I started working at Zerodha in 2017. When I joined, the stock market in India was more or less a sideshow. Nobody really cared about capital markets apart from the obvious people for whom they mattered. The stock market was not part of any mainstream conversation. But all of that changed after COVID. This is […]
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In January 2025, I wrote about the dramatic transformation of Indian capital markets. The basic idea was simple: there are two distinct phases of Indian markets—the pre-COVID backwater and the post-COVID explosion. The timing was impeccable in the worst way possible. I almost called the top. From around September 2024, we entered a mini-bear phase. […]
Another year ends. Time to look back, find lessons to learn, ignore those lessons, and make new mistakes in style. See, we investors aren’t going to do sensible things. That’s not our style. We’ll keep doing dumb things, and we might as well accept it. But there has to be growth—even when it comes to […]
For retail investors, investing often feels like a search for the next best way to lose money. And lately, the hot new way to do that is by buying unlisted or pre-IPO shares. These are shares of companies that haven’t yet been listed on the stock exchanges. When a company is listed on the stock […]
There’s a paradox at the heart of financial services: What’s good for financial institutions is rarely good for you. All of the shady practices we see and the depressing stories we hear can be explained by this paradox. One of the more depressing manifestations of this paradox is dark patterns. Dark patterns are design practices […]
Caveat: This is a speculative post on what the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) means for one’s personal finances. The post has more questions than answers, so much so that you might even think, “What the hell is this fellow saying?” This is deliberate. Given the inherent uncertainty associated with AI, any opinion on it […]
A downside of writing about finance is that you are cursed to see the same dumb things and write about them over and over again. It’s a bit like being Sisyphus, if he were a writer. Uhmm, excuse me, who is sissy-puss? So, according to Greek mythology, Sisyphus was a guy that pissed Zeus off. […]
We’re in a bear market. Yes, things are terrible. But here’s everything you need to know about a bear market, so that you know what you’re in for.
Five years ago, a horrendous virus called COVID-19 made an unwelcome entry into our lives. It eventually became a weak shadow of itself. We barely even think of it anymore. But in its short stint, it changed our world forever. If the virus had never come our way, the changes of these five years would […]
It’s the end of another year. And that means it’s time to look back on the year and reflect on the mistakes that I made, and saw others make. Why? I’m not sure. It’s the height of arrogance to think we learn from our mistakes. I don’t know about you, but I’m not one of […]
You are better off doing dumb things when you are younger and have less money to lose than when you are older and have more at stake.
Welcome to a story of warring Gods, the discovery of fire, the first woman ever – and what they all have to do with how you manage money.
Catastrophes are unlikely. And yet, unlikely things happen all the time. World War I shows how things can suddenly go horribly wrong.
Bull markets teach bad habits. Bear markets detoxify them. However good things look, a generational detoxification will eventually arrive.
We misunderstood 10 years of market behaviour. Valuations make no sense. Gold prices are absurd. China’s stuck. It’s an upside-down world!
On April 14, Iran attacked Israel directly for the first time, launching over 300 drones and missiles towards Israel. Israel and its allies intercepted almost all of the projectiles, preventing any damage. On April 19th, Israel retaliated with a limited attack on Iran. These tit-for-tat attacks have turned the already volatile Middle East into a […]
Robo-advisory services were the hottest wealth management trend of the last decade. Most died or were acquired in fire sales. What went wrong? This is a history of robo-advisors and why they failed.
We keep reading tons of interesting things, not all of which we share or write about. So, we figured, we’d share short summaries of what we are reading and tracking that you may find interesting.
Daniel Kahneman made finance more humane and investors more introspective. We all owe him a debt of gratitude for making us look inward.
A new shipping crisis may ripple through global trade. Houthi militants attack ships passing through the Red Sea, while the Panama canal experiences a disruption due to severe drought.
SEBI has directed AMFI to instruct all asset management companies to restrict inflows into international exchange-traded funds (ETFs). This post explains why these restrictions are imposed and what they mean.
“Investing is a problem that has been solved.” Dave Nadig, a veteran of the US ETF industry, said this on a podcast, and it has been stuck in my head ever since. I remembered this quote because I saw this poll on Twitter (Umm… X. What sort of name is that?). I’ve been thinking and […]
Over the years, whenever we asked people what aspect of their personal finances they struggled with the most, the common answer was insurance. So we decided to do an Ask Me Anything session with Shrehith Karkera, co-founder of Ditto Insurance. We collected the most common answers from people with Shrehith answering them in detail.
Once upon a time, I used to publish a fintech newsletter. It was pretty good, if I may be vain enough to say so. Once upon a slightly later time, due to unspeakable and mostly embarrassing reasons, I let the newsletter fall by the wayside. But we’re starting it again. My colleagues have promised to […]
2023 was an interesting year. Given the new year, it’s a good time to reflect on the year that has passed. We learn so that we can ignore the lessons and make the same old mistakes in unique ways.