Do it yourself

Ravi Bhatt, a brilliant student, completed his senior school education in 2018; went to a prestigious college in the US; completed his post-graduation in 2023. Worked some odd jobs in the interim and also interned with a top consulting firm. After finishing college, Ravi searched for a suitable job, but could not find any for more than six months. Finally, he returned to India in the autumn of 2023 and unsuccessfully tried for a decent job in India for a few months. Earlier this year he borrowed five million rupees from his father, a successful surgeon, and started trading in stocks and derivatives. Being a brilliant student, good in mathematics and data analytics, he soon developed a trading model of his own. He is now a full-time stock trader; making decent money; perhaps more than what he could have earned, working long hours for a consulting firm. Mitesh Gupta, an average student, passed senior school in 2021. He failed to pass the admission test for graduate school. He joined a ...

In the past couple of weeks, I have heard more market participants talking about alternative assets like precious metals, cryptocurrencies, and bonds as compared to equities and equity derivatives. The trend has been more conspicuous, particularly after the first phase of voting for the 18 th Lok Sabha. The participants who were confident about an overwhelming majority for the incumbent government and strong equity rally post declaration of final results on 4 th June are now finding a need to hedge their exposure to equities. Surprisingly, none of the non-institutional investors/traders mentioned using equity derivatives to hedge their investment portfolios or trading positions. I would like to share some of my impressions gathered from my numerous interactions with a variety of investors and traders - from very small ones to ultra-high networth; from frequent and short-term traders to long-only investors; from highly educated to less educated; professionals, businessmen to salarie...