Newsletter

Dear Reader, We are not going to bore you with yet another post on Jane Street. Our job is to keep an eye out for things that impact your wealth and that requires filtering out the noise. In case you want to read our views on why F&O is a bad idea, you can read our older blog here. Markets have been on a downtrend in India since our last newsletter on 28th June where we pointed to elevated valuations. The critical earnings season has just started. The markets had run up in a

Dear Reader, In our last newsletter, we touched upon what might provide an up move to the Indian equity markets - tariff resolution or another GDP surprise. The somewhat visible thaw in India-US trade relations led to a small hope led up move in Nifty +2.26%. NASDAQ 100 continued to outperform with gains of +3.44%. The rally in US stocks is clearly led by AI - those are the stocks gaining massive market capitalization and investments continue to flow there. Some analysts have

Dear Reader, The markets witnessed the biggest drop in weeks and have retracted to Oct ’25 levels. Nifty is below the 200 DMA signalling short term weakness. FIIs have been net sellers, Q3 results have been tepid, rupee has plunged to fresh lows, tariff wars have wiped off ₹16 lakh crores from the market capitalisation. Gold (~17%) and silver (~50%), have soared higher in the last one month. Geopolitical tensions - from Venezuela and Greenland to Iran and diplomatic brinkmans

Dear Reader, If the first week of the year is any indication, 2026 will reward preparation far more than prediction. Nifty 500 gained ~1% in the first two days of the new year, and then fell 2.62% this week. This early volatility is not an anomaly - it is a continuation and likely a preview. The year ahead will test both portfolios and patience. The Indian macroeconomic situation remains somewhat strong - helped by government action in cutting taxes (both direct and indirect)

Dear Reader, As 2025 comes to a close, we thought a quick retrospective was in order. Here is a snapshot of how various asset classes that we invest in performed this year. While silver was the standout performer, all asset classes other than Indian equities demonstrated above average returns! Here’s a set of one liners that capture how the markets played out this year: 1. Interest Rates stayed higher for longer. 2. The Indian economy slowed down, prompting government efforts

Dear Reader, This week, the Rupee’s sharp move to 90 against the US Dollar understandably caused anxiety. Most financial outlets have covered the immediate triggers - FII outflows, stalled US trade discussions and a widening trade deficit. Imports continue to outpace exports, and gold demand has surged again, all of which increase demand for the USD relative to the INR. For much of the post-Covid period, we saw massive foreign inflows and that helped build the RBI’s dollar wa

Dear Reader, Warren Buffett’s famous Rule No. 1 - never lose money - sounds deceptively simple. But capital protection is not an act of caution; it is an act of discipline. And when markets sit at all-time highs, optimism is abundant, and scams proliferate, this principle becomes even more important to revisit. There are three major ways investors typically lose money - and all three are preventable with the right processes. 1. Controlling Drawdowns: The Power of Losing Less

Dear Reader, Recently, the Lenskart IPO dominated the financial news, igniting a fierce debate and dividing people into two camps - those who thought it was worth a buy and those appalled at its valuation. It also created thousands, if not millions, of valuation experts out there. This note is longer than usual, but we strongly recommend that you read it fully. Lenskart is being valued at roughly 10x price to sales - the P/E ratio is meaningless for a company which was loss m

Dear Reader, This was a special week that happens in India only once a year - Indian stock market has a 1 hour special trading session on Diwali - called ‘Muhurat Trading’ and it is considered auspicious to buy/sell instruments in this 1 hour. We sent out a note to our (paid) clients before the session on 20th Oct, 12:45pm to not invest in Gold/Silver but instead to buy some NIFTYBEES. It so happened that Gold and Silver started a big correction (-4.7% and -6.85% respectively

Dear Reader, This week, we want to share something quite interesting that played out in the Indian ETF market - a few rare arbitrage opportunities that shouldn’t really exist in an efficient system. It’s a good reminder of how ETFs actually work, why these price gaps usually close quickly, and how retail investors like us can protect ourselves, or even occasionally benefit, when the mechanisms don’t work. ETFs, or Exchange Traded Funds, are designed to track the price of an u

Dear Reader, Trump induced volatility is hitting the Indian markets yet again. Indian markets have given up all the gains from hope-rally of 2 weeks, the hope being better relations with the US. With earnings nowhere in sight and constant FII selling pressure, we maintain our call on Nifty near term top at 25,700 in our June 28th newsletter. To add salt to injury, INR has declined to lifetime lows vis-a-vis USD. This is why we maintain diversification as the best antidote to

Dear Reader, In our last newsletter, we touched upon what might provide an up move to the Indian equity markets - tariff resolution or another GDP surprise. The somewhat visible thaw in India-US trade relations led to a small hope led up move in Nifty +2.26%. NASDAQ 100 continued to outperform with gains of +3.44%. The rally in US stocks is clearly led by AI - those are the stocks gaining massive market capitalization and investments continue to flow there. Some analysts have

Dear Reader, This weekend marks the start of festival season in India - season’s greetings from our team. GoI has cut GST rates and the expectation is that this season will see increased household consumption expenditure. Estimates peg the impact at 0.16% boost to GDP - this has already been baked into the market levels and hence we did not see significant up move on the actual announcement. One big surprise was India’s Q1 GDP growth coming in at 7.8%. While Indian macros are

Dear Reader, We fear we’ll sound like a broken record if all we discuss is valuations, keeping cash and doing staggered deployments on falls. Hence, we’ll include a short story this time. Once upon a time, there was a powerful king. His palace was a massive consumer of the kingdom's resources as well as producer of technology and science. The wonderful technology built in the palace brought prosperity to the whole kingdom. But the king lived more lavishly than he could afford

Dear Readers, This is an out of band communication because we felt that the financial news industry was not doing justice to the issue of Tariffs. Below, we deconstruct the worst case and then assess the possible impact. The goods exported from India to the US are roughly $81B, out of which ~$15B is exempt (Pharma, Steel etc.). The 25% tariffs on $66B amount to $16.5B. Indian exports to US can be estimated to have a GDP multiplier of 1.3*. That means a GDP loss of ~$21B. That

Dear Reader, We are not going to bore you with yet another post on Jane Street. Our job is to keep an eye out for things that impact your wealth and that requires filtering out the noise. In case you want to read our views on why F&O is a bad idea, you can read our older blog here. Markets have been on a downtrend in India since our last newsletter on 28th June where we pointed to elevated valuations. The critical earnings season has just started. The markets had run up in an