Do it yourself

The last weekend was unusually hectic for most participants. Friday evening, the market regulator issued fresh guidelines for asset allocation by the mutual fund schemes operational under the "multicap fund" category. The guidelines specify that these mutual fund schemes must allocate at least 25% of assets under management to each of large cap, mid cap and small cap category of stocks. SEBI also directed that the minimum equity allocation of these funds shall be 75% (presently 65%) at any given point in time. The mutual funds are required to comply by these directions in six months, i.e., by February 2021. SEBI further clarified that these guidelines have been issued further to the guidelines regarding categorization and rationalization of Mutual Fund Schemes issued in October 2017. It is pertinent to note that as per SEBI directions, top 100 listed companies in terms of market capitalization are categorized as Large Cap. Companies ranked 101 to 250 are categorized as Mi...

The precipitous fall in 1QFY21 GDP has attracted attention of most people. The economic managers of the government have sought to pass 23.9% yoy contraction in real GDP as an exceptional event which is direct outcome of the global lockdown due to outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. Indubitably, the contraction is a non recurring event and may not be a trend beyond FY21. Nonetheless, adjusted for lockdown also, the current slowdown does not appear be entirely cyclical. It certainly has some element of structural weakness in the economy. I have highlighted this issue earlier also. In my view, the fall in nominal GDP is more worrisome than the real GDP. This fall has been more consistent and sharp in past 7 years. The nominal GDP growth rate has almost halved during FYFY13 and FY20. For common man nominal GDP is more important because lot of variables like effective taxation, budgetary allocations for development and social welfare, subsidies, salaries of public servants, etc are cal...

A few weeks ago, National Statistical Organization (NSO) released results of two important social sector surveys, i.e, Health and Education. The surveys conducted as part of 75th Round of Natinal Sample Survey (NSS) between July 2017 and June 2018, highlight some very important trends in household expenditure on Helath and Education. The key findings of the surveys are listed below: State of "Healthcare" in India About 7% of rural population and 9% of urban population reported suffering from some ailment during the 15days reference period. 28% of people in 60yr+ category 11% in 45-59yr category reported ill. Since 2014, there has been a marked decline in number of people suffering from anemia and tuberculosis. About 3% of population required hospitalization in past 365 days. The rate of hospitalization was much higher (8.5%) in case of people above 60yr of age. On an average, about Rs. 16,676 in rural India and Rs. 26,475 in urban India were spent on medical expenditure...