Investments include all types of asset classes including traditional or alternatives.
India has been wooing foreign investments, both directly as foreign direct investments (FDI) into companies as well as indirectly as ‘foreign institutional investors’ (FIIs) or ‘foreign portfolio investors’ (FPIs) into its capital markets and alternative investment funds (AIFs). FIIs already hold a significant portion of India’s listed equity market, affecting daily market fluctuations. However, the
A share buyback means a company buys their own shares from the market when they want to reduce their number of shares available in the open market. Share buyback in India – legal provisions In India, buyback of listed shares was permitted by the Companies (Amendment) Act, 1999 by the insertion of Sections 77A, 77AA
Global markets are made up of dozens of asset classes and millions of individual securities, making it challenging to understand what really matters for your portfolio. But, there are a few important drivers that can help explain returns across asset classes. These ‘factors’ are broad, persistent drivers of return that are critical to helping investors
Investors see lists of ‘top performing’ mutual funds that have performed well over both long-term and short-term horizons. But will they do so in the future? Researchers believe that good mutual funds have clearly stated investment styles that specify whether the fund manager will invest in large or small companies, whether those companies exhibit growth or value characteristics etc. We
What are DVRs? Dual Class Shares (DCS) or shares with Differential Voting Right (DVR) as popularly known in India, simply mean that a company has issued more than one class of stocks with different voting rights. In other words, DVRs are shares that give the holder different voting rights compared to someone who owns ordinary
The Indian asset and wealth management industry laments the lack of liquidity in ETFs, encouraging investors to buy passive funds instead. But what is liquidity and does it matter? In the recent past, two papers have been issued to address this topic – MMI’s founder, Hansi Mehrotra, arranged a panel discussion through the CFA Society
Cate Ambrose talks about EMPEA and its functions, primarily that it is a membership organisation of investors, PE investors, VC investors and institutional investors. She also talks about the focus areas of the organisation, Asia being one of the main areas for 2020. She goes on to talking about her interest in India as a
Recent discussion amongst leading early stage VC investors on the Indian environment, including on ethics and corporate governance Speakers: Nishith Desai Founder, Nishith Desai Associates Harshita.Srivastava Leader, Nishith Desai Associates Priya Rajan Managing Director, Global Gateway, Silicon Valley Bank Sandeep Singhal Managing Director, Nexus Venture Partners Ritu Verma Founder & Managing Partner, Ankur Capital Ashish
Vinit Goenka is an Author, Member-Governing Council-CRIS,Ministry of Railways; Fmr Member-IT Taskforce, Ministry of Shipping, Road Transport & Highways. Goenka is on of the co-authors of the book ‘Data Sovereignty-The Pursuit of Supremacy’ and in this video he talks about ‘Data Sovereignty’, why it is important and why there is an urgent need for data
Recently, I was invited to participate in a panel discussion on the ‘Art & Science of Stockpicking’. I was fascinated by the topic because I had studied both art and science (actually literature and biology) at undergraduate level and then had chosen finance as a career. I had researched investing somewhat (remember this was 25
In this second part of a two-part series, Raoul Pal focuses on the growth of India’s digital infrastructure and the foreign direct investment that is driving this technological change. But is everyone going to be included in the revolution, or will rural regions remain marginalized? Change is happening and at a breakneck speed, but is
In this first part of a two-part series on India, Raoul Pal examines whether India has the potential to become the best macro investment of the next 20 years. The country has a young and dynamic population, and a government that wants to tap into this demographic dividend with an ambitious plan to grow its
The Indian media has been discussing SEBI’s circular on categorisation and rationalisation of mutual funds ever since it came out in October 2017. I had written about the need for better fund classifications last year, so I didn’t comment further. But the news that AMFI has asked SEBI to reconsider has prompted me to share
Modern or mean-variance portfolio theory (MPT) is an important financial concept. But it has little practical value for retail investors when it to comes to asset allocation. Recently, goals-based investing has grown popular with both financial advisers and robo-advice tools. Financial advisers continue to apply an ‘”asset allocation overlay” check to ensure goals-based portfolios are
That’s the question investors should ask when assessing portfolio risk, rather than focusing on volatility. Speaking at a speaker event organised by Indian Association of Investment Professionals (IAIP), Raj Manghani, the Managing Director – Financial Analytics for MSCI, explained scenario analysis and stress testing. Testing the ability of a portfolio to withstand shocks in liquidity, markets and
Investment decisions rely on performance of funds universe including that of the median and various quartiles. Hence, the universe category definitions and classifications are very important. Unfortunately, AMCs have multiple funds in the same category with significant dispersion in returns. To make it worse, leading rating houses have different classification methodologies resulting in different classifications.
I love watching cooking shows. It doesn’t matter that I don’t cook. I watch for enjoyment sake, and perhaps for the comfort of knowing that in a cooking emergency, I will be able to put something together. One concept that I always get fascinated by is that of ‘deconstructed’. Chefs separate or deconstruct the ingredients
The active versus passive debate rages on. The passive camp points out that active funds, in general, don’t do what they are supposed to do – outperform the passive benchmark. They charge high annual management fees, even in the years they underperform. They encourage intermediaries to charge fees or commissions to select amongst them (or
There are many brilliant books on stock picking, from simple beginners’ guides to classic textbooks like Ben Graham’s Security Analysis and The Intelligent Investor. I could find only one credible book on mutual funds: John Bogle’s Common Sense on Mutual Funds. Bogle’s advice? Investors should put their money in index funds. A number of finance luminaries — Warren Buffett,
When people hear the leader of a country comment on how a credit rating agency should rate its debt, they realise credit ratings are important. When they read about the role of credit ratings in the global financial crisis, they get angry about the finance industry being responsible for their misery, but figure they must
Everyone in finance would know about the efficient frontier… it’s a concept from Modern Portfolio Theory put forward by Harry Markowitz in the 1950s. So Markowitz is like God in the world of portfolio management. I was always curious about how Markowitz invests his own portfolio. Imagine my delight when I found the answer in
Like in many other markets, the mutual fund industry the world over seems to have a dazzling choice of products, but with the top few dominating assets under management and inflows. In the US, there are more funds than stocks. Even in a nascent market like India, there are more than 1,000 choices, and that’s
What kind of people make good fund managers? While everyone should be interested in this question, there is surprisingly little research on this topic. Dr Jack Gray talks to Hansi Mehrotra about his efforts and findings. While the general perception may be that investments is about numbers, investment professionals everywhere agree that money management is
Subhankar Mitra of Jones Lang LaSalle explains the basic methodologies used for real estate valuations in India. Valuations are very important in any private equity/real estate investing not only while buying and selling but also for ongoing reporting. Hence, it’s important to understand how valuations work in India. 1. What qualifications does one need to
Being a professor in risk management, Professor Frank Ashe had to explain the biggest risk event in recent history – the global financial crisis. He went back to basics to understand the genesis of the credit bubble, in the process discovering Modern Monetary Theory and how government deficits are not as bad as people think.
Credit rating agencies have been criticized for their role in the 2007 sub-prime crisis, which led to the global financial crisis, but it wasn’t until a recent lawsuit exposed their internal emails that it became clear to what extent they were responsible. While the global financial crisis can’t be blamed on any one in particular,
The United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment now claims over 550 signatories with more than USD 18 trillion in assets. UNPRI provides a framework for institutional investors to integrate environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors into investment processes. Also, the International Finance Corporation has sponsored a study on the prevalence of RI in emerging markets.