT DOESN’T WORK - Convalescent plasma - HCQ/Ivermectin - Eucalyptus oil - Garlic Ginger - Sana Makki - Remdesivir - Antibiotics - Ayurveda 

 

WHAT WORKS - Paxlovid - Anticoags - Molnupiravir - Monoclonal Abs - Dexamethasone - Tocilizumab/Baricitinib

 

Faheem Younus, MD, 11Aug2021 - Home COVID treatment Kit: 

 

Thermometer 

Pulse Oximeter 

Paracetamol, ibuprofen 

Oxymetazoline nasal spray 

(No antibiotics/ivermectin/steroids/zinc/vitamins needed)

 

(Immunocompromised patients and those with pulse ox <92% should immediately seek expert help/hospitalization)

 

Bizarro Comics - ESG - Environmental, Social and Governance - tweet dt 04Dec2020 on ESG Investing - cartoon - >

 

25Nov2021 NYT - The Car Key of the Future (Is Still in Your Pocket) - car keys - car fob - "Some 20th-century keys developed personalities. Volkswagen favored the switchblade key, which slid out of the fob like a shiv. Some ignition keys that were coded were usable only in a particular car. In Volvo’s new electric XC40 Recharge S.U.V., the “start” function is in the driver’s seat: with the fob in a pocket, he need only place his backside on the cushion and the motor starts. When he lifts (off the cushion, that is) the engine stops."

 

25Nov2021 WaPo - Washington Post - China and the U.S. Can’t Break Their Oil Market Codependency - #Anecdote "Great power conflict has been long been driven by energy and transport. Britain’s naval blockade in World War I turned the war in its favor by cutting Germany off from imported nitrate fertilizers, leading to widespread calorie deficits and hunger. Japan’s colonization of Manchuria and then Southeast Asia two decades later aimed to replace its previous dependence on American oil. Hitler invaded Russia in part to capture the oilfields of the Caucasus and fix the Wehrmacht’s outdated dependence on horse-power rather than motorized transport."

 

22Nov2021 Economic Times - Change the cobblestones: The need to dismantle a system stacked against working women by Vineet Nayar, former CEO of HCL Technologies - 'Shecession' - #Anecdote - "One of my favourite corporate leaders, Indra Nooyi, recently talked about how she dismantled the cobblestones pathway that led to the entry level to the PepsiCo campus in New York. The cobble stones pathway was beautiful and grand, but there were gaps between them and women employees wearing heels had to risk breaking their heels or tiptoe so that their heels did not get stuck in the holes. Nooyi also endured this for a number of years, but when she became President, she changed the structure so that women could walk more freely now."

"Design Thinking approach: A Deloitte article on how design thinking can help tackle gender bias in the workplace quoted a very interesting example of classical music - In the 1970s, fewer than 5 percent of players in the United States’ top five professional orchestras were female. By 2016, women held over 50 percent of the chairs in America’s 250 top orchestras. Many experts attributed the drastic positive change to a simple design choice: blind auditions."

01Nov2021 Fun - Apple Inc's iPhone 13 Pro looking like a three-burner gas stove (image below)

24Aug2020 - Art of Manliness -  The 35 Greatest Speeches in History - FDR, Gandhi, Churchill, JFK, Socrates, Washington, Faulkner, etc.

 

09Nov2021 video Andrew Sorkin of New York Times interviews Tim Cook of Apple -- "I own some crypto" -- "Our North Star is about privacy and secrecy" -- "All is a big word" -- "Privacy is a basic human right" -- "Intersection of technology and humanity" -- "We get zero commission on 85% of the apps" -- "We've two million apps now" -- "If one wants 'sideloading,' one can choose an Android phone" -- "We should build bridges, not pull drawbridges"

       Ted Lasso: "There's two buttons I never like to hit: that's panic and snooze."

      

       Tom Watson: "World peace through world trade." -- source 

 

Bre-X Scandal:  23Jan2015: A History Timeline - Rise and Fall of Bre-X Minerals -- gold scam in the late 1990s -- gold "deposits" at Busang river, Borneo, Indonesia - Project manager, Michael de Guzman committed suicide by jumping out of helicopter

    Another weblink on Bre-X scandal

Oct2021 IEA World Energy Outlook 2021  - PDF - Commodities - EV battery raw materials / critical minerals like, lithium, cobalt, graphite, copper, nickel, manganese, etc. - EV battery technologies - chemistries - multi-year high price rises for raw materials - smaller and concentrated critical minerals markets - (page 273) EV battery chemistries - 

 

25Nov2021 The Guardian -  EV - Battery arms race’: how China has monopolised the electric vehicle industry - Tesla's Shanghai factory - cobalt - vertical integration - supply chain - Congo - lithium-ion battery - labour laws - Amnesty International - China monopoly

Oct2021 World Bank Commodity Markets - Oct2021 PDF Commodity Markets Outlook - commodities - (pages 53 to 82) commodity producing / consuming countries for nickel, copper, crude oil, natural gas, iron ore, gold, etc. - Nov2021 Commodity Prices

29Jan2021 USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2021 - commodities - (page 51) Cobalt producing countries - (page 99) Lithium producing countries - (page 113) Nickel producing countries

 

18Nov2021 Supreme Court of India judgment copy -  WP (C) 229 of 2014 - Diary no 5445 / 2014 - NCOA of CPSE vs Union of India - Hindustan Zinc Ltd - Vedanta Ltd - Anil Agarwal - SC allows (this LiveLaw weblink includes arguments of lawyers, Harish Salve, Tushar Mehtar, etc.) Centre to sell its stake in Hindustan Zinc, but orders CBI probe into 2002 divestment - DCF method of valuation - control premium - Special Resolution and Companies Act of 2013 - (page 43 of the judgement) "Government company means 51% minimum shareholding by the government as per Section 2 (45) of the Companies Act, 2013" -

 

Related to this Hindustan Zinc case: Bar & Bench tweet thread 18Nov21 - tweet 18Jan2017 - tweet 09Oct2013 - Balco and HPCL cases - And Vedanta control premium -

 

10Nov2021 Business Standard - Phased T+1 Rollout a Win for FPIs - real transition from T+2 settlement to T+1 settlement for foreign investors will start in Dec2022 - as per SEBI latest norms bottom 100 stocks will move to T+1 settlement in Feb2022

 

09Nov2021 WSJ  The End of the GE We Knew - Breakup of General Electric into three units, namely, aviation, healthcare and power

 

08Nov2021 Value Research - Short and Sweet - #Anecdote - 'elevator pitch' - Quality guru Philip Crosby of ITT -

 

14Jul2021 Russell Napier - We are entering a time of financial repression  - Andy Haldane, the outgoing chief economist of the Bank of England wrote that for years after World War II, the Bank was effectively a think tank, and the government set interest rates.

 

 

July2021: #Anecdote - "Hair colour used to be an identifying feature on passports, as common as name and date of birth, but by the 1970s the governments of America and Britain had quietly dropped the category from such documents. Enter a hair salon today and you'll find that the chemical augmentation of your locks is referred to not as dyeing, but as 'colour correction.' Artificial is the new natural."

 

10Jun2021 Economic Times -  Assets worth Rs 3.50 lakh crore may get monetised via InvITs and REITs in one year as per ICRA - InvITs and REITs are now recognised as borrowers under the SARFAESI Act - IRDA now allows insurers to invest in debt papers of InvITs and REITs rated AA and above

nvITs and REITs now recognised as borrowers under the SARFAESI Act,

Read more at:
https://realty.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/industry/assets-worth-over-rs-3-5-trillion-may-get-monetised-via-invits-reits-in-one-year-icra/83402359

nvITs and REITs now recognised as borrowers under the SARFAESI Act

Read more at:
https://realty.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/industry/assets-worth-over-rs-3-5-trillion-may-get-monetised-via-invits-reits-in-one-year-icra/83402359

nvITs and REITs now recognised as borrowers under the SARFAESI Act

Read more at:
https://realty.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/industry/assets-worth-over-rs-3-5-trillion-may-get-monetised-via-invits-reits-in-one-year-icra/83402359

 

02Jun2021 Pratap Bhanu Mehta in Indian Express -  He argues for taxing capital gains more in India because the top 1% have made huge capital gains (from stocks and real estate) during the Pandemic period (since March 2020 till now) -- Will Modi gov't introduce, in Feb2022 Union Budget, higher capital gains or other forms of taxes to shore up their fiscal position? It may be the same is being done in the US by the Biden admin with a proposal to tax 'unrealised' capital gains of the super rich.

 

29May2021 Srinivas Kodali - Encrypt all information, not only chats but all your information - CyberSecurity 

 

21May2021 Dr Praneeth Elia - Best Tea Points in Hyderabad

 

25May2021 Anand Radhakrishna of Franklin Templeton India MF - two-step sanity check on valuations (high valuation of Asian Paints stock) - 

 

 "Two step sanity check on making investments : 

 

1) Decompose last 5 year returns into - business growth & valuation change 

 

2) Compare last 5 year growth to next 3 year expected growth and understand the difference between them 

 

example : Asian Paints"

 

18May2021 Password Manager -  1Password is good -

 

27Sep2021 Tamal Bandyopadhyay - How good is the bad bank?  - ARC - NARCL - IDRCL - The list of bad loans includes Videocon Oil Ventures, Reliance Naval Engg, Amtek Auto, Japyee Infra, Visa Steel, Lavassa, etc.

 

31Jul2020 Art of Manliness What is the little pocket on your jeans for?

 

08Oct2021 Cliff Pickover - How does a watermelon look like if you carefully peel it?

 

02Nov2021 Edwin Dorsey - Fintwit thread of threads -  about shorting, Kelly Criterion, Robinhood, Chamath, career advice, wealth creation, Financial Twitter accounts, etc.

 

01Nov2021 BSE filing - Unity Small Finance Bank Ltd (Unity SFB) commenced its operations today 

29Oct2021 Nifty Indices - For the first time, ICICI Bank dethroned HDFC Bank as the bank with the biggest weight in Nifty Private Bank index as on 29Oct2021 (month-end); though HDFC Bank remains with top weight in Nifty Bank index as on 29Oct2021

 

29Oct2021 For the first time, Apple Inc is earning USD 1 billion per day.

 

29Oct2021 MSCI GICS - Proposed changes to Global Industry Classification Standards - impact on index funds and ETFs likely after the proposal comes into effect - MSCI PDF and S&P Global

 

29Oct2021 - Today, Microsoft's market cap surpassed that of Apple Inc; and Microsoft has become the number one company by market cap in the US. Microsoft's market cap is USD 2.49 trillion and that of Apple is USD 2.48 trillion.

 

Nifty 50 monthly returns (Jan1994 to Oct2021) - Capital Mind 

 

Electric vehicle (EV) related stocks? - Tata Elxsi, Bosch Ltd, Happiest Minds, Zensar Technologies, Persistent Systems, Cyient, Oracle, Affle India, Keltron Tech and Saksoft?

 

Flame Investment Lab - Resources - Investing - Market veterans, like, Sanjoy Bhattacharya, Bharat Shah, Kenneth Andrade, Parag Parikh, Sanjay Bakshi and others  

29Oct2021 Edelweiss report on Jubilant Ingrevia

27Oct2021 IiAS Advisosry - A Primer on Indian Capitalism written by Saurabh Mukherjea - Book Extract

 

27Oct2021 SEBI circular - Guiding Principles for bringing uniformity in Benchmarks of Mutual Fund Schemes

 

26Oct2021 Naval - Health, wealth, wisdom and deterrrents 

 

25Oct2021 CNBC TV18 - video on REITs - how are REITs taxed in India? - investing metrics of a REIT  - WALE or weighted average lease expiry - 

  

20Aug2022 SGB - How does RBI decide SGB issue price? - sovereign gold bonds - IBJA rates - 

 

21Mar2022 SGB tool -  Sovereign Gold Bond (SGB) discount calculator - buy SGB at discount - SGB Analyser - by Amit Wani - 

 

13Apr2022 RBI press release - Sovereign Gold Bond (SGB) Scheme Calendar for premature redemption during April - September 2022

22Oct2021 RBI Notification - Govt of India's Sovereign Gold Bond (SGB) Scheme - Consolidated Procedural Guidelines - this circular supersedes all procedural guidelines issued till now 

 

09Sep2021 RBI press release - Sovereign Gold Bond (SGB) Scheme - Redressal of customer complaints 

 
RBI weblink on SGB Notifications, press releases, FAQs, forms, etc. - Swarna Bharat

RBI FAQs on SGB - updated as on 04Feb2019

Tweets on SGB since 15Sep2015 till now

 

30Sep2021 AMFI monthly data PDF - Debt funds AUM and their SEBI definition > see image below > 

 

20Oct2021 CNBC - FDA clears Moderna and J&J Covid vaccine boosters, allows ‘mix and match’ shots - COVID19 - Corona virus - 

 

19Oct2021 The Verge -  Facebook is rebranding with a new name - The term 'metaverse' was coined originally by sci-fi novelist Neal Stephenson to describe a virtual world people escape to from a dystopian, real world.

 

19Oct2021 Coindesk - ProShares Bitcoin Futures ETF ‘BITO’ Rises in Debut - Bitcoin Futures ETF starts trading on NYSE - ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF - BITO is the first Bitcoin-linked ETF - 

 

18Oct2021 Nordic Business Forum - video - The Illusion of Smart Money - Webinar with Aswath Damodaran - Active mutual fund managers lose money - #Investing 

 

16Oct2021 SEC Approves Bitcoin ETF, Opening Crypto to Wider Investor Base - ProShares is set to launch trading of its bitcoin futures ETF next week.

10Oct2021 SEC Approves Volt Equity’s Crypto Stock ETF - The fund, which will not hold cryptocurrencies directly, will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker BTCR.

12Oct2021 Tata Motors Investor Presentation - Growth drivers of electric vehicle #EV industry - ecosystem provided by Tata UniEVerse (Tata group of companies) >

 

12Oct2021 Tata Motors to raise $1 billion in its Passenger Electric Vehicle business at a valuation of upto $9.1 billion from TPG Rise Climate- #EV -- Business Standard 

 

12Oct2021 According to a stock exchange filing by Centrum Capital Ltd, Reserve Bank of India issues a small finance bank (SFB) license to Unity Small Finance Bank, a step-down subsidiary of  Centrum Capital Ltd -- Centrum (executive chairman Jaspal Bindra) and BharatPe (Resilient Innovations Pvt Ltd) set to create India's first digital SFB -- #FinTech

11Oct2021 TaxGuru - Govt of India blocks input tax credit (ITC) of Rs 6.14 lakh crore under Rule 86A as per RTI revelation - But the amount is disputed, strangely, by a private GSTN agency on Twitter on 13Oct2021 - #GST 

11Oct2022 video (though it was aired actually on 11Oct2022, I watched this video only on 29Nov2022 -- three weeks after FTX bankruptcy erupted) Legendary short seller Marc Cohodes talks to Keith McCullough of Hedgeye -- Cohodes talked to McCullough calling FTX a scam (FTX was founded by Sam Bankman-Fried) -- SBF -

- Hedgeye Investing Summit Fall 2022 (11Oct2022)

- weblink of Hedgeye article and video -- skip to 34.40 minutes to listen to Cohodes talk about FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried - FTX is a scam, "Dirty & Rotten to the Core" - crypto - cryptocurrency - crypto assets - cryptocurrencies - crypto winter - crypto scam -

 

02Jul2019 video Legendary short seller Marc Cohodes talks to Grant Williams, Real Vision Finance  -- #Anecdote Marc Cohodes talks about his 'wig indicator' (1:25" to 1:50" in the video) which gave him success 13 out of 14 times whereby he shorts companies whose CEOs wear wigs -- 23Feb2021 Bloomberg -- CEO Who Blamed His Cancer on Short Sellers Gets a Year in Prison - Pete Petit of MiMedx

 

11Oct2021 Rajeev Thakkar's note to unitholders of PPFAS mutual fund schemes 

 

11Oct2021 Business Standard: Moody's improved outlook on India sovereign rating to 'stable' > Its ratings from 1988 till now >

 

08Oct2021 PIB press release: Govt of India approves Air India disinvestment - privatisation - Tata Sons' SPV Talace Pvt Ltd wins bid for Air India - see image below >

 

07Oct2021 The Cost of Capital Survey 2021 - NSE and EY -  India's average cost of equity is 14% in 2021 versus 15% in 2017 -- 

 

How does India Inc decide its cost of capital?

 

07Oct2021 NSE Market Pulse: asset return matrix - global asset classes > 

07Oct2021 NSE Market Pulse Sep2021 - share of individual investors' participation in cash market segment of NSE grew from 33% in FY 2015-16 to 44% in FY 2021-22 (till 31Aug2021) >

 

06Oct2021 India Total Installed Power Generation Capacity as on 31Aug2021 (data from National Power Portal or NPP):  (GW is gigawatt) > (coal shortage in India) (Coal India Ltd)

 

Thermal (coal) 209 GW  (54% of total)

Thermal (diesel) 25 GW (6%)

Nuclear 7 GW (2%)

Hydro 46 GW (12%)

Renewables (solar) 45 GW (12%)

Renewables (wind) 40 GW (10%)

Renewables (bio-energy) 11 GW (3%)

Renewables (small hydro) 5 GW (1%)

Total 388 GW (100%) 

 

Of the total, private sector's total is 187 GW or 48%.

BSE market cap as on 30Sep2021 is Rs 259.87 lakh crore 

24Sep2021 CCI PR - Competition Commission of India penalises beer companies for cartelisation  -- United Breweries (Rs 750 crore penalty); Carlberg India Pvt Ltd (Rs 120 crore) and Anheuser Busch InBev (nil penalty) -

23Sep2021 Value Research - CAMS and KFintech, the two biggest RTAs in India, have jointly developed MF Central MFCentral with the support of depositories and AMFI, as a unified hub for investors - CAS - MFCentral FAQs - mutual fund portfolio all at one place - SEBI circular 26Jul2021 for a common industry platform - MF services - mutual fund statement -

 

 23Sep2021 Business Standard - Holcim losing market share - ACC and Ambuja Cements - old article on Cash Stripping by Swiss cement giant Holcim -

 

22Sep2021 Business Standard - MP Birla Group companies set for a showdown - Priyamvada Birla will - Lodha - Birla Corp, Birla Cable, Vindhya Telelinks and Universal Cables - 

 

21Sep2021 DICGC - DICGC (Amendment) Act, 2021– Section 18 A – Payment to Depositors of Insured Banks - deposit insurance - DICGC to pay insured amounts up to Rs 5 lakh within 90 days -

21Sep2021 RBI announces rate of interest on Government of India Floating Rate Bonds, 2033: The rate of interest on Government of India Floating Rate Bonds, 2033 (GOI FRB 2033) applicable for the half year September 22, 2021 to March 21, 2022 shall be 4.62 percent per annum.

It may be recalled that FRB, 2033 will carry a coupon, which will have a Base rate equivalent to the average of the Weighted Average Yield (WAY) of last 3 auctions of 182 Day T-Bills, plus a fixed spread (1.22%). Old relevant weblinks are here, here and here. The total outstanding of FRB 2033 (maturing 22Sep2033) is Rs 149,482 crore, as on 21Sep2021.

Floating rate bonds are auctioned by Reserve Bank of India based on spread.

20Sep2021 Moneycontrol - Kotak Mahindra Bank to acquire 9.9% stake in KFin Technologies Pvt Ltd (formerly Karvy) at a price of Rs 310 crore - This can be seen as a strategic alliance between traditional banks, financial services companies and Fintech - 

In another instance of such an alliance, HDFC Bank Ltd on 20Sep2021 partnered with Paytm to issue co-branded credit cards.

For a few years, Amazon India is in alliance with ICICI Bank and issues co-branded credit card called Amazon Pay ICICI Bank Credit Card

 

16Sep2021 - Livemint - NARCL (National Asset Reconstruction Company Ltd) or "Bad bank" details announced. What it means, how it works - also BloombergQuint 

 

16Sep2021 Bloombergquint Bad Bank May Not Move The Needle Much - an example of the mechanism involved - 15% upfront cash and 85% in the form of security receipts (SRs)

15Sep2021 RBI press release - RBI releases Handbook of Statistics on the Indian Economy 2020-21 - RBI data - HBIE - yearly release

 

15Sep2021 - Business Standard - smallcase Technologies, Bangalore - Smallcases make big splashes among young investors - Investing fads - WealthDesk -

NARCL: Government To Back Bad Bank With Rs 30,600 Crore In Guarantees

Read more at: https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/government-to-back-bad-bank-with-rs-30600-crore-in-guarantees
Copyright © BloombergQuint

NARCL: Government To Back Bad Bank With Rs 30,600 Crore In Guarantees

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Copyright © BloombergQuint

NARCL: Government To Back Bad Bank With Rs 30,600 Crore In Guarantees

Read more at: https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/government-to-back-bad-bank-with-rs-30600-crore-in-guarantees
Copyright © BloombergQuint

NARCL: Government To Back Bad Bank With Rs 30,600 Crore In Guarantees

Read more at: https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/government-to-back-bad-bank-with-rs-30600-crore-in-guarantees
Copyright © BloombergQuint

NARCL: Government To Back Bad Bank With Rs 30,600 Crore In Guarantees

Read more at: https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/government-to-back-bad-bank-with-rs-30600-crore-in-guarantees
Copyright © BloombergQuint

NARCL: Government To Back Bad Bank With Rs 30,600 Crore In Guarantees

Read more at: https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/government-to-back-bad-bank-with-rs-30600-crore-in-guarantees
Copyright © BloombergQuint

 

15Sep2021 ET - Govt sops come and go; cash-burn business is not the way ahead: Rajiv Bajaj of Bajaj Auto - Electric Vehicle - EV - high taxes on two wheelers, like, 28% GST - PLI scheme - flex fuels (like CNG, etc.) - support CNG adoption - "We have to build business on cash flow basis not on cash burn," says Rajiv Bajaj.  

14Sep2021 RBI PR - India and Singapore to link their Fast Payment Systems – Unified Payments Interface and PayNow - UPI - MAS - 

09Sep2021 Hindustan Unilever / HUL - Annual Investor Meet 2021 presentation - 195 pages

06Sep2021 Tamal Bandyopadyay - Ten out of 11 nationalised banks don't have a chairman and most banks don't have enough non-official members

26Aug2021 MoneyControl -  RC Bhargava of Maruti Suzuki, Venu Srinivasan of TVS Motor Company face off with govt on auto GST rate - 28% GST on two wheelers - 

 

Pepsico India inaugurates on 15Sep2021 its largest greenfield food plant in Uttar Pradesh -  "In the ‘Make and Move’ model, products manufactured are directly sold to distributors from the origin plant; instead of dispatching finished goods to mother warehouse managed by third party."

Sensex rolling returns for one-year till 20-year (1980 to Mar2021)- India ETFs

 

 Nifty 50 monthly returns (Jan1994 to Aug2021) - Capital Mind

 

Business Standard 13Sep2021:  Fintech growth is on the money - Bill Desk - PayU deal and others

 

Business Standard 13Sep2021: Most sectors fall behind despite broader market rally - sectoral performance of sectoral indices for the past two years 

 

Business Standard 13Sep2021: New investors, algos and bull market by Debashis Basu >

 

08Sep2021 RBI press release - Prompt Corrective Action Framework - UCO Bank out of PCA

04Nov2022 RBI press release: 39th Half Yearly Report on Management of Foreign Exchange Reserves: April-September, 2022 - RBI forex reserves

- RBI has got two intervention currencies - the US dollar and Euro

- Changes / movements in RBI's foreign currency assets (FCA) occur mainly due to:

1) purchase and sale of forex by RBI (daily intervention in forex markets by RBI to "smoothen volatility")

2) income from forex reserves deployed abroad

3) external aid receipts of Govt of India

4) changes on account of revaluation of assets (recent fall of Euro and British Pound versus the US dollar is one of the main reasons for the steep fall in India's forex reserves, which are denominated in US dollars -- aggressive sale of forex by RBI between Mar2022 and Aug2022 to defend Indian rupee from falling against the USD is another reason for big drawdown of forex reserves)

 

- On a balance of payments basis (i.e., excluding valuation effects), foreign exchange reserves increased by US$ 4.6 billion during April-June 2022 as compared with increase of US$ 31.9 billion during April-June 2021. Foreign exchange reserves in nominal terms (including valuation effects) decreased by US$ 18.2 billion during April-June 2022 as compared with increase of US$ 34.1 billion in the corresponding period of the preceding year.

 

- Adequacy of reserves:

 

1) At end of June 2022, foreign exchange reserves cover of imports (on balance of payments basis) declined to 10.4 months from 11.8 months at end-March 2022.

 

2) The ratio of short-term debt (original maturity) to reserves, which was 20.0 per cent at end-March 2022, increased to 22.0 per cent at end-June 2022.

 

3) The ratio of volatile capital flows (including cumulative portfolio inflows and outstanding short-term debt) to reserves increased from 66.6 per cent at end-March 2022 to 67.6 per cent at end-June 2022.

 

 

Fore more on RBI's Gold Holdings, visit blog dated 07Mar2022 (with updated charts) 

 

01Sep2021 RBI press release: General Allocation of Special Drawing Rights by the IMF - SDR holdings - RBI forex reserves -

 

Video 24Aug2021 Stanley Druckenmiller 2021 interview - USC Marshall

 

Business Standard 08Sep2021 - New-age disruptors in India mutual funds - MF assets since FY 2014-15 till now >

Value Research 06Sep2021 and 08Sep2021 - Status check of side-pocketing: Scope & scale - segregated portfolios of debt mutual funds - Out of the seven AMCs involved, Franklin and Nippon alone account for around 74 per cent of the total segregated value - Other fund houses are Aditya Birla MF, UTI MF, Tata MF, Baroda MF and PGIM. - side pockets - side pocketing -

 

Value Research 20Apr2021 - How is the money received from shut mutual funds schmes taxed?  - Franklin Templeton closed debt mutual funds - segregated portfolios - segregation - side pocketing -

"In 2018, SEBI permitted the creation of segregated portfolios or side pockets in debt funds in case the credit rating of a bond goes below investment grade. This was primarily done to protect investor interests. This way the fund is protected from the barrage of redemptions and the true investors (who take the hit) are able to benefit whenever the bad debt is recovered.

Gains on the segregated units are also taxed as capital gains. However, while calculating the same, the holding period includes the period for which the units of the main portfolio have been held. So while calculating the holding period for taxation purposes, it is the original date of acquisition (purchase) that one must consider and not the date at which the segregated portfolio is created.

Likewise, the cost of acquisition to consider while calculating gains on such units should be the cost at which the units are transferred to the segregated portfolio. This can be easily checked from your mutual fund statement. In the case of Franklin, units pertaining to a few bonds like Vodafone were transferred to the segregated portfolio at a 'Zero' value. So in such a case, the whole of the received money is taxable."

More on segregation of portfolios - VR 17Apr2020 - segregated portfolios - side pocketing -

 

Value Research 06Sep2021 - Regular updates on Franklin Templeton India's six closed debt mutual funds - Franklin Shutdown - date-wise details of Franklin Fiasco when Franklin Templeton Mutual Fund (FT) announced on 23Apr2020 the voluntary wind-up of six debt schemes.  - side pocketing - 

 

08Sep2021 - Business Standard - India Income Tax Portal 2.0 to integrate with stock exchanges to track trade deals (image enclosed) >

 

 

07Sep2021 - Morningstar India - How fees impact returns of mutual funds - over long periods higher-fee funds can eat away upto one-third of the total returns 

 

03Sep2021 Value Research Research - How expenses eat away mutual fund returns, especially in debt schemes

 

01Sep2021 Video by Aswath Damodaran - Velvet Glove, Meet Iron Fist: The China Tech Crackdown - He values Tencent, Alibaba, JD.com and Didi under three scenarios - a benevolent government, a government that is more net negative than positive (my base case) and an adversarial government, and finds Tencent and Alibaba to be "under valued", in the base case. (His spreadsheets are linked below, if you are interested).

 

Business Standard 26Aug2021:  Blackstone buys 74 per cent in Ask Group (wealth management, PMS and others) for Rs 7,400 crore - image >

 

 

 

Business Standard 26Aug2021: Employee stock options (ESOPs) and Capital Gains tax tips - image >

 

 

 

BSE filing 19Aug2021 also BBQ: HDFC Bank Ltd raises from offshore AT-1 bond issue.

 

Business Standard 18Aug2021: Naveen Jindal group, two others submit final bids for Reliance Naval - Outstanding amount is more than Rs 12,000 crore.

If the bids are accepted, the highest haircut for Reliance Naval and Engineering would amount to 97 per cent. #IBC #CIRP

 

Bloomberg 06Aug2021 - Next China: Caught Off Guard by ‘Spiritual Opium’ - China crackdown on Tech firms / stocks - Nasdaq Golden Dragon China index

 

FT 03Aug2021: Thinking Better by Marcus du Sautoy — maths’ greatest hits (On the art of the shortcut): Anecdote from this article: "In 1786, in a classroom in Braunschweig, near Hanover, a bored schoolmaster in need of a nap set his pupils the tedious task of adding up every number between 1 and 100. Before the master could even lean back in his chair, one boy strode forward and placed his slate on the front desk. Ligget se, he casually declared. There it is. And there it was: 5050. Carl Friedrich Gauss, at the age of nine, had announced his mathematical genius to the world."

 

BS 16Aug2021: Debashis Basu  - The unfairness of real estate bankruptcy resolution (IBC) 

 

 

Bloomberg Quint 16Aug2021 - Russell Napier On Lessons From The 1998 Crisis (Asian Contagion) And Why Situation Is Not Dire

 

video 15Aug2021 Aswath Damadoaran to Latha Venkatesh, CNBC TV18  

 

The Leap Blog dt 09Aug2011 Suddent rise in issuance of floater bonds by Indian corporates: 

 

BQ 15Aug2021 Ola Mobility prices its base model Electric Vehicle (scooter) at Rs 99,999 (one up on Bata price!): 

US generics price pressure impacts Indian pharma firms: Business Standard 13Aug2021 >

 

 

14Aug2021: Good to know that RBI has recently updated its RBI Bulletin (monthly) with archives from 1947-1996 (check on the extreme right corner of the page to find 'archives' page here). For example, this is the  RBI Bulletin for August 1947 (PDF form)

 

RBI buys record gold this year >

 

 

BSE clarification soothes nerves: Images from Business Standard dated 11Aug2021 > 

 28Jun2021 Tweet - Srikanth - cyber security - suspicious SMS related to banking / finance - do check Govt of India Cyber Safe website 

 

 Jun2021 presentation by Kuntal Shah (Twitter @Kuntalhshah) - India Inc Consolidation in the era of COVID-19

 

On 07Apr2021 RBI announces G-SAP (G-Sec Acquisition Programme) whereby RBI would undertake Open Market Operations (OMO) of purchasing G-Secs in secondary market. This new GS-SAP is similar to OMO. The OMOs are done without any pre-announced schedule; but G-SAP is an upfront commitment whereby RBI would declare how much of G-Secs would be purchased under the G-SAP. As part of G-SAP, RBI would buy government securities (G-Secs) to the tune of Rs 100,000 crore in the first quarter of FY 2021-22.

 

G-SAP can be seen as yield management by RBI, with the objective of keeping 10-year G-Sec benchmark yield under check and thereby keep the cost of raising government debt lower for Government of India. RBI's G-SAP is nothing but quantitative easing (QE) policy being followed by other central banks, like Bank of Japan and the US Federal Reserve for several years.

 

(please click on the image for a better view)

 

RBI governor on 04Jun2021 announces that RBI has decided to undertake OMO purchases of Rs 120,000 crore, under G-SAP 2.0 in the second quarter of FY 2021-22. 

 

18Mar2021 Jason Zweig - "They told me to buy this stock for my old age. It worked wonderfully. Within a week I was an old man!" --Eddie Cantor #Fun #Humour

October 2019: Investing in Direct plans of Indian mutual funds - Direct MF platforms available online:

(I'm not sure whether all of these FinTech apps are in existence now)

1) BSE notice 02Dec2009: Bombay Stock Exchange Platform for Allotment and Redemption of Mutual Fund units (BSE StAR MF) -- Is this a platform for direct plans?

2) 21Oct2019: (Business Line) platforms and mobile apps for investing in direct plans--Paytm, ORO Wealth, Bharosa Club, Unovest, Invezta, Groww and Clearfunds (Clearfunds is now Mobikwik).

3) 10Jan2019: Coin was launched as a direct MF platform by Zerodha in April 2017. Initially they were charging Rs 50 per month for use of Coin above Rs 25,000 of investments. Since, 24Aug2018, Zerodha's Coin waived this small fee also. Now, Coin is free of cost, claims the online platform.

Coin from Zerodha uses demat for MF investments 

 

4)10Jan2019: Direct MF platoform Wealth Trust @WealthTrust is merging with Oro Wealth (Twitter: @orowealth, website: orowealth.com).

5) 10Jan2019: MFU - MF Utilities of AMFI - MFU was launched in Jan2015, but operational since Mar2015. As per Value Research, direct plans are available through MFU. It is owned by all 30 AMCs that are part of MFU (as on 10Jan2019).

6) MF Utilities (MFU) is not a platform; it is only a system that aggregates. A platform provides decision-making information, such as performance of mutual funds, their ratings, comparison of funds, etc., to the investors and distributors signed up with it. MF Utilities doesn’t provide any such information. Its pure motive is aggregation; it does not provide investing information. 

7) 10Jan2019: Invezta @Invezta is a direct MF platform.

8) 10Jan2019: iFast Financial (@iFAST_IN) allows buying of direct MF plans (available to RIA clients only) through its platform.

9) 10Nov2018: Kuvera direct MF platform

 

 

07Aug2019 tweet - Explanatory memorandum to Union Budget - Page 3 and 4 of Finance Bill (2), 2019 presented on 05Jul2019 raising individual income tax rates (via surcharge) exorbitantly > marginal tax rates > super rich tax >

 

20Sep2019 BSE - stock investing - During market hours on 20Sep2019, India's finance minister Nirmal Sitharaman announced corporate tax rate cut (income tax paid by domestic companies) - On 20Sep2019, Sensex jumped up by 5.3 percent and on 23Sep2019 (the next trading day), Sensex rose by 2.8 percent -- in just two days, Sensex gave a spectacular return of 8.3 per cent rewarding patient / long-term investors - image >

 

 

20Sep2019 PIB press release -  Corporate tax rate (income tax paid by domestic companies) cut to 25.17 per cent effectively -  tweet dated 20 Sep2019

Finance Minister Nirmal Sitharaman on 20Sep2019 announced corporate tax rate cut - ICICI Direct report- reduction of corporate tax rate from about 34 per cent to effective 25.17 per cent inclusive of surcharge and cess - very big and bold move by Modi government - key measures -

 

 15Apr2018 tweet - HDFC MF: SEBI categorisation and rationalisaton of mutual fund plans - changes -

 

06Oct2017 SEBI circular - categorization and rationalization of mutual funds - 04Dec2017 SEBI circular - consolidation of MFs - tweet 15Apr2018 - several tweets on several dates

 

26Nov2010 SEBI circular -  interval schemes, uniform cut-off timings for liquid funds

 

19Jan2009 SEBI circular - nomenclature of liquid / liquid plus plans -

Disclosure:  I've vested interested in Indian stocks. It's safe to assume I've interest in the stocks discussed, if any.

Disclaimer: The analysis and opinion provided here are only for information purposes and should not be construed as investment advice. Investors should consult their own financial advisers before making any investments. The author is a CFA Charterholder with a vested interest in financial markets. He blogs at:

http://ramakrishnavadlamudi.blogspot.com

http://scribd.com/vrk100

 

Twitter @vrk100