What investors should know about the Indian Stock markets?

India is currently among the most watched Emerging Market nations. To top that, the Indian Equity Markets have witnessed unprecedented growth in the recent months. The YTD returns for Sensex alone has been 26% (data from BSE India). The euphoria and high confidence on the Indian Equities has continued to remain, especially from the institutional investors both foreign and domestic.

This is also leading to make many individual investors question whether they should invest in equities or sit on the sidelines. While individual risk appetite and time horizon would be some of the basic factors to understand before investing, there are many other fundamental factors to track. While the debate has been raging on as to which indicators should be looked at or ignored to make sense of the valuations of the Indian equity markets, the following factors can help bring some sense of clarity to the overall picture. Factors such as:

Current Price to Earnings Ratio (P/E Numbers): One of the most traditional tools used globally at gauging the valuations of an equity market of a country. In the last one year alone (based on data from Oct 16 to Oct 17), the P/E Ratio for S&P BSE Sensex has averaged close to 22 times in comparison to its historical average of approximately 17 on a trailing basis. For the BSE Mid Cap and Small Cap of the same period, the P/E valuations are at an average of 33.8 and 81.13 times.

Corporate Earnings: P/E Ratios are directly linked to the corporate earnings of the country. As per Kotak Institutional Equities Estimates, the Expected Earnings for companies representing the Nifty 50 Index are approximately 2% in FY 2018. A variety of reasons are attributed to these low earnings expectations, most famously discussed are the implementations and effects of Demonetization and Goods and Service Tax (GST).

Crude Oil Prices: Nearly 80% of India’s energy needs are import dependent. A direct consequence of this is the risk to the country’s inflation rate if the prices of crude oil are to rise. A rise in oil prices results in lower cashflows/profits for companies and higher prices for consumers. Brent crude oil prices are currently firming up at prices upwards of 60$ per barrel. This is a definite concern from an Indian economy perspective.

Exchange Rates: The Rupee is currently considered overvalued basis its 10 year average (Source: Kotak Research). This has a dual impact on the economy i.e. (A) it increases attractiveness of imported products, resulting in increased competition for domestic companies and lower profits; (B) it decreases the value of exported products and therefore hurts the margins of export based industries such as the IT sector. Both have resulted in muted growth prospects for these respective industries.

Bond Yields: In an growing economy like India, both equities and bonds compete for capital. In a equity bull rally, money is taken out from bond markets and pumped into equities, forgoing risk to capital for riskier investments. Currently bond yields are inching up to the mid 2017 high of 6.987% yield for the 10yr G-Sec. However there has only been net inflows into fixed income. Foreign Portfolio Investments into Government Securities have already reached 83.94% of their allotted limit (data dated as per 6^th Nov NSDL)

Inflation Rate: Inflation brings about it own risks to the stock markets. In the last Monetary Policy Committee meeting, the RBI revised the inflation projections for the rest of FY 2018 upwards to 4% – 4.5%. This may indicate a stop to future rate cuts, freezing any possibilities of reduction in lending rates. Medium term consequences for companies could possibly mean dearer than expected debt to  service, resulting in subdued profits and revenue.

Role of FIIs: The way that Foreign Institutional Investors park monies in the market can give an indication to the current picture of that market. While FIIs were very bullish on Indian Equities for most part of the calendar year, starting June they slowly but surely tapered inflows in equity, finally resulting in net outflows in the month of September and October. (Source: moneycontrol)

Global Scenario: On a global scale, economies are starting to look up, with further growth expected. According to IMF Economic Outlook, average expected GDP growth for FY 2017 is 2.5%. Globally, equity markets have participated in this growth including India. What probably may need to be put in perspective is that the rally in Indian Equities may be partly due to the global rallies taking place. Therefore the Indian equities are associated with risks in terms of foreign external factors like outbreak of war in the Korean Peninsula. Such events are likely to have negative impacts on the domestic markets.

Keeping in mind the above mentioned factors, Plan Ahead Wealth Advisors has a definite view that current equity markets are over valued and investors should exercise caution. The not so positive indicators from these mentioned factors should mean a significant correction cannot be discounted, keeping us wary of diving too much into equities without first educating investors of the potential risks in the short to medium term horizon.

 

 

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What Data Points to consider when planning your finances

In a world where access to internet is becoming more and more widespread, information on almost anything is subsequently becoming easier to find, simply by “Googling” it. Furthermore, free information quite often results in self proclaimed experts of the field, sometimes resulting in unfavorable outcomes for anyone who follows their views/advice without understanding how such individuals arrived at those outlooks.

As such it is important to separate a few facts from myths in terms of what data an individual should consider when faced with some common financial planning aspects rather than what is most commonly/easily available of the internet.

Sending children abroad for higher education is no more a matter of consideration for the upper class families. Nowadays, more and more middle class families aspire to send their children outside India for their education. As such, planning for such an major event requires careful attention. The common misconception is to take simple average rise of Indian education costs and apply the same data for education in a foreign country. However, two critical data points get missed out in such an exercise, (A) the rise in education costs in that particular country to which you plan to send your child. It is inappropriate to consider the inflation numbers would be identical or even similar to that of India. (B) the rise/fall in the currency exchange rate for the two countries in consideration. The following illustration should help clear this concept:

Particulars	% Change
Rise in average education cost of  universities in the U.S. in last 10 years	5%
Rise in Currency Exchange rate in last 5 years	4%
Total Inflation to Consider	9%

Now In comparison the inflation rate for the Indian colleges is approximately 10%-11% p.a.

Talking about inflation, another topic of debate is if the Consumer Price Index (CPI) data is an adequate inflation benchmark, especially for higher middle class/ HNI families. To put things in perspective, following is a snapshot of items considered in the CPI basket and their respective weight-age:

Sr. No	Particulars	Weightage
1	Food and Beverages	45.86%
2	Pan, Tobacco and Intoxicants	2.38%
3	Clothing and Footwear	6.53%
4	Housing	10.07%
5	Fuel and Light	6.84%
6	Miscellaneous	28.32%

(Source: Ministry of Statistics Programme Implementation Circular Dated 14^th March,2017)

As you can see, the weight age of expenses, while more suitable for the lower strata of income generating families, might not be appropriate for the higher end. Something like expenses on food/groceries would certainly not be half the expenses. As such, while current CPI numbers are around 3.5%, indicating that going forward inflation is to be expected around that range, it would be right to assume that a middle class family living in Mumbai would face the same inflation rates. A more appropriate method would be to calculate the individual inflation of major expense heads i.e. food, rent, education, lifestyle expenses and find the average of the same. You would more likely discover a very different inflation rate compared to the CPI.

Past returns is a favorite filter for most investors when choosing products of an asset class, especially stocks and mutual funds. However almost all online data provided by various service providers show Trailing Returns.. Trailing returns show how a fund has performed from date A to date B, by simply seeing the difference in NAV of those dates. But it does not show how consistently it performed in that period. A recent upswing in its performance can skew the average of say a 3 or 5 year performance. To adjust for this, Rolling Returns is considered. It does not take only one block of a 3year period but several blocks of such periods. Thus it allows you to see a range of performances across blocks of time. They therefore capture performance of funds over different market periods, giving a more reliable view of the fund’s performance

Similarly, another topic of debate is usage of Total Return Index v/s Simple Price Index as a benchmark when selecting a mutual fund. A Simple Price Index only captures the capital gains due to stock movements in the fund. But the Total Return Index considers the capital gains and dividend paid by the companies to the investors. Hence it shows a truer picture of the returns. Almost all mutual funds today benchmark their returns against the Simple Price Index. This can result in showing higher alpha generation by the fund which may not give the right picture to the investor. For example, Nifty 50 Price Index over past one year (as on 27^th October 2017) was 18.63 percent and Nifty Total Return Index for the same period showed 19.75 percent. Hence a mutual fund will show different alpha based on the benchmark used.

Plan Ahead Wealth Advisors believes that Rolling Returns and the Total Price Index are the correct data points to consider.

Finally, the widespread use of the general rule of thumb when it comes purchasing a Term Insurance Plan i.e. the sum assured is to be 15-20 times the annual income. Procuring a term plan should be about covering financial risks that may befall on the dependants in case of an unfortunate event. Financial risk does not only include loss of income but also other factors such as pending liabilities, future financial goals, current assets that can be redeemed shortly to meet any obligations. Such factors also play a significant role in determining how much cover needs to be taken.

Using the right data is critical during the financial planning process. As you can see, wrong data can lead to significant errors/assumptions which can have detrimental impacts.

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The NRI guide to retiring in India

Siddharth (all names changed) left India for his masters in the US when he
was 21. Whilst he loved the quality of education and the freedom that he
had, he was sure that he would return back to India once he was done with
his education. Whilst still completing his masters, he found a job with a
Fortune 500 company, offering him a very exciting opportunity and an ability
to earn a handsome salary. He decided to take up the offer and deferred his
plans to return to India for another couple of years. One thing followed
another – he started to go out with a colleague at work , Amrita, and before
long, they were in Chennai exchanging wedding vows. Kids followed and Sid
suddenly found himself on the wrong side of 40, living the great American
dream with a nice house, nice car and a happy family. All of a sudden,
whilst speaking to some friends one evening , Sid and Amrita realised that
besides paying down their home loans and cars, they also needed to plan for
the education of their children and their own retirement. Since they were on
their way to India for their holidays in a couple of weeks, they decided
they would discuss it in greater detail once they were in India.

Since I was the financial planner for one of his friends, Sid called me when
he was in India to understand how he could get started with his investments.
As we started to discuss his financial goals, I asked him what his future
plans were.  Was he looking to retire to India or was he likely to continue
to be in the US? Well, well, Amrita and me have discussed this a lot. Its
always wonderful to spend time with friends and family. Life is good in the
US – its convenient, its comfortable and we have a great work life balance.
But if I put my hand on my heart and ask myself where it feels like home,
its when I land back in India. So India it is for us, where we finally wish
to retire.

Thats great, I said. In our experience, this is one of the most difficult
decisions to make for a large number of NRIs, irrespective of which part of
the world they are currently based in. Having clarity on where you are going
to retire to is one of the most crucial decisions to make before you decide
on how your investment portfolio needs to be constructed. Sid was surprised
to hear this and asked me to explain this in greater detail. Why would that
be?

There are two critical reasons for that, I said.

1. Inflation levels in India tend to be much higher than most other parts of
the globe. Whilst the current inflation rates in the region of 10% as per
the consumer price index may be a little higher than normal, they have
ranged between 7.5% to 8% pa over the last couple of decades. Thus, going by
historical trends, portfolios for investors looking to retire in India need
to be designed keeping these high inflation rates in mind, rather than the
low inflation rates that are prevalent in the developed world.

2. Costs of maintaining the lifestyle that NRIs have got used to overseas,
can end up being significantly higher in India. Take for example, the sizes
of homes. An NRI moving from most cities in the US will not only find it
difficult to find houses of the size that he has got used to, but also find
it far more expensive in large cities in India. Thus, he could end up having
to buy more than one apartment and then look to consolidate them, so that he
has more living space. Alternatively, he may need to look at gated
communities in certain locations, that will allow him to get a feeling of
the lifestyle that he has been used to.

So whats a good way to begin, asked Sid.

First of all, its a great idea to get a good estimate of what your
retirement in India are likely to be, as of todays cost. For a lot of NRIs,
this may not be easy to do , as they may not be completely aware of multiple
living costs in India. They may either need to sit down with a close family
member to go item by item in terms of expenses, both recurring and annual,
or sit with a financial planner who can guide them on the various components
and estimates that make up the cost of living for a particular lifestyle in
India.

Once these cost of living estimates have been made, an appropriate
retirement age will need to be established. This choice could either be
driven by the retirement age in the country of residence of the NRI, or by
other parameters such as the ages of children or dependent parents.

Post establishing both the likely costs and retirement age, by using an
appropriate inflation rate, the quantum of the retirement portfolio needed
can be established. Post this,the investment portfolio can be created
keeping in mind the risk profile, expected rate of return,and product
restrictions if any. For example, some investment products are not available
for NRIs or may have restrictions for NRIs from certain geographies to
invest in them.

This portfolio could be a blend of real estate, equities, fixed income and
commodities and could be created using managed solutions like mutual funds
or portfolio management services, or can be created through directly buying
an investment product like a stock, or physical real estate or a bank
deposit.

There are a few more things to be kept in mind if you are planning to retire
in India

1. Establish the location in India that you would like to retire to, so that
you can start to plan to purchase the ideal home that you would like to
retire to. It is not critical to make the purchase today, if you wish to
retire after 20 years. However, it is crucial to plan for this purchase as
well, so a portion of your investments need to go towards supporting this
goal.

2. Start thinking about your plan for some of the assets that you own for example, whats your exit strategy for your current home in Singapore. Its

great for you today because you are working there but what happens to it
when you retire.

3. Different countiries have different tax treatments for global income and
reporting of global assets. Be sure to consult with a tax advisor in both
India and your current country of residence.

4. There may be retiral plans that you are contributing to, in your country
of residence. Please understand how they would work when you would leave the country and go back to India.

5.  Since you will need medical coverage during your retirement, start
buildng a medical corpus or look for a medical insurance cover that will
support medical treatment in India as well.

Sid and Amrita now have their retirement plan in place and are looking
forward to spending their golden years in India. Start thinking about your
retirement location and plan accordingly, if you have yet to decide. I
promise, it will throw up many more questions than I have covered.

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Plan Ahead nominated for the CNBC TV18 Financial Advisor Awards 2012.

One fine day, I got a call from CNBC TV18. I thought it was the usual call from my media friends wanting to chat about the latest happenings in the world of personal finance.

But no, this was no ordinary call. This was a call to inform us that Plan Ahead had been nominated for the CNBC TV18 Financial Advisor Awards 2012. Plan Ahead was amongst the top 3 Financial Advisors nominated for the Independent Financial Advisor Mega City West category. These awards are given to recognise India’s best financial advisors and the contribution they have made in providing productive financial advice thereby partnering in their prosperity. These awards are powered by ICRA, one of India’s leading rating agencies, and the nomination process covers multiple qualitative and quantitative parameters.

We at Plan Ahead are thrilled and grateful for the recognition.

We are happy to share the same with you all who are our extended Plan Ahead family ie. Plan Ahead clients, friends and families. We would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for the constant support, good wishes and encouragement that we receive regularly from all of you. Thank you all.

We are more aware than ever that this recognition now puts more responsibility on our shoulders to push ourselves to strive harder and outdo ourselves, and live up to the title theme of the CNBC TV18 Financial Advisor Awards i.e. the guardian angels of your wealth.

Vishal Dhawan and the entire Plan Ahead team

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Lessons from the India-England series for your investment portfolio

With the India-England series having ended with a 4-0 whitewash for India, a significant amount of time is now being spent by experts and commentators to understand what went wrong with the same Indian team that won the World Cup just a few months ago and was the number 1 rated test team before the series started.

In just a few weeks, a captain who could do no wrong has been criticised for not talking enough to his bowlers, reputations of senior players with significant experience have been severely hit and India has been relegated to third place in the world rankings.

We believe that there are significant lessons for investors with regard to their investment portfolio from this test series loss that India faced.

1. The past should not be looked at as a prediction of the future

Investors would recollect that there were significant inflows into equity mutual funds, stocks, IPOs and NFOs (New Fund Offerings) on the basis of approximately 40 per cent annualised return over the previous 5 years till 2007.

Investors expected this to repeat over the next 5 years as well. Those who invested during that period are still seeing returns that are either negative or sub-optimal today. Similarly, investors are looking at equity returns over the last 5 years today and shunning equities as the last 5 years returns on the Sensex are below 8 per cent per annum. They should avoid looking into the rear view mirror to predict the future. In the same way, just because this same Indian team won the World Cup earlier this year and had performed well in the past in test series both in India and overseas, it does not make it an automatic qualification to continue to do well in the future.

2. Build a strong foundation

The Indian cricket team made some fundamental mistakes in England like dropping catches and carrying injured players who were unable to even play full matches, forget playing to their potential. In the same way, investors tend to make some fundamental mistakes like not planning for a contingency fund of 4-6 months that may be required in case of a job loss or medical emergency or not having adequate life insurance cover to provide for their family in case of an unfortunate event. There is a tendency to focus on investments excessively, without taking care of the basics.

3. Experience matters

Rahul Dravid was the only batsman who redeemed himself in the star-studded Indian batting line-up that failed so miserably. His rich experience of playing in English conditions surely helped him. In the same way, money managers with experience of handling money during both positive and negative economic environments can be critical, as they can tailor their responses accordingly and use their experience to their advantage.

4. Build a well-balanced portfolio

There were times where it looked like the Indian team did not have the right blend of experience and youth to cope with the conditions. In the same way, your investment portfolio needs to have a good balance of different asset classes like equities, fixed income, commodities and real estate rather than having only one of them that is significantly overweight like real estate or gold.

5. Don’t focus only on the stars, track the universe of portfolio managers

The England team that beat India so comprehensively had also done extremely well over the last few years and was already the world no. 2 before the series began. In the same way, you need to look at your portfolio managers carefully and you will find that there is not just one manager who delivers all the time. There will be portfolio managers who are probably doing nearly as well as the ones who are ranked at the highest level and you need to track them as well. In case you find that difficult, you may need to use the services of a professional advisor who tracks portfolio managers more closely.

6. Worry about the silent killers

A large number of players, though apparently fit, were obviously not so and were silent about it. They thus failed to deliver when required. In much the same way, inflation is a silent killer on your portfolio. Whilst fixed income may give you a lot of comfort and help you avoid any fluctuations on your portfolio, it is unable to match inflation most of the time and is thus unable to deliver when required for your goal.

Whilst I am sure there are multiple other lessons that can be learnt from this series loss, we believe investors should look closely at some of the above lessons in case they have not done so already.

This article was written by Vishal Dhawan, CFP^CM and appeared in the EXIM INDIA newsletter on 26^th September 2011 .

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Wealth protection gets a new meaning – headline

TWO EVENTS over the last few days have hit the headlines one from India and the other from Pakistan, in which the person with the mandate to protect has done quite the opposite. Both unfortunate events the killing of a leading politician by his bodyguard in Pakistan, and the significant financial losses caused by a relationship manager closer home, have driven home the point clearly that whether it’s your life or your wealth, you need to take responsibility to protect it yourself.

While protecting your life is not something that I pro-fess to have much expertise in, protecting yourself from financial fraud can definitely be minimised by greater alertness and awareness. Unfortunately, investors spend far more time buying a television set than investing five times the amount in a financial product.

Betrayal of trust does create a lot of angst, so it is critical that investors take referrals from friends and family before choosing a financial adviser. Unfortunately, a lot of investors choose their financial advisor based on the rice the cheaper the better, which is contrary to what they do when they buy other products where the belief is that the more expensive the product, the better the quality.

Once the due diligence on the advisor has been done, what can an investor do to protect oneself:

■ As investors seek new products, financial product manufacturers tend to create exotic instruments to fulfill that need. Investors need to stick to products that are more transparent and where risks are clearly understood. Remember the mortgage backed securities in the US a couple of years ago that took some big names down with them or guaranteed return products that did not even return the principal, forget the guaranteed returns.

■ Multiple products today use back testing data, which essentially demonstrates how the product would have performed over different time frames.

This is different from actual performance and is exposed to the risk of data selection bias. Ideally, the track record should be independently verifiable. For example, mutual fund performance data is available on independent websites, so investors can do their own verification of performances and track records.

• Any product that offers returns that are completely out of sync with competing product returns needs to be closely subscribed. In an era, where fixed income returns range between eight and ten per cent, a guaranteed return of more than 15 per cent should definitely cause you to do a significant amount of homework.
• While time is definitely at a premium for everyone in today’s busy world, time spent on understanding where you’re putting your money is definitely time well spent. Avoid signing blank documents and cheques just because you don’t have time.
• Many investors have small sums of money in multiple investments making them very difficult to track.

With larger chunks of money in each investment, you will tend to give it more thought both at the time of investment and also monitor it on an ongoing basis.

This article was written by Vishal Dhawan, CFP^CM and appeared in the Deccan Chronicle  on  8^th  January 2011 .

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