After keeping the policy repo rate unchanged for eleven successive meetings, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), under its new Governor, Mr Sanjay Malhotra, cut the policy repo rate from 6.50% to 6.25%, i.e. by 25 basis points in monetary policy review meeting held between February 5 and 7, 2025. The stance of the monetary policy…
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) Chief, Ms Madhabi Puri Buch, recently in an event organised by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), hinted at the idea of combo products of mutual funds offering life insurance cover. Here’s what Ms Buch said: “We are now proposing to come out with a consultation…
The Union Budget 2025-26 emphasised the government’s efforts to accelerate growth, promote inclusive development, boost investments in the private sector, raise household sentiments, and increase the spending power of India’s rising middle class. One of the most impactful announcements was exempting individuals earning up to Rs 12 lakh annually (from the earlier annual income limit of Rs…
The Assets Under Management (AUM) of the Indian mutual fund industry after the “Mutual Funds Sahi Hai” campaign, and since the lows of the COVID-19 pandemic, have seen a remarkable increase. It is not just due to the mark-to-market (MTM) gains but also significant inflows from individual investors, i.e. retail and HNIs. In CY2024, over 1.05 crore…
The capital market regulator in June last year released a consultation paper for disclosure of Risk-Adjusted Returns (RAR) by mutual funds, intended to enable investors to make informed decisions. The reason behind this was that most investors while zeroing in on schemes look at only returns — compounded annualised returns or absolute returns (as the case may be)…
The Indian equity market has been experiencing heightened volatility as of late. Since its September 2024 peak, the market has corrected nearly 11% (as of January 22, 2025). Additionally, India’s Volatility Index (VIX) – a measure of volatility — has surged to a 6-month high of approximately 17.05 on January 22, 2025. Graph 1: India’s VIX…
The Assets Under Management (AUM) of the Indian mutual fund industry is currently Rs 66.93 trillion as of December 2024. The AUM has jumped 35.7% since December last year, shows the AMFI data. The proportionate share of equity-oriented schemes is now 60.6% of the industry assets as of December 2024 compared to 56.5% in December…
The performance of a mutual fund is determined by the way its Net Asset Value (NAV) fares over a period of time. As you may know, the market value of the underlying securities of a mutual fund changes every day, and thus, so does the NAV of the respective scheme. A fund house declares the…
Midcap and smallcap stocks delivered exceptional performance in 2024, with indices in these categories reaching all-time highs. This growth was largely driven by strong retail investor enthusiasm and strategic investments in burgeoning growth sectors such as healthcare, renewable energy, technology, fintech, infrastructure and so on. Graph 1: Performance Nifty 100 v/s Nifty Midcap 150 v/s Nifty Smallcap…
The Indian equity market, i.e. the bellwether BSE Sensex, since the September 2024 peak (of 85,836.12 points on closing) has corrected -11.9% as of January 15, 2025). And in the case of the BSE Mid-Cap Index and BSE Small-cap Index, the correction has been more significant. A variety of factors have been at play behind…
