- CM Opinion: Everything about the mega HDFC merger explained
- Geo-politics: China’s ‘debt-trap diplomacy with Sri Lanka
- World Markets: Elon rejects the Twitter board and keeps the CEO hanging dry
- Personal Finance: When should we start to spend?
- Asset Allocation: What should be your asset allocation in a rising interest rate scenario?
- Pop Quiz: Announcing the previous quiz winner and sharing today’s question
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HDFC & HDFC Bank: The Mega-Merger explained 🎯
On the first trading day of FY23, everyone woke up to the news of the biggest corporate merger in Indian financial markets. Two behemoths HDFC & HDFC Bank proposed to merge into one mega financial conglomerate.
Deepak Shenoy shares his views on this corporate action and explains, how it will impact the financials of both the companies and what’s in it for the investors.
Read – What the HDFC Bank merger really means for investors
China’s role in the ongoing Srilankan crisis 🎭
The dragon is entering our neighborhood. China has massively funded Pakistan and Sri Lanka and now wants to benefit from the political turmoil in these countries. What are their big plans and who is to blame?
Read – China’s ‘debt-trap diplomacy’ played role in Sri Lanka
What next for Elon & Twitter? 🍿
We can’t get enough of Elon, can we? In a new twist to the tale, Elon has declined the offer to join the board.
The way forward is not exactly clear. Musk seems to still have a big hand in the company, and he has not yet succeeded in previous predictions in establishing his own competitive communication platform.
Read – Elon Musk will not join the Twitter board. Now?
When should we start to spend? 🏝
Decumulation is the process of spending down your net worth so you don’t die with too much money. If you die with lots of money left over, you’ve essentially wasted all the time and energy it took for you to accumulate that money.
At the same time, nobody wants to run out of money before they die. So, what’s the perfect decumulation age?
Read – The Best Decumulation Age To Start Spending Down Your Fortune
Nowhere to hide for investors in market turbulence? 🔫
Conventional portfolios are in big trouble. For years, a 60% Equity and 40% Debt approach has been the mainstay of investment portfolios. This worked well over the past decades as equities surged in a nearly straight line to record highs and interest rates fell to new lows, firing up bond prices. But this model now faces some serious strain.
With rates starting to rise, what should idle split between different asset classes?
Read – Nowhere to hide for investors in market turbulence
Pop Quiz ⚡️
Question: Evergiven, the ship stuck at the Suez canal in 2021, had given us some evergreen memes. The ship also had a big India connection by having all of its crew from India. But that’s not the first connection between India, the Suez canal, and a trade route blockage.
During the peak of World War I, around 5000 tons of tree logs from the State of Mysore were waiting to be transported when there was a trade lockdown at the then British controlled Suez canal near Egypt.
The King of Mysore was staring at the risk of the whole stock getting rot and hence he ordered for oil to be extracted out of the reserve stock. This led to an invention that is still a well known part of Indian households.
What was this “by chance” invention?
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Last week’s #PopQuiz Results💡
Answer: Pfizer and BioNTech announced that their coronavirus vaccine was 90% effective in trials. Due to this stocks that benefited from remote work & lockdowns took a hit while stocks that would benefit from “re-opening” rose sharply (link)
Congratulations! Many of you got this one right. The winner of the previous quiz is Dhaval Joshi 🎉
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