Nov 2023 Newsletter

70 hr. work debate?

Automation adoption has increased productivity significantly – almost around 40% according to Lancet survey in the past 20 years. With women entering the workforce at an unprecedented pace, no. of hrs. participation has increased already. With improved health conditions people are not retiring as they used to. Compare these 3 factors to the available job hrs. in the Indian market, we feel 70 hrs. is a significant overstretch.  

Bank Frauds on the rise again:

Cyber Crimes and Online Frauds are on rise at a pace where banks have started to mention that in their earnings call. The problem is that banks are having a hard time finding them and have a remediation plan in place. Data breach is another culprit for which banks must invest in resources with no end in sight. Technology is helping but the adoption pace is rather slow in the big banks. Governments ombudsmen are filled with complaints that take a very long time to address. Our top picks as an NRI are HSBC, Standard Chartered and premium accounts within ICICI or HDFC.

Worst and Best Real Estate Market:

JLL report for Q3 indicates Bangalore, Mumbai and Pune constitute 63% of the total residential unit sales. If you are planning to buy property in India – these are the 3 most liquid markets. The premium segment clocked the highest sales while all other segments declined sequentially. NCR region still showed significant inventory availability as compared to demand so obviously stay away from Gurgaon and Noida markets. The senior living market has seen significant growth and the top 3 companies operating in this area are Columbia Pacific, Primus and Saket Group. These are our picks based on research.

Redemption of your SGB’s

The first Sovereign Gold Bond was sold by RBI in 2015 and the tranche is due for redemption on Nov 30 2023. You should have received an e-mail about this, and you don’t need to do anything if you have bought it via your bank as a broker and held digitally. The money will be auto redeemed to your bank. If you had invested the Compounded Annual returns is around 11.5% including the interest earned annually or absolute returns of 130%.  Not bad huh considering the low risk?? If you need more information on this, you can e-mail beyondsyllabus@gmail.com and we will be able to guide you with SGB investment.

Key Personal finance term – CAGR:

Compounded Annual Growth Rate is the Rate of Return that you have received by reinvesting the profits back into that investment. It’s a good measure of how a long-term investment has performed in your portfolio, especially for Bonds and Fixed income assets.