Do it yourself

 In his latest policy statement, US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell commented “Inflation has risen, largely reflecting transitory factors.” The FOMC noted that “inflation has risen to 2 percent and is on track to moderately exceed 2 percent for some time” and said that “the Committee will aim to achieve inflation moderately above 2 percent for some time so that inflation averages 2 percent over time and longer‑term inflation expectations remain well anchored at 2 percent.” ( see here ) These comments of Federal Reserve have triggered a fresh debate on probability of imminent “hyperinflation” and a global “commodity supercycle”. As per a recent report of Bank of America Securities (BofA) after the third week of earnings. mentions of “inflation” have now quadrupled YoY; and after last week, mentions have jumped nearly 800% YoY! BofA analyst also concludes from the corporates’ earnings commentary that “On an absolute basis, [inflation] mentions skyrocketed to near recor...

Crypto currency (e.g. Bitcoin) is proving to be the best asset class for the Covid-19 infected FY21. Most crypto currencies have yielded astronomical returns in a year that suffered the worst synchronized global recession since the great depression of 1930s. Against this, the traditional safe haven Gold, Swiss Franc (CHF), USD and US Treasuries have yielded insignificant return. USD Index (DXY) in fact has declined over 10% YTD FY21. Silver is the only traditional asset, besides equities, that has yielded strong return in past 11 months. Regardless, the overwhelming consensus amongst global strategists appear to be favouring gold and silver as overweight in asset allocation of non-institutional investors. Most wealth managers and investment strategists are suggesting upto 15% allocation to gold ( for example see here ). Many globally popular and prominent traders, chartists and strategists have suggested a massive bull market in Silver in next couple of years ( see here ) Meeting w...

 Many readers have found my thoughts on “hyperinflation” yesterday little abstract (see Hyperinflation - Highly improbable ). They want me to elaborate further on why I think that “hyperinflation” is highly improbable in foreseeable future. I do not mind sharing the bases of my views on this topic. However, before elaborating my views of “hyperinflation”, I would like to clarify that when I say “hyperinflation”, I do not mean the term in its literal sense, because in that sense it makes no sense in the present day conditions. In the current context, by hyperinflation, we should understand episodes of sustained high inflation over a period of many months. To put this in further context, please note that “hyperinflation” is generally used to describe situations where the monthly inflation rate is greater than 50%. At this rate, an item that cost Rs1 on January 1 would cost Rs130 on January 1 of the following year. At least, in past few centuries, there is no instance of a global ...

 It was particularly gloomy winter evening of 2008 in South Mumbai. The global financial markets had their knees frozen. One of the top global financial institutions, Lehman Brothers had collapsed a couple of months back. Another global financial giant Merrill Lynch lost its identity to Bank of America. Some peripheral European countries were on the brink of defaulting on their sovereign obligations. The bankers in the financial hub of India (South Mumbai) were staring at massive job losses. Numerous businesses were on the brink. Many large investors had also suffered huge losses in their portfolios. For younger investors and bankers in their 20s and 30s, the conditions were totally unprecedented. The fear, uncertainty, scale of value destruction was overwhelming as they had not experienced anything like that before. Most of the then had seen 5yrs of strong bull market in credit and capacity building in infrastructure, energy and housing. Suddenly, all the credit started to look ba...