Indian capital markets had an exceptional year in 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic initially had an adverse impact on Indian capital markets, as indices across size and sectors fell during the period from February 2020 to May 2020. However, from June 2020 onward, all size and sector indices had a bull run through the end of…
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Discussions regarding a K-shaped recovery from COVID-19 highlight disparities across different commodity sectors. India seems to be experiencing its own version of this, with some areas improving faster and stronger than others. Decreased importation costs have served as a tailwind to help India. Energy accounts for about one-third of India’s total imports, and as crude…
India has been one among many countries that favor a strong home bias in their investment portfolios. There have been many theories put forth on what causes the bias and research has been undertaken to understand it. Whether it is the ease of local information access, regulatory concerns, investor preferences, cost concerns, transactional viability, or…
The year 2020 has been unique, with the COVID-19 pandemic bringing unprecedented changes to economic activity that no one was fully prepared for, as well as record levels of volatility in financial markets. But such disruption not only creates innovation, it also gives opportunities to contrarian options and allows new themes to emerge dominant. India…
Home bias has been a prominent theme in India since the beginning of the mutual fund industry. Investors historically questioned why they should diversify their high GDP growth portfolio (India) with lower growth economies such as the US. This hypothesis has been tested over the last decade. India has delivered a high GDP growth but…
Why choose index investing? Yes, the merits of diversification and low cost are usually factored in, though one critical benefit that many do not realize is the transparency that is provided in the methodology of an independent index provider. To understand what goes into the design and methodology of an index, it’s important to note…
2020 has been overshadowed by the COVID-19 outbreak and the subsequent lockdown across the world. Capital markets have been negatively affected globally as well as locally in India. The lockdown in India began during the third week of March 2020 and has only recently been slightly relaxed. The first half of 2020 was volatile for…
The contentious debate of active versus passive is perpetual. Over the past 15 years, SPIVA® Scorecard results have reflected on the trends of active fund management vis a vis benchmarks, wherein statistics tilt the balance in favor of indexing. This recurring feature of benchmark outperformance is contributing to the adoption and growth of the passive…
The previous blog highlighted the significant shifts to passive investing in India. However, Indian passive trends have continued to favor plain vanilla indices due to their ease of understanding, rather than exploring alternative thematic indices, such as the S&P Kensho New Economies Indices or factor Indices. However, once the acceptability and acceptance of passive investment…
We recently held a webinar examining the relevance of the S&P 500 to India-based investors, the potential diversification benefits of incorporating U.S equity exposure to an existing allocation, as well as showing how difficult active managers have found it to beat the index, historically. You can watch a replay of the webinar here; here are…
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