Here is why you should not buy G-secs (Government Securities) from retail platforms like Zerodha and NSE goBID and keep it simple with fixed deposits or debt mutual funds. Even if you wish to buy G-secs at the very least give several months for the platforms and the process to evolve before committing money. So […]
Category: Bonds
The Bond Yield Curve as an indicator of what’s going on with the economy
The yield curve is a plot of current yields of bonds from the same type of issuer versus their respective maturities. Observing the bond yield curve is a way to find out what is going on with our economy. In this post, I discuss how one can do this some examples. Before we begin, my book […]
Why are PPF and Sukanya Samriddhi interest rates still so high?!
The government announced the interest rates for small saving schemes yesterday and surprising or should I say unsurprisingly, the interest rates of many schemes, especially the long-term ones like PPF and Sukanya Samriddhi are still too high! Why is the government not sticking to policy? If you are surprised by the title in spite of […]
Gold Price Movement: USD vs INR
Tracking gold-price movements in terms of USD and INR is a simple, but intuitive way to understand the strength of our economy. Here are some observations from staring at the historical gold price movement in USD and INR. The domestic price of gold, that is INR is the equivalent price in USD times the exchange rate. […]
Sovereign gold bonds: What you need to know before buying
Here is what you should know before buying sovereign gold bonds either in the primary market (when the next tranche is released) or secondary market (1st tranche issued in Nov 2015). In my opinion, there is only one thing that someone buying paper gold should know: just how volatile returns can be!! The fin min says They […]
How to buy tax-free bonds in the secondary market
Tax-free bonds are purchased in the secondary market via a Demat account when either new ones are not available or not attractive. How does one decide between buying existing tax-free bonds and new ones? Should we just look at the coupon rate and choose the one which is higher? It depends on the purpose of the […]
Term spread as a macroeconomic indicator
A discussion on how the term spread, which is the difference between the 10-year & 3-month government bond yield, can be considered as a macroeconomic indicator A macroeconomic indicator is one which gives an indication about the current state and future trend in the economy. Macroeconomic indicators can be used to change the asset allocation in […]
