PJM

Capitaline.com (closest to Valueline) Screener.in Trendlyne.com Tijorfinance.com

I'm in London as well and would love to meet up with everyone, but unfortunately am away from 14-29th Oct. Hopefully next time.

I don't know the tax implications for US residents but in India tax (capital gains and dividend) will be deducted at source. Also, as far as I know only Indian nationals or OCI holders are eligible to buy Indian stocks directly through IB or any other broker unless you go through FPI route which is complicated for individuals.

There is none. For all company related filings and announcement you can look at the exchanges https://www.nseindia.com/companies-listing/corporate-filings-application For new IPO prospectus you can look at SEBI site https://www.sebi.gov.in/sebiweb/home/HomeAction.do?doListing=yes&sid=3&ssid=15&smid=10 You can also check out screener.in which is a pretty good portal for scanning through all companies

As said before, the liquidity driving Indian markets have shifted from foreign investors to domestic investors. Here is the latest data DII inflows v/s FII outflows: DII flows into equities in CY22 were the highest ever at USD32.2b v/s inflows of USD12.1b in CY21. With just one year of outflows since CY16, DIIs have invested USD80.5b cumulatively over the last seven years. Conversely, FIIs witnessed equity outflows of USD17b after three consecutive years of inflows. During the last seven years, FIIs have invested USD30.4b cumulatively in the Indian market, with only two years of outflows. India is not immune to global headwinds but some of the global headwinds maybe balanced by domestic tailwinds. The Indian corporate profit to GDP has improved to 4.5% but still very low and has room to improve further especially since the corporate balance sheet has been unlevered dramatically with corporate debt to GDP at 62.7%

Have to disagree here. Any hard evidence or is it just an opinion? As for money flow, I believe India would do fine even without influx of money from foreign investors. I think the Indian markets have shifted from depending on FII (Foreign Institutional Investors) to domestic inflow. You can see from the changing shareholding pattern of Indian companies. Money in India is slowly moving in financial assets but has a long way to go. Again just look at the mutual fund, equity custodian data etc. As for the underlying economy, apart from the domestic economy and associated growth, you can see a clear instances of some manufacturing shifting from China to India in sectors such as chemicals, pharma etc for many reasons, but pre-dominantly as global companies diversify their sourcing and dependance on China. Of course all this will take time but just an example - India exports $2b worth of APIs and China exports $20b, so a 10% shift means India can double the exports. There are many such categories, sectors and industries. To top it all, there is a strong government and leader (PM Modi) who is consistently bringing reforms that will provide boast to the economy. Of course, from my perspective thats the biggest risk as well. I agree that valuations looked stretched at index level but that has to do with scarcity premium and market structures, however as that evolves it will provide broader investment opportunities.

I agree that if you are planning to buy the largest blue-chip companies, you would be better off buying the Nifty index or a large-cap mutual fund. Indian investment should be more growth focussed. I think the real juice is within NSE 500 companies as you go into the mid-cap and small-cap companies that are leaders within their category. They are benefitting from many tailwinds such as domestic consumption, macro economic growth, govt led spending, exports (china+1 and now europe+1) and most importantly migration from unorganised to organised. Many of these companies are run by technocrats and founder led management who is growth focussed. They are not only penetrating deeper within their own categories but expanding into lateral categories. Examples of such industries is Plastic pipes, pharma, chemicals, exchanges etc. The financial sector is also looking very good now after years of pain and cleaning up the books. Many banks have large provisions on their balance sheet, have good deposit growth rates and finally credit growth is coming back. These three factors together will create massive tailwind, at least for next few years. Read some of the recent commentary from veterans such as HDFC Bank, ICICI and Kotak to understand how banking sector is in a very sweet spot.

Most so-called blue-chip companies in India has huge scarcity premium. They are always the obvious candidates for coffee-can portfolio, if you are comfortable with the valuations. A strategy that has worked in India is to create a a long-term portfolio of sector leaders as they are able t grow above 12-13% nominal GDP plus take market share consistently from unorganised to organised which got accelerated since GST. Examples Asian Paints, Titan, Astral, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Divi's Lab, Pidilite, HDFC Life, TCS, Infosys etc. Again a lot of them are already at stretched valuations. Bear in mind that the cost of trading, taxes and consistent INR depreciation (approx 4.5% annually since 1970's) one needs to generate at least 12-14% to get 5-7% USD denominated.

I've been investing directly in India since 2014. Am also in the midst of setting of PMS. Let me know if you have any specific qsts.

ATCO as an arb trade

Hi - 30% WHT is correct for countries that has no treaty. MY Hong Kong accounts face the same 30% tax. Unfortunately there is no way to get credit or reclaim it as far as I know.

HSFC bank has already released an official statement about the acquisition on the exchanges of India, so this is a done deal. https://www.bseindia.com/xml-data/corpfiling/AttachHis/820282e0-d42c-44a5-a2a9-eb5a160b93e1.pdf

The investment from HDFC Bank values the life insurance part of Digit at $62-80m https://www.business-standard.com/article/finance/hdfc-bank-invests-in-ipo-bound-general-insurance-firm-go-digit-122082500912_1.html Private sector bank major HDFC Bank on Thursday said it has entered into an indicative and non-binding term sheet with Go Digit Life Insurance Ltd. The bank will invest ₹49.9 crore to ₹69.9 crore in two tranches to acquire up to 9.94% equity stake in the company.

Higher rates will impact the public debts immensely. Currently 25% of US govt debt needs to be rolled over in next 1 year and 60% (around 14t) of US govt debt will need to be rolled over in next 4 years. A 1% increase in interest rate raises the interest burden by 140b just on the short term maturing debt, creating substantial fiscal deficit. The CBO is already projecting a deficit of 4% annually for next 10 years without factoring in the higher rates. Foreign demand for US treasuries have shrunk dramatically in last decade. Only 12% of total increase in US debt since 2014 has been purchased by foreigners. So the tough choices are - fiscal consolidation (higher taxes and lower public spending) which does not seem to be popular path with the politicians or financing the debt by the FED which means money supply putting pressure on inflation and the currency. Historically inflation has never been tamed without tough fiscal measures which is completely missing currently, so the FED actions will not have meaningful impact unless accompanied by tough fiscal measures.

Brexit and Ukraine crisis has and will push the inflation up sharply and in turn put a severe dent on affordability. Interest rates will move up (already 3 rate hikes done by BOE) making mortgage payments difficult for homeowners. Many homebuyers are still on interest only mortgages, and they will be squeezed severely. Though there is pressure on the govt. to keep home prices afloat, there is higher pressure to bring down inflation. In last few years, there has been a short supply of inventory in the markets - many sellers stayed away from selling due to rising prices as they didn't want to give up any upside. As demand falls due to rising interest rates, one may see a sudden supply coming the market as sellers rush to capture the higher prices. Not sure if there will be any sharp fall in the prices, but doubt that the run will continue.

Merry Xmas and happy festivities to everyone on the board. May 2022 is a year filled with interesting travels surrounded by family, friends and loved ones, and of course a year when your investment returns exceeds your own imagination !!

Can you redeem these SPACs at any point of time until the acquisition? How complicated is the process and long long does it take to redeem? Any experience of getting redemptions through iB?

I use IB as well with the portfolio margin facility, just as an option to tap the account if needed. I don't use leverage for my investment. Yes, I was planning to park that cash in stocks through margin facility, so that even if there is a drawdown at the time i need the cash, I could tap the account and then wait until the stocks bounce back. I'm fine with temporary vol but would not like permanent loss of capital with this chunk of cash.

I've a decent chunk of cash that I need to park for next 12-18 months after which I'll need the cash for some other purpose. Naturally deposits/bonds are not a great idea at this stage. Normally I'd have just bought an index ETF but not sure if its a good idea at these levels. I was thinking of investing in 3-4 stocks such as Costco, Berkshire etc that may not give stellar returns but won't have large drawdown as well. Btw, I'm domiciled at a place that has no capital gains tax, so that needs to be considered as well. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Isn't that a good thing that the banks will lose deposits because they were carrying excess deposits on the balance sheet anyway and had no real use for it. Weren't the banks turning away the deposits from corporates anyway?(https://www.wsj.com/articles/banks-to-companies-no-more-deposits-please-11623238200) Do the bank earn anything on these corporate deposits? Also why did the Treasury do a large issuance recently if they need to bring down the TGA balance soon?

@wabuffo Since the economy is bouncing back sharply with expected GDP growth of >6% this will lead of huge tax receipts for the US treasury. In the absence of any new stimulus package by the govt, do we expect reduced deficit spending and in turn lower issuance of Treasury securities by the the US treasury even after bringing down the Treasury balance back to ~$117.6b? Since a growing economy needs more govt bonds, wouldn't that continue to put pressure on the bond yields with higher demand and lower issuance of the securities? In that case, why do you expect the yields to jump up post August? Second, according to Jamie Dimon, the FED will have to increase the rates due to inflation, and thats why JPM is keeping high cash balance as they expect to deploy into higher yielding assets. When and why do you think will Fed increase the rates? IF i understood correct, you believe that there wont be inflation just because there is QE and that the fed can continue to keep rates low.

On top of my head I can think of the following CRISIL and CARE - rating agencies NSDL and CDSL - depository management companies MCX, IEX - exchanges for commodity and power BSE, NSE - equity exchanges Balaji amines, Alkyl amines - amines Gmm Pfaudler and Hle - servicing the pharma industry MGL, IGL - natural gas provider IRCTC - railway booking and catering Quite a few state companies mainly in commodities

You are absolutely correct. With the twin deficits, high inflation and import oriented economy, there is a constant pressure on the INR. Historically INR has depreciated 5% annually, and then when you add up all the taxes and high cost of investment in India, you land up making 6-7% $ return if you can get 15% lNR return which is a tall ask. Currently the top 15 companies in India has 40% market cap of all listed companies and pretty much all companies that have out performed in India has done that on the back of multiple expansion. Just look at the multiples of even simple consumer companies such like Nestle, Hind Unilever, Asian paints etc which would have been fine if they were growing at decent clip but none of these companies are growing at even 10%. So all the new money from local mutual funds are chasing these handful of 10-20 companies which has led to extreme polarisation. If you have put money outside these companies your portfolio has lost money. The funny bit is local regulation discourage investment outside the top 100 companies. The other problem is that there is no bond market which makes it extremely difficult for corporates to raise debt money.

I sincerely hope I'm wrong because I'll win more if i'm wrong :) Some simple observations: 1. People always talk about the young population which can be great for the economy but only if you are able to create millions of jobs. Look at the employment rate as well as the quality of jobs created. The demographic advantage will not stay forever so if you don't leverage it you have missed the boat. 2. If you look at the history of any largish country that has grown strongly on per-capita basis (which is a more important metric than GDP) it has to be on the back of exporting the world its labour (manufacturing) or Tech (services) which eventually leads to high per-capita and middle class population, but Indian policy makers lack the desire or will power to do so. 3. The cost of risk capital in India is 60%+ for a country that needs massive capital to build its economy 4. A lot of the steps that you highlighted such as financial inclusion are great and theoretically should take the country forward but you are overseeing the numerous additional bad policies that has overridden the good. 5. Uday Kotak, one of the smartest guys in India summed it up well "Indian economy is like a white shirt that has gone dirty. Currently its undergoing washing but the fear is that it is washed so badly that it may end up tearing" (not exact phrase but something along those lines) Sorry but I feel that a lot of people who look from outside are reading India like a great travel marketing brochure, especially when some political leaders are such marketing-savvy people. Disclosure: I've been an investor in India since 2014 and have seen/spoken to hundreds of listed and unlisted companies, done scuttle-butting on many of these companies. So of course I'd love to see the country and the markets do well, but as a person of Indian origin it is extremely painful to see India constantly wasting an opportunity to really lift its people up. We are still hopeful but as any good investor one needs to avoid anchoring bias while assessing the investment.

India story seems to be a mirage. Though we have heard many plausible explanations on why India is what China was 20 years ago, the ground reality seems to suggest a very different picture. In fact this is self-explanatory when one looks at the last 10 years, both in terms of the growth of the economy as well as the market returns. The S&P dollex 30 has given less than 20% total return in last 10 years and almost negative since the current government came to power 7 years ago. So much for the supposedly "world's fastest growing economy" !! This performance is with the fantastic global tailwind of low oil prices, low interest rates, flood of cheap money apart from the usual demographics, large market size etc that people talk about. There is no change in the modus operandi of buying political votes by distributing free money at the cost of investment in infrastructure, health, education or other economical development. India continues to run twin deficit, have high unemployment, has trade deficit, saddled with bad loans in the banks/NBFCs, poor infrastructure, heavily dependant on imported oil/gas etc and we don't even want to discuss the poor corporate governance, weak judicial system, bureaucracy and red-tapism etc. I can give concrete examples of industry after industry that are getting killed due to bad policies. Sorry to have side-tracked this post which was about Prem's letter and Fairfax.