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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. When you crack open several funds that sound the same, you can find very different investments inside. That’s one of the most subtle, but important, lessons of 2025.

Titan Co. Ltd’s shares are up around 6% in the past two trading sessions, hitting an all-time high of ₹4,312.10 apiece on Wednesday, mostly led by the solid growth in its jewellery business, as per its December quarter (Q3FY26) update.It also held a conference call to lay out the initial roadmap for lab-grown diamond (LGD) studded jewellery under the brand name of ‘beYon’.

Coal India Ltd’s (CIL's) key subsidiary Bharat Coking Coal Ltd (BCCL) is set to launch the first mainboard initial public offering (IPO) of 2026, marking an important step in the government-owned miner’s long-planned monetization strategy.BCCL, incorporated in 1972, is India’s largest producer of coking coal and plays a strategic role in CIL’s portfolio. The company has an estimated 7.91 billion tonnes of reserves as of 1 April 2024, making it one of the country’s biggest holders of coking coal resources.

₹12 lakh, increasing disposable incomes at the hand of consumers.On the monetary policy front, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has delivered a massive 125 basis points (bps) reduction in interest rates over the past 12 months, which is expected to boost liquidity in the market through higher spending in rate-sensitive segments, such as banking, real estate and consumer durables.“Policy measures implemented during the year, including tax and interest rate reductions, are beginning to yield positive results, which are expected to translate into stronger earnings growth for domestic economy-oriented sectors in 2026,” Yogesh Patil, chief investment officer, equity, LIC Mutual Fund Asset Management (LIC MF), told Mint. The strength of India’s macroeconomic fundamentals, coupled with the expected benefits of recent policy moves, has made this optimism the near-consensus view on the Street.“We expect festive demand momentum in Q3 results to bring calm to the market as we enter 2026.

software-as-a-solution (SaaS)-like model of recurring subscriptions.“Procurement and financial approvals still lean heavily towards hardware acquisitions,” said Ankit Mehta, co-founder of ideaForge. While annual maintenance contracts are the bread and butter for hardware makers, software is the expected add-on, at least for the time being.

Removing Venezuela’s dictator introduced ‘Trump’s Corollary’ in Latin America with an exclamation point. The White House’s updated take on the Monroe Doctrine had its baptism of fire on Saturday, when US forces captured Nicolás Maduro at his Caracas stronghold, decapitating the Chavista regime responsible for bankrupting one of the world’s richest oil nations. Less than a month after Washington unveiled a new National Security Strategy pledging to restore American pre-eminence in the Western Hemisphere—by force if necessary—Maduro and his wife were on their way to New York to face “narco-terrorism” charges.

India’s metal sector is becoming increasingly important as the country sharpens its focuses on infrastructure, power, manufacturing, and clean energy. Metals such as zinc and copper are essential inputs across construction, electrification, renewables, and industrial production.Hindustan Zinc and Hindustan Copper stand out among the top metal stocks in India, though their businesses operate on very different scales and cycles.Today we compare these two metal stocks by examining their operations, financial performance, and risks to help your understand how each fits into India’s metal ecosystem.Hindustan Zinc, a subsidiary of the Vedanta Group, is the world’s largest integrated producer of zinc and also ranks among the top five silver producers globally.Over the years, the company has built a large-scale and cost-efficient mining and smelting ecosystem in India.

Consulting firms are queuing up at top-tier business schools with surprising hiring numbers, especially after artificial intelligence impacted employee figures in some of these very companies, according to the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), which are among the prominent recruitment grounds for these companies.“We started our final placements earlier and till now 492 of 594 students have been successfully placed, reflecting steady progress in a competitive market environment,” said Debashis Chatterjee, director IIM Kozhikode. “This year witnessed a strong resurgence in consulting and finance roles, with consulting offers rising by nearly 60% and finance roles by about 10%.”These offers are driven by India’s growing role in complex, AI-driven work.

food sector, aggressive local pricing, and evolving consumer preferences appear to be weighing on footfalls across the category.While the merger does little to directly revive demand, it meaningfully improves operational efficiency. Post-transaction, Devyani will become the sole operator of KFC and Pizza Hut in India, in addition to acquiring Sapphire’s Sri Lanka operations.

Diversification in mutual funds is usually discussed in terms of asset classes (equity, debt, gold, etc) or market capitalisation. What’s often ignored is diversification across investment styles – growth, value, and factor investing, to name a few.Growth investing tends to do well when the economy is expanding and confidence is high. Fund managers who employ this style back companies that reinvest aggressively to expand, and tend to grow earnings faster than their peers.

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equities “just in time” to avoid a crash, and they will tell you how hard it is to do it twice. Selling is only the first step. The second — getting back in — is often even harder.A few realities investors underestimate:You will likely get the timing wrong.

Dear reader, as 2025, a year of global tumult and volatility, rolls by, Mint's reporters and columnists look around the corner on what is coming in 2026—to help you know what to expect and prepare for it. Tell us what you think at [email protected] Bollywood star Salman Khan to cricket legend Sunil Gavaskar, and from Nutella to Taj Hotels, 2025 saw celebrities and brands alike rush to court to protect their identity from digital misuse.

When elevated valuations and fresh supply of equity could moderate market returns, investors could consider putting their money in equity schemes – with the flexibility to manoeuvre across sectors and market capitalizations – and in asset allocation schemes with a greater tilt towards equity, Sankaran Naren, executive director and chief investment officer at ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund, said in an interview with Mint.Naren advises restraint while making standalone investments in precious metals like gold and silver at current prices, adding that exposure to them could at best be taken through multi-asset strategies or via asset allocation. The markets are closely tracking the impending Indo-US trade deal, he added.

₹19.6 lakh in FY25 compared to ₹14.5 lakh for a private bank employee, according to data released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on 29 December. The gap has widened since FY24, when the per-employee profit of government-owned banks stood at ₹15.2 lakh, surpassing ₹14 lakh for their private peers.Profit per employee is a key metric that tracks staff productivity.India’s public sector banks had an image of being inefficient, with governments continually injecting fresh capital into them each year.

On 3 January, the US carried out airstrikes on Caracas in the backdrop of heightened tensions in the Caribbean and its recent interdictions of vessels alleged to be carrying narcotics in Venezuelan waters. The White House framed this operation as a necessary move to dismantle narco-terrorist efforts and halt weapons being sold to anti-US forces. This large-scale operation included the ‘capture’ of Venezuela’s leader Nicolás Maduro and there is enough to suggest that its aims were wider than claimed.

The start of the year is a good time to make a resolution to get your finances in order, but start by setting the right goals.How you frame your resolutions is crucial to your likelihood of achieving them.People “with approach-oriented goals were significantly more successful in sustaining their New Year’s resolutions compared to those with avoidance-oriented goals,” according to one study by a professor of psychology at Stockholm University, Sweden, and others. So, come up with goals about what you want to achieve rather than something you wish to avoid.Think: I will build an emergency fund, rather than: I want to avoid a financial crunch.Another key is to start with a small step.“You can’t just randomly, on 1 January, change yourself,” said Krishna Rath, a Bhubaneshwar-based registered investment adviser with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi).

salary hikes.The changing balance of power is visible in attrition data. According to a Mercer study, voluntary attrition across India Inc stood at 13.1% in 2023 and fell to 11.7% in 2024.

Israel’s strike on Hamas targets in Qatar in September, the United States began pushing for a ceasefire in Gaza. But with or without one, Israel will continue to pursue expansive goals, redrawing borders in the West Bank, southern Lebanon, and southwestern Syria in ways that could further fracture its neighbors.

This New Year, people were not just wishing each other a happy 2026 and making resolutions—they were also streaming the finale episode of Stranger Things on Netflix, which was in its fifth season. As soon as the episode aired, some began comparing it to Game of Thrones, while others hailed it as a historical moment in pop culture, akin to Harry Potter.

Forecasts aren’t prophecy—they offer a glimpse into market sentiment. Our New Year special asks experts not for perfect numbers, but how they interpret the economy and the world around them—and how that shapes their money moves. The message is clear: discipline beats prediction. Stay invested. Stay diversified. Here’s how that thinking is shaping their approach to 2026, and what’s likely to keep their sectors busy.My plan stays boring yet effective: keep SIPs going in diversified equity/hybrids, maintain a proper cash buffer in liquid/ultra-short debt, and rebalance instead of reacting.