If it gets any flatter, it will be called a pancake…
Interbank lending rates
Total Return Bond Indices
Sub Index
Change in YTM
Total Return(%)
GSEC TB
+0.03
+0.69%
GSEC SUB 1-3
-0.63
+1.00%
GSEC SUB 3-8
-0.33
+1.76%
GSEC SUB 8
-0.18
+2.29%
Riding down the rates curve has been a one-way trade so far this year. Read our analysis on Bonds and Rates.
Thought to sum up the month
Tasks that you are driven toward by Gain produce more significant positive results in your life and your business than tasks that you are driven toward by Prevent Pain.
If you continue to do solely what is necessary to survive every day, all you will accomplish is preventing pain from coming your way. To move your life or your business forward from where it is today and to see an improvement, you must do something extraordinary— something that you didn’t have to do at all. You must pursue Gain.
When I was in high school, we were taught about “truth tables.” It is a mathematical table used in logic to tell whether a propositional expression is true for all legitimate input values. Watching pundits speak on TV is makes you wonder how they could ever have passed high school algebra.
The Can’t Lose Argument
Beware those who are never wrong. The “Can’t Lose Argument” goes something like this: A data point will be mentioned, and no matter what the net change in that data — up, down or neutral — it is somehow bad for markets.
Sometimes they matter, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes one key divergence that was extremely important ends up meaning exactly zero the next time around. A single divergence, in and of itself, has all of the reliable predictive power of a bowl of chicken bones spilled out across the table.
It’s crucial to recognize that macroeconomics is something that even the world’s smartest economists still don’t understand very well, and that political ideology and economic reality don’t mix.
AMFI puts out AUM statistics of mutual funds once a quarter. Here are some key take aways.
The Top 5 Dominate
Between 2009 and 2014, the top 5 players have remained the same: HDFC, ICICI, Birla Sun Life and Reliance. And their share has remained more-or-less the same: 56.96% in 2009 and 54.6% now.
32 out of a total of 46 funds have less than 2% share, 29 have less than 1%
There are way too many schemes
There are 1066 equity schemes (all permutations and combinations.) The top 2 schemes (both from HDFC) have more than 10% of AUM and the top 10 have about 30%. The rest of them fight for scraps.
Direct plans even the playing field
… a bit.
PPFAS has a 5% share of all direct plans.
However, Direct plans are yet to make a dent
Equity AUM under direct plans have doubled since last year. This ought to be giving distributors sleepless nights…
Lets put the current zero-coupon yield curve in context.
Jan 2011 vs. Now
Jan 2012 vs. Now
Jan 2013 vs. Now
Indian 10 yrs vs. US
After the initial Modi euphoria, the spread between Indian 10 yrs and US 10 yrs started to revert back to its mean:
Total Return Indices
Investors in the long bond are yet to recover from the July 2013 draw-down but this year is looking good. Long-bond might just be the place to be as the RBI is widely expected to get into easing mode later this year/early next year.
Cumulative Returns Since 2000
Short
Intermediate
Long
Cumulative Returns Since 2010
Short
Intermediate
Long
Bond ≠ Boring
Returns have been volatile for bond investors.
Can’t really sell “stability” here.
USDINR
A new normal past the euphoria and the hangover?
In closing
With inflation somewhat stabilizing and the NDA-II government wanting to kick start growth, bonds are getting interesting again. And when rates start moving, currencies cannot be far behind.
Stay updated on the latest news related to Indian interest rates here. Its curated.
The last time I wrote about innovation, I pointed out some of the most common problems that innovators face (The Disruptor’s Dilemma) and how incumbents can use regulation to stymie the disruptor. Peter Yared has an interesting post up on Techcrunch on how BMW is responding to Tesla’s onslaught and winning. Here’s the tl;dr:
Legacy companies can mislabel their products to leverage their brand, especially if an upstart compares itself directly to a particular model.
Legacy companies are often willing to hodgepodge new technology with their older technology to stave off new competitors
Innovators should not underestimate the power of a legacy company’s large, lumbering sales channel.
Legacy companies are often in numerous segments of a market and leverage their scale to beat an upstart’s roadmap.