Investing with Indexheads
By Anish Teli & the Indexheads Team
Investing with IndexheadsMay 06, 2020
Talking skin in the game, what ails ITC, value & small cap factors with Prashant and Praveen
In this episode I spoke to Prashant Krishna and Praveen Palande about:
- The recent SEBI circular mandating skin in the game for managers
- Capital allocation sins of ITC, which Praveen and I wrote about recently
- Value investing and small caps
And a whole lot more. This was a fascinating and thoroughly enjoyable conversation given the sheer breadth of the topics we spoke about.
I am on @anishteli on Twitter and do check out the Indexheads newsletter where we write about all things low-cost indexing. If you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did, do spread the word.
Indexing ka Baap - Sanjiv Shah
This is a really special episode for us because we have the person who inspired Indexheads, Sanjiv Shah on this episode. Sanjiv, for those of you who don't know, was the founder of Benchmark Asset Management which launched the first Index fund in India - the Niftybees ETF. Benchmark was the only AMC in India that had an indexing only philosophy and they were nothing short of revolutionaries. Benchmark was acquired by Goldman and is now a part of the Nippon Mutual Fund.
In this sweeping conversation with Anish, Sanjiv talks about:
- The aha moment which led him to start Benchmark AMC
- Early evidence about indexing
- His thoughts on ETF vs the mutual fund wrapper
- Challenges with the ETF structure
- His thoughts on the evolution of the Indian MF industry since his exit
- Have index fund fees fallen too low?
- Will a standalone index player be able to sustain?
- The base case for indexing
- Thoughts on smart beta, factor investing
- Will passive fixed income funds work in India?
- Thoughts on AMCs with both active and passive funds
- The right asset allocation
- The case for investing gold
- Are markets efficient or inefficient?
- On alternate fee models with performance hurdles
- Are Indian indices flawed?
And a whole lot more. This was a breathtakingly fascinating conversation given the sheer breadth of the topics Sanjiv spoke about.
I am on @anishteli on Twitter and do check out the Indexheads newsletter where we write about all things low-cost indexing. If you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did talking to Sanjiv, do spread the word.
Kya Credit Risk mutual funds sahi hai with Rajiv Shastri
In this episode, I geek out over the less understood and misunderstood world of debt and debt mutual funds. My guest this week is the brilliant Rajiv Shatri. Rajiv is an economist, debt market specialist, and former CEO of Essel Mutual Fund. In this episode we talk about:
- The opacity of debt markets
- Why the open-ended structure of debt mutual funds and T-day NAV may be flawed. We discuss whether there are ways to get over this which work both in the interest of the fund and investors.
- Liquidity of different rated instruments
- The role of rating agencies in valuing debt instruments
- The pros and cons of listing debt instruments to aid price discovery
- How the risk in credit risk funds is similar to small-cap funds but not the reward and why it's not worth investing in credit risk funds
- Thoughts on the Bharat Bond ETF
- Rajiv's view on longer duration interest rates and the economy
- Is this the time to take duration risk?
- Equity market cycles rhyme and if debt market behave similarly
He tweets @Rajivshastri and blogs on www.rajivshastri.com. Post the Franklin episode, Rajiv wrote a series of posts on ET Prime on the various structural issue with the Indian debt markets, debt mutual funds, and possible remedies. The pieces are absolutely brilliant and we highly recommend reading them.
I am on @anishteli on Twitter and you can also check out the Indexheads newsletter.
Market musings during a lockdown
People, we're super psyched that the investing with Indexheads podcast is now finally live. This has been some time in the making. The idea with this podcast is to decode the most important market events with some of the smartest people in the Indian markets. In this first episode, I speak to Pravin Palande, Editor - Markets and Finance ET Prime. We talk about:
- What's happening in the markets. Reminiscing about what went on during 2008
- Should you pause your SIPs or continue them? The behavioral advantage of SIPs
- Pravin thoughts on whether the retail investors have matured
- Have active managers delivered on their promise of downside protection? Thoughts on index funds being a bubble, we had written an Indexheads piece as well.
- Decoding the Franklin debt funds fiasco. Check out Pravin's (@lonelycrowd on twitter) recent ET Prime piece on the topic
- Thoughts Warren Buffett's decision to sell airline stocks and retail investors penchant to blindly follow superstar investors
Since we were doing this for the first time, the quality of the audio is a little bad in places and we are sincerely sorry about this. As we do this, we'll get a hang of this and we'll iron out the bugs. Also, thoughts, suggestions, brickbats, ideas, we'd love to hear them all, I am @anishteli on Twitter and you can also scream at @passivefool for not fixing the audio.
You can also check out Indexheads - a fortnightly newsletter letter on indexing and passive investing in India.