Cycling Financial News

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.There is a discomforting paradox at the heart of India’s current macroeconomic situation. By almost every conventional measure of sovereign economic health—growth, inflation, fiscal trajectory, external vulnerability and investor confidence in the real economy—India’s fundamentals are among the strongest of any large emerging market. Yet the rupee has depreciated by over 13% against the dollar in the past two years and by more than 15% since January 2023.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Memory prices have been going “parabolic,” a big investment bank wrote this past week. I gripped my TI-84 graphing calculator in outrage. My email inbox has turned into a parabo-looza, with misuse of that term up sixfold from last year.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.IIM Ahmedabad's venture platform IIMA Ventures has averaged six to eight exits from its startup portfolio every yearsince the financial year 2012-13 (FY13)—a pace of returns that outstrips even some of India's leading venture capital funds.IIMA Ventures exited Pune-based Unbox Robotics earlier this year when the warehouse automation startup raised $28 million in its Series B round led by ICICI Venture. It was among the first institutional backers of the company, writing an $80,000 ( ₹75 lakh) cheque when it raised a $500,000 seed round back in 2020.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The year 2025 proved highly significant for those tracking interest rates, as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) embarked on its most aggressive easing cycle since 2019. Over the course of four policy meetings, the central bank reduced the repo rate by a total of 1.25 percentage points, bringing it down to 5.25%.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Nearly 70% of Indians lack meaningful health insurance. Our penetration rate— just 0.35% of GDP—is lower than that of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The conventional explanation is that Indians either do not understand insurance or cannot afford it.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.As the Nifty 50 crashed more than 11% in March amid escalating tensions between the US, Iran and Israel, equity funds slashed their cash holdings throughout the month, aggressively buying into stocks at beaten-down prices. This widespread reduction in liquidity highlighted how differently fund managers utilize "dry powder" during a crisis.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Kenneth Andrade, chief investment officer (CIO) of Old Bridge Mutual Fund and founder director of Old Bridge Capital Management, who views investing as a journey where one pays ‘tuition fees’ through market cycles, believes that opportunities never really dry up.“There’s always a stock or sector to be found,” he said.He notes opportunities have become easier to spot recently, though that wasn’t the case in 2024 and early 2025. With valuations now normalised, he expects more modest returns, likely in the low teens over a longer cycle.“I think most of the worst is already priced in. If a shock occurs, the opportunity will be much larger.”He said this is a phase where it makes sense to put about 50% of capital to work upfront and stagger the rest over the year.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.India’s power sector is entering a high-growth phase, driven by rising electricity demand and an accelerating shift toward renewable energy.Air-conditioning adoption, electric mobility, data centres, infrastructure build-out, and urbanization are all pushing consumption higher. As the country balances energy security with sustainability, power companies are evolving their business models to keep pace.In this article, we examine why the sector could be turning attractive for investors.India’s peak power demand has been hitting fresh highs each year and, by government projections, is set to climb steadily over the next decade.The International Energy Agency (IEA) expects India to lead global energy demand growth through 2035.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.With equity markets roiled by the West Asia war and sharp swings in mid- and small-caps, investors are grappling with how to position portfolios.In an interaction with Mint, Trideep Bhattacharya, president and chief investment officer-equities, Edelweiss Mutual Fund, with average assets under management of ₹1.65 trillion in the March quarter, shares why he remains cautiously optimistic and how investors should navigate the current phase. Edited excerpts:Where do you see markets heading from here, given the recent volatility?We are incrementally positive on markets, particularly from a near-term perspective.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.For long, Indian retail investors operated under a comforting premise — that domestic growth, strong savings, and limited direct global exposure would shield portfolios from global volatility. That premise is increasingly untenable. Indian retail portfolios, long seen as insulated by domestic growth stories such as consumption and banking, are now firmly in the grip of global economic currents.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.India’s newly unveiled CGSMFI 2.0, a ₹20,000 crore credit guarantee scheme for microfinance, aims to revive credit flows to the stressed sector. Yet, in its current form, it only partially addresses the symptoms and largely ignores the causes. India’s microfinance sector is in downturn.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.April presents a familiar, if uncomfortable, market backdrop. Equity indices are swinging sharply, crude oil prices are hovering at $90- $100 a barrel, the rupee is under pressure, and global markets continue to grapple with uncertainty. For many investors, this mix fuels unease, amplified by constant exposure to headlines and real-time market moves.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Balanced advantage funds (BAFs)—hybrid mutual funds that dynamically shift between equity and debt—adjust their allocations in response to market conditions. In theory, they increase equity exposure when valuations are low and move towards debt when equities appear stretched.A closer look at how India’s five largest BAFs have moved over the past two years, however, reveals a more nuanced picture: the broad direction is consistent, but the pace, range and conviction differ from fund to fund.Between January 2024 and March 2026, the Nifty 50 ran through a full cycle—rallying about 19% from around 21,700 to over 25,800, correcting nearly 14% through February 2025, recovering through the rest of 2025, and showing fresh weakness in early 2026 amid the West Asia war.Through this period, the five largest BAFs by assets under management (AUM)—HDFC Balanced Advantage Fund, ICICI Prudential BAF, SBI BAF, Edelweiss BAF and Kotak BAF—all adjusted equity exposure, but in different ways driven by their underlying models, ranging from valuation-based frameworks to momentum-driven approaches.That divergence matters.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.India is the one of fastest-growing markets in Asia for real-time analytics and artificial intelligence observability platform Clickhouse, according to a top executive at the firm.“On the revenue side, India would be one of the highest in Asia,” co-founder and chief technology officer Alexey Milovidov said in an interview with Mint. “While revenue would be behind the US and Europe, in southeast Asia and the APAC region, India wins just on scale.”The database startup launched in India just eight months ago with a product engineering team and a smaller go-to-market team, and has several large enterprises and new-age tech companies as clients.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.A 34-year-old Pune woman, diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) as a teenager, saw her first natural menstrual cycle in February—six months after starting Mounjaro for weight management. This spotlights a broader shift, as more women with the condition turn to GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1) drugs for metabolic relief and, in some cases, improved fertility.The trend is accelerating across India, doctors said, even though these drugs are not officially approved for treating PCOS and are prescribed primarily for type-2 diabetes and obesity.“I’ve had PCOS since I can remember, and with that comes infertility,” she told Mint, requesting her name be withheld to protect her privacy.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The 10-year government securities yield climbed from 6.68% on 27 February 2026 — a day before the US-Iran conflict broke out — to 7.1% by 2 April, before easing slightly to 6.98% as of 13 April.The spike has pushed long-duration debt mutual funds into negative territory, with the category down an average 1.11% since the war began.Long-duration funds, classified by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) as those with a Macaulay duration of more than seven years, are among the most interest rate-sensitive debt fund categories. When rates fall, bond prices rise and investors gain; when rates rise, the reverse happens, leading to mark-to-market losses.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.MUMBAI: Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) pulled out a record ₹1.8 trillion from Indian equities in FY26, according to data Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), but the headline outflow masks a more targeted shift. Rather than a broad exit, investors pared exposure to IT, defensives and parts of consumption, while selectively adding to sectors tied to India’s capital expenditure cycle.A Mint analysis of sectoral flows shows that even as overall selling remained elevated, capital moved towards capital goods, telecom, and metals, signalling a narrower, conviction-led allocation rather than a wholesale retreat from the market.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) have pulled nearly ₹1.8 trillion out of Indian equities in FY26 — the largest outflow in 34 years.At first glance, that headline sounds alarming. But for long-term investors, it may signal opportunity rather than danger.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.MUMBAI: Digital lending firms regained some momentum in FY26, as unsecured lending picked up and growth stabilized after a regulatory-led slowdown the previous year, industry executives and analysts told Mint.The rebound follows a muted FY25, when tighter regulations, rising costs and weakening credit quality sharply slowed expansion. Loan growth, for non-banking finance companies (NBFCs) with assets under management (AUM) below ₹15,000 crore, fell to about 13% in FY25 from around 36% a year earlier, according to a November 2025 report by Icra Ltd, as unsecured lending and microfinance segments contracted.

Online commerce is undergoing a structural shift—from discovery-led consumption to decision-led execution. The rise of Agentic AI, capable of searching, evaluating and transacting autonomously, is reshaping how demand is created and fulfilled. This transition does not eliminate consumers, but reduces their role in the decision loop.

US-Israel and Iran escalated into a full-blown war in West Asia — and gold, instead of rallying, stumbled.Nippon India ETF Gold BeES, India’s largest gold exchange-traded fund (ETF), fell from ₹131.60 on 27 February 2026 — the day before the conflict began — to ₹110.72 by 23 March, shedding nearly 16% in under a month. The ETF has since recovered, gaining 11.5% from that low.