Do it yourself

Indian equities have had a quiet year by headline numbers. The Nifty50 is up ~8% over the past twelve months—modest when compared with the sharp rallies in South Korea (KOSPI +71%), Japan (+30%), Brazil (+21%), China (+17%), the United States (+13%) and Europe (+12%). But short-term snapshots often hide more than they reveal. Shift the lens to the past three years, and the picture changes meaningfully. Despite geopolitical shocks, supply-chain disruptions, rate volatility and tariff actions, the Nifty50 has delivered +41%, materially outperforming Europe and China, and broadly matching Brazil. Korea (+82%), Japan (+76%) and the US (+68%) remain the standout performers. Bottom line:  2025 has been a year of consolidation for India—less about chasing returns, more about normalising valuations and aligning equity performance with earnings and nominal growth. And that’s not a bad thing. It’s what mature markets do. A Decade of Maturity: Indian Equities Have Entered a New Regime Over th...

The INR has been under steady depreciation pressure for the past few months. USDINR is down about 4.4% year-to-date, raising familiar concerns about stability and comparisons to the 2013 balance-of-payments scare. It’s worth noting that the recent 50% US tariffs—which grabbed headlines—are not the main reason behind the rupee’s weakness. India’s exports have broadly held up in the first ten months of the financial year. The pressure has come instead from three other factors: ·           Higher imports, largely driven by a jump in gold imports ·           Weak FDI inflows ·           Persistent FPI outflows Together, these have widened the current account deficit and strained the balance of payments, naturally weighing on the currency. Where sentiment meets misunderstanding In the public narrative, the exchange rate of the INR often gets linked—incorrectl...

Over the weekend, I met a cross-section of market participants at a social gathering—veteran investors, traders, money managers, and brokers. If I had to summarise the overall mood in one word, it would be “befuddled.” There was a clear sense of cognitive dissonance in the room. People were wrestling with conflicting signals and contradictory beliefs. The discussions felt like watching multiple emotional currents collide beneath a calm surface. On one hand, there was frustration about personal portfolios lagging. On the other, there was comfort in seeing the benchmarks hold up well. Add to this the fear triggered by headlines predicting an imminent burst in the AI bubble; anxiety over rising Japanese bond yields and a weakening INR; excitement around a potential Indo-US trade deal; and hope that Indian equities may outperform if global markets slip into turmoil. Amid this emotional tug-of-war, a few broad positioning trends stood out: Active participants remain overweight in narrative-...

The empirical evidence in India suggests that the returns from a SIP stabilize around the underlying asset's long term average return. I analyzed the Nifty50 data from 01 January 2001 to 01 November 2025. I assumed various investors invested a fixed amount at beginning of each month for a tenure of 299 months (25yrs), 240 months (20yrs), 180months (15yrs), 120 months (10yrs), 60 months (5yrs) and 36 months (3yrs). Actual Nifty50 data (closing price on first day of each month) was taken for the sake of convenience, assuming dividend yield cancelled the fund management charges and tracking error (for ETF investors) and brokerages and impact cost for direct equity investors. The analysis indicates that an SIP in Nifty50 started to outperform the Nifty50 index return only after 7 yrs. The outperformance peaked around 180 months (15yrs) and started to decline. For 20 yrs tenure, Nifty50 monthly SIP returns (CAGR) is almost same as the change in Nifty50. For 25 yrs tenure, SIP returns ou...

India is entering the final stretch of the festive season. The symbolic victory of light over darkness is behind us; the wedding calendar is in full flow; preparations for Christmas and the New Year have begun. Financial markets, too, seem to have moved past a despondent summer, supported by improving global liquidity, softer inflation prints, and resilient domestic earnings. This period also offers a moment for reflection. Every year, I revisit the legend of Rāma as narrated by Goswami Tulsidas in the Ramcharit Manas—not as mythology, but as behavioural wisdom. Hidden in its verses are principles that map surprisingly well to the discipline of Systematic Investment Plans (SIPs), especially for household investors. The two lessons below may be familiar to regular readers, but they remain worth revisiting. When to start SIP and how long to continue it सम   प्रकास   तम   पाख   दुहुँ   नाम   भेद   बिधि   कीन्ह। ससि   सोषक   पोषक   समुझ...

Bihar assembly elections concluded last week with the incumbent NDA government registering an astounding victory, belying all expectations of anti-incumbency; a strong show by the opposition alliance (MGB); and a surprise by JSP (Jan Suraaj Party), floated by election strategist-turned-politician Prashant Kishor. Almost every exit poll and ground report got Bihar 2025 spectacularly wrong. The NDA’s landslide was not a wave — it was an annihilation. In my view, the result was a foregone conclusion for anyone who looked beyond Twitter trends and Tejashwi’s viral reels. Numerous independent forecasters, reporters and experts, who claimed to have spent weeks “on the ground”, completely failed to assess the likely outcome of the elections. The opposition alliance completely lacked seriousness, strategy and resources; notwithstanding the social media noise. The new challenger JSP lacked resources and credibility (was mostly seen as a BJP agent put up to cut into opposition votes). They were ...

Recently, NITI Aayog published a working paper titled “Towards India’s Tax Transformation: Decriminalization and Trust-Based Governance”. The paper is a follow up to the recent enactment of the Income Tax At 2025. It is an extremely important step for making the tax governance structure trust based. The paper seeks to provide a comprehensive and critical analysis of the criminal provisions within the Income-tax Act, 2025, mapping the present extent of criminalization, documenting omissions and modifications, and recommending a trust-based regulatory transition for India’s direct tax regime. Recognizing the evolving policy landscape which stresses ease of business, citizen-centricity, and the need to move away from “fear-based” enforcement, the paper evaluates each criminal provision through a principled criminal law-making framework rooted in jurisprudence, comparative regulatory best practices, and provides recommendations. Its central premise is that decriminalization, rationalizatio...

In the past few months, I have observed the following trends in my socio-economic milieu (urban middle class). Research analysts might like to wait a little more to find investment themes in these trends. However, I do feel that these trends are strong and have the potential to capture a prominent space in the overall Indian consumption basket; be a meaningful source of revenue for the government; emerge as a notable source of incremental employment and pave the way for a deeper integration of the Indian economy into the global economy. Concert economy My daughters have attended three live performances of Indian artists, in India, in the past two months. Previously it was not more than one in a year, and that often overseas or foreign performers. The global live music market, encompassing ticket sales, sponsorships, merchandising, and related revenues from concerts, festivals, and performances, is estimated at USD 38.58 billion in 2025. It is projected to grow 8-11% CAGR for the next 1...