Amid uncertain economic conditions, wherein the recovery in global growth entirely depends upon the intensity, spread and how long the Coronavirus or COVID-19 outbreak continues, the RBI in an exceptional move took all necessary measures. In fact, it has pulled out all weapons to combat the impact of the coronavirus lockdown. In the 7th bi-monthly…

Given the crucial phase India is going through in fighting the Coronavirus or COVID-19 outbreak, the government has announced a complete nationwide 21 days lock-down, at least until April 14, 2020. Domestic airline services have decided to shutdown from Wednesday, 25 March 2020. Many manufacturing companies have made up their mind to cease production and…

As you know, markets have been volatile ever since Coronavirus became a global epidemic. From the all-time high of 42,273.87 points on the S&P BSE Sensex (made on January 20, 2020), we ended at 31,390.07 points as of March 16, 2020. That is a -26% correction in less than two months. The S&P BSE Sensex,…

Graded exit load imposed on liquid funds might turn out to be a game changer. Moreover, as per the new rules, liquid funds now have to hold at least 20% of their assets in highly liquid assets such as cash, government securities, and repo. The comments of the Mahendra Kumar Jajoo, Head of Fixed Income…

In a caustic remark, SEBI chief Ajay Tyagi reminded mutual funds of their core objective, and rightly so. “Mutual funds investment is different from bank lending and it needs to have elements of safety as well as investment.” Mutual fund houses indeed gave a long rope to promoters of troubled companies at the cost of…

An increasing number of mutual fund houses are seeking SEBI’s nod for their passively managed NFOs. Smaller provident funds have been keen to invest in equity through passively managed funds, on the lines of EPFO, and mutual fund houses are making this an excuse to push more passively managed offerings now. But there’re more reasons…

On December 27, 2018, we had written about DHFL’s plan to sell its stake in the mutual fund business, and the impact on mutual fund investors. In just 3-4 months, DHFL had witnessed a severe drop in its credit rating from “AAA” to “D”. As you might be aware, DHFL Pramerica Mutual Fund was a joint venture…

Independent credit rating agencies are in the line of fire, and rightly so. According to The Hindu dated June 12, 2019, credit rating agencies have downgraded 163 credit facilities in 2019, which is a 51 per cent increase in the total tally for the last four years. Have these downgrades come just too late? The…

After recording a landslide victory in the Lok Sabha Elections 2019, Mr Narendra Modi has secured his position as the Prime Minister for one more term. In fact, there were no other strong contenders for his position. But that isn’t the case for the finance minister’s job. There were many contenders for the role of…

India’s third-largest housing finance company, DHFL, is gasping for fresh life. On June 4, 2019, DHFL delayed the interest payment on its Rs 850-crore worth Commercial Paper (CP). Following this event, the independent rating agencies downgraded DHFL debt to Default (D). Within just 4 months, DHFL’s credit rating has taken a serious knock from “AAA”…