'It has also outlived its initial purpose of reducing physical gold imports.'
'Consider 40% to 50% in equities, 10% in gold as a hedge, and the remaining 30% to 40% split between multi-asset funds and hybrid funds.'
Experts expect the trend to continue in the near term.
Exchange-traded currency derivatives volumes are likely to drop in view of new Reserve Bank of India (RBI) rules, casting a cloud over further participation of retail investors and proprietary traders. There are concerns that existing positions without any underlying exposure will need to be liquidated. Also, weighed down by dollar demand from local oil companies and weakness in its Asian peers, the rupee on Wednesday (April 3) ended at a new closing low of 83.44 versus the US currency.
John Bogle figured that cheap mutual funds, which just mirrored indices with little tracking error, would be a useful vehicle for wealth creation, recalls Devangshu Datta.
Reliance Industries, construction major L&T and IRB Infrastructure are some of the top companies that have used an infrastructure investment trust structure to reduce part of their debt and generate returns for their investors. Earlier this month, IRB Infrastructure InvIT was listed on the National Stock Exchange, giving its investors an option to exit by selling their units. The listing came within months of the Securities and Exchange Board of India's (Sebi's) guidelines for conversion of private unlisted InvITs into listed ones were issued.
The government will this week sell up to 1.5 per cent of its stake in the country's top oil and gas producer ONGC to raise about Rs 3,000 crore. The Offer For Sale (OFS) by the government will be open on March 30 and 31, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) said in a stock exchange filing on Tuesday. "The promoter (the government) proposes to sell up to 94,352,094 equity shares of the company, (representing 0.75 per cent of the total paid-up equity share capital of the company) on March 30, 2022 (to non-retail investors) and on March 31, 2022 (to retail investors) with an option to additionally sell 94,352,094 equity shares (in case of oversubscription)," it said.
Foreign portfolio investors' (FPIs') shareholding in NSE-listed companies fell 51 basis points sequentially to 17.68 per cent in the quarter ended March 31, 2024, according to data compiled by PRIME Database. This is the lowest FPI shareholding since December 2012. From the recent peak of 21.21 per cent at the end of December 2020, FPI shareholding is down 353 basis points.
The newest entrant to the Rs 46-trillion mutual fund (MF) space - Zerodha - plans to focus strictly on the low-cost passive segment and offer its products solely through the commission-free digital route, as it aims to replicate its broking success in the MF space. "We will offer an array of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and index funds that would help investors take varied exposures and build portfolios based on their financial needs and risk tolerance. "Zerodha Fund House (FH) products will be exclusively distributed online and available as direct plans to engage directly with individual investors and consumers, taking advantage of the pronounced shift from physical to digital interactions," said Vishal Jain, chief executive officer, Zerodha FH.
India's e-commerce market alone is projected to reach $200 billion by 2026, making it a prime industry for ambitious entrepreneurs, explains rediffGURU Harsh Bharwani.
Share prices of Nestle India, Asian Paints, Bandhan Bank, Tata Technologies, AU Small Finance Bank and Avenue Supermarts, all a part of the BSE 500 index, have hit their respective 52-week lows on the BSE in Thursday's intra-day trade after a sharp correction in the equity markets.
Driven by addition in equity fund folios, mutual fund houses have registered a rise of over 3.5 lakh investor accounts in the first eight months of the ongoing 2014-15 fiscal.
The Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) has granted an interim stay on a Sebi order that slapped a penalty of Rs 2 crore on Yes Bank's former MD Rana Kapoor in a case of mis-selling the private sector lender's AT1 bonds. Kapoor has been in jail since March 2020 in connection with the DHFL money laundering case. The interim relief came after capital markets regulator Sebi in July issued a demand notice to Kapoor, warning arrest and attachment of his assets over non-payment of the fine of Rs 2 crore, along with the interest.
The current spurt in the stock market is on account of strong fundamentals and robust corporate earnings and retail investors can look for buying opportunities to accumulate quality stocks, experts said.
Markets regulator Sebi on Monday imposed a penalty of Rs 25 crore on Yes Bank in the matter of misselling the lender's AT-1 bonds few years ago. Besides, the watchdog has imposed a fine of Rs 1 crore on Vivek Kanwar, who was the head of the private wealth management team, and Rs 50 lakh each on Ashish Nasa and Jasjit Singh Banga. The two individuals were part of the private wealth management team at the time of violation. They need to pay the penalty within 45 days, Sebi said in its order.
Domestic investors are tightening their grip on the ownership of listed companies. The gap between the shareholding of domestic institutional investors (DIIs) and foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) narrowed to 13.11 percentage points at the end of the September 2023 quarter. At the peak, the gap was nearly 50 percentage points in March 2015, according to an analysis by Prime Database, a leading provider of data on the capital market.
During 2013-14, the number of investor folios for equity schemes fell by 40 lakh.
Retail investors now own a bigger slice of small-cap companies than a couple of years earlier, attributable to their growing conviction in mutual fund (MF) schemes focused on this space. Data from Capitaline shows MFs' average holding in the National Stock Exchange Nifty Smallcap 250 rising to 8.67 per cent, from 7.67 per cent in the past two financial years, with the number of companies with over 20 per cent MF holdings, rising from 15 to 24. At the end of May, the top five small-cap firms with the highest MF holdings were Carborundum Universal, Blue Star, Cyient, Gujarat State Petronet, and Cholamandalam Finance.
The Reserve Bank of India's retail direct scheme is off to a good start but the central bank itself sees it as an additional avenue and not an alternative to the existing one. Still, a reasonable expectation is to have at least 100,000 investors within a month of it being operational, and that could be well under way, if the latest trend is to sustain. The registration in the retail direct platform has crossed 35,000.
Markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi's) measures to curb speculative activity in the Rs 450-trillion-a-day futures and options (F&O) market is not a case of "throwing the baby out with the bathwater," whole-time member (WTM) Ananth Narayan said on Friday. "As a regulator, we are conscious that we must not throw the baby out with the bathwater. "When it comes to frenzied trading in options nearing expiry, however, it is difficult to see any baby in this bathwater," he said while delivering his address at the 21st FICCI Annual Capital Markets Conference.
'Sell in May, go away' is a popular market adage. But 'Don't sell any new shares in May' is the best kept secret of Dalal Street that's set to break. Sample this: the last four General Election election cycles starting 2004 have not seen a single initial public offering (IPO) launch during the month of May.
Shrinking inflows and surging outflows on account of profit-booking has curtailed mutual fund (MF) investments in equities since April. The total investments made by equity MFs during the first three months of 2023-24 stands at just Rs 2,980 crore, compared with an average monthly investment of Rs 14,500 crore in 2022-23, reveals data from the Securities and Exchange Board of India. "We are seeing signs of moderation in non-systematic investment plan (SIP) contribution, which has impacted domestic fund inflows in recent months to some extent," says Kunal Vora, head-India equity research, BNP Paribas.
The initial public offerings (IPOs) by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) hit a new high in 2023-2024 (FY24). In this financial year, data from the Prime Database showed that 190 companies raised Rs 5,579 crore through the SME IPO route. This financial year's tally bettered the fundraising in the previous financial year when 125 companies raised Rs 2,235 crore.
The eighth Budget of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman continued to focus on 'GYAN' (Garib, Youth, Annadata, Nari) to maintain a consistent and coherent strategy initiated over the years in pursuing the government's vision for Viksit Bharat. The approach, characterised by incremental yet impactful steps, aims to create a compounding effect over time.
Before considering reducing the freedom of private investors in the derivatives market, we need to check if the maladies in markets elsewhere exist in India, says Susan Thomas.
Although net inflows into equity mutual funds deteriorated month-on-month (M-o-M) in March 2024 to Rs 22,576 crore (excluding Hybrid), down 15 per cent M-o-M (up 12 per cent Y-o-Y), asset management companies (AMCs) had a great year with robust growth in assets under management (AUMs). AMCs are likely to report strong PAT growth (30-40 per cent Y-o-Y) in Q4FY24 on the back of AUM growth. In Q4FY24, domestic mutual fund (MF) industry's quarterly average AUM grew by 34 per cent Y-o-Y and 10 per cent quarter-on-quarter (Q-o-Q) to Rs 54 trillion ($652 billion).
French energy giant TotalEnergies SE on Monday said it will make no new financial contribution as part of its investments in Adani group companies till the Indian firm's founder is cleared of bribery charges. The energy giant said it was not aware of the investigation into the alleged corruption. TotalEnergies is one of the biggest foreign investors in billionaire Gautam Adani's business empire and had previously taken stakes in the group's renewable energy venture Adani Green Energy Ltd (AEGL) and city gas unit Adani Total Gas Ltd (ATGL).
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will meet top executives of asset reconstruction companies (ARCs) on Friday to take stock of the sector. During the meeting, ARCs will also seek clarity from the regulator on bank borrowing. While there is no regulatory ban in place, ARC sources said banks often refuse funding.
Insurance behemoth LIC on Tuesday said it has garnered a little over Rs 5,627 crore from anchor investors led primarily by domestic institutions ahead of its mega initial public offering (IPO). Anchor Investors' (AIs) portion (5,92,96,853 equity shares) was subscribed at Rs 949 per equity share, the insurer said in an early morning filing to exchanges. Out of the allocation of about 5.9 crore shares to AIs, 4.2 crore shares (71.12 per cent) were allocated to 15 domestic mutual funds through 99 schemes, the filing said.
A new generation of investors has taken to stock trading on mobile phones with a renewed zeal, driven mainly by social changes after the Covid-19 pandemic breakout. The proportion of the cash market turnover ascribed to mobile phones has jumped from 5.3 per cent in June 2019 to 18.7 per cent in June this year, reveals BSE data. The share of mobile trading on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) for June this year stood at 19.5 per cent.
The dealers operating in the space have jumped nearly three times over the past two years.
The recent blip in housing sales on a quarter-on-quarter (Q-o-Q) basis should not worry investors as the long-term prospects of real estate stocks remain on a strong foundation, according to analysts. In the first half of the calendar year 2024 (H1CY24), realty stocks surged up to 104 per cent. This sharp run should be used to book partial profit in related stocks, suggested Deepak Jasani, head of retail research at HDFC Securities.
Food delivery platform Zomato's initial public offering was oversubscribed on the opening day on Wednesday with retail investors bidding for 2.7 times the number of shares reserved for them. The offer received bids for 75.60 crore equity shares against an IPO size of 71.92 crore, stock exchange data showed. Retail investors sought 2.69 times the portion reserved for them. Against 12.95 crore shares reserved for retail individual investors, 34.88 crore shares were bid by 1700 hours.
The number of dematerialised (demat) accounts - required to hold shares and other securities in electronics format - crossed the 150-million mark for the first time in March. In March, 3.12 million new demat accounts were added despite a spike in market volatility, taking the total count to 151.4 million. The milestone has come 19 months after the total number of demat accounts hit the 100-million mark, a sign that more domestic households are taking to direct equity investing.
This year's tally is the second best ever after 2022 when 16 firms raised Rs 40,311 crore, led by LIC's biggest-ever IPO.
If you are a retail investor, you can allocate a portion of the portfolio to the medium- to long-term debt fund category instead of gilt funds.
'We emphasise the importance of not basing investment decisions solely on electoral outcomes.' 'Instead, focusing on investing in high-quality businesses capable of prospering regardless of the political landscape is paramount.'
At a time when the role of corporate boards is once again under the scanner, independent directors on the Paytm Payments Bank board have indicated that red flags were raised over regulatory issues but they may have been late in doing so. "As independent directors, we asked questions and monitored responses to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Many changes were made on compliances. "Obviously, in retrospect, it was not found to be enough," said one of the independent directors on the condition of anonymity.
'The markets could shrug off demonetisation as a one-off extraordinary period.'
Gland Pharma, promoted by China's Fosun, has extended its gains, is up 40 per cent since its listing.
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