How to think about ETF portfolios (without overcomplicating it)
A short 🧵
You can now build a complete investment portfolio using ETFs alone.
No fund manager tracking. No guess work have to be done. Simple SIP could work for anyone...
1/9
@WealthEnrich Natco Pharma
Been through the rough patch, now getting back the momentum. Good balance sheet and promoter holding and FII holding are stable.
Concluding a very productive visit to Italy. My discussions with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni covered a wide range of sectors. A key outcome of the visit was our decision to elevate India-Italy ties to a Special Strategic Partnership, which will add new momentum to our cooperation in the years to come.
I thank Prime Minister Meloni, the Government of Italy and the wonderful people of Italy for their friendship.
@GiorgiaMeloni
Crude has shot past $110,
India’s annual oil import bill has crossed ₹12 lakh crore &
FIIs have dumped ₹8.8 lakh Cr of stocks in the last 2 yrs.
On top of this our 🇮🇳 Rupee has crashed from ₹82.5 to ₹95+
But, investors are still chasing #Nifty levels while the actual money flow is getting tighter & tougher!
Recent govt actions also start making more sense once this macro picture is understood & digested. Most people are looking at these decisions separately without connecting the dots. Let's dig into them :
1. Sugar exports restricted to protect domestic food inflation when weather risks are high.
2. Silver imports halted because unnecessary dollar outflows become hard to defend at elevated crude prices.
3. Fresh proposals to tax foreign travel to cut every possible dollar leakage.
The govt is trying to defend the rupee & reserves. Once that starts happening, liquidity across the system tightens faster than people expect.
The impact is now visible in multiple areas:
- Exporters face delayed payments + slower global demand.
- Jewellers hold high value inventory with import restrictions + higher duties killing flexibility.
- Real estate activity is slowing because home loan rates near 9% to 9.5% are hurting new buyers.
Many pockets of the stock market are already weakening despite stable index levels. Select mid & smallcaps + leveraged momentum trades have corrected sharply from peaks. Traders dependent on margin funding face pressure because borrowing costs remain high while volatility has increased.
This is how liquidity stress or misflow usually trickles through an economy:
1. Exporter receives payment late.
2. Supplier payments get delayed.
3. Suppliers slow down wage payouts and inventory purchases.
4. Working capital cycles weaken across the chain.
5. Businesses sell liquid assets to raise cash.
6. Banks turn cautious to avoid future NPAs.
7. Credit tightens further & risk appetite drops.
And yes, this is when markets suddenly start feeling much weaker than what the major indices & economic numbers initially suggest.
In the next few months expect bigger swings in the market. Some smallcaps may continue seeing sharp corrections wherever valuations had disconnected from actual business growth. High risk areas & leveraged trades can remain under pressure. We are now very clear that Interest rates are unlikely to fall aggressively because RBI still has to defend currency stability.
Many investors make the mistake of becoming way too bearish on India, which is also wrong in many ways. India today is not the fragile economy it was during 2008 or even 2013.
Forex reserves remain above $650 billion, banking system balance sheets are far cleaner & stronger than ever. Corporate profit to GDP has improved & monthly SIP inflows still remain above ₹25,000 cr despite volatility. At the same time massive spending continues across railways, roads, defence, power & renewable energy.
Another major difference today is the role of domestic capital. 10 yrs ago FII selling of this magnitude could have created panic across the financial system. Today domestic MF's, SIP investors, insurance flows & retirement money are acting as strong local support.
But the markets can still correct further. Liquidity stress & economic collapse are not the same thing. Markets often confuse the 2 during panic phases. India is trying to protect long term stability while crude prices, currency pressure and foreign capital flows are all turning difficult together. Such a tricky combination is never easy for any emerging market, but historically this is also usually when the best long term opportunities begin.
👉 The next 6-9 months may test patience, but the next 10 years may still reward conviction!
The 🗝 question is:
During periods like this, do investors focus only on short term panic ?
Or do they recognise that some of the biggest wealth creation phases in India have started when liquidity looked the weakest & nobody wanted to buy ?
Know Your Fund #5: Nippon India Small Cap Fund
Nippon India Small Cap Fund has been an investor favorite. It is the largest small-cap fund in India, almost twice the size of the second-largest.
A look at rolling returns shows that it has beaten the benchmark in the past, consistently. But it is also seeing a recent soft patch. Its risk-adjusted numbers are better than the category average, but not dramatically better. Is this because of the fund's huge size?
Open letter to Indians in America.
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Dear brothers and sisters from Bharat:
Like I did 37 years ago, you arrived in America with no money but with a good education and cultural heritage from Bharat. You achieved outstanding success. America was good to us. For that we must remain grateful - gratitude is our Bharatiya way.
Yet today, a significant number of Americans, may be not the majority but not too far from it either, believe that Indians "take away" American jobs and our success in America was unfairly earned.
You may think the next election will fix this, but your choice would be between people who hate our Bharatiya civilisation and people who hate civilisation itself. That is the "hard right" vs "woke left" battle. You are mere bystanders to that conflict.
Meanwhile there is one thing that is true now and will be true in the future: the respect Indians command world-wide will substantially depend on the fortunes of India herself. If India remains poor, the woke left will give us moral lectures with pity and the hard right, different moral lectures with scorn ("hellhole") and we must not confuse either with respect.
Respect in today's world, along with prosperity and security, comes from one source: a nation's technological prowess. India produces sufficient brain power to achieve that prowess but alas we exported so much of that talent, particularly to America. As we develop that prowess in India, our civilisational strength will assert itself.
As difficult as it is for many of you to contemplate this, please come back home. Bharat Mata needs your talent. Our vast youthful population needs the technology leadership you gained over the years to guide them towards prosperity. Let's do it with a missionary zeal.
Respectfully
Sridhar Vembu
So today each #ipl team has played 7 games, marking the half way point. We all know the tables, the leading run scorers etc but what are the stories behind the basic data points? Take a little walk with me to look at which players are dominating what phases, what teams are doing well, what they need to improve on and also the playoff chances (according to me) #rrvsrh
What does a few days in the life of a delivery partner look like? My colleague @muskaanahmedTOI found out by working as a Swiggy/Zomato rider for three days in Chennai. She delivered 35 orders, travelled 128.8 km and earned ₹1,532.After fuel costs, that came down to ₹932 — a stark reminder of how tough and unforgiving life in the gig economy can be. The problems don’t end there. Read this highly adventurous story!
Since we published the 1st module on @ZerodhaVarsity (2014), there has been one constant request - to release the module in book format. I think many still prefer holding a book in hand, flipping through pages, highlighting, and taking notes. For all of them, here is the book 😊
This book is for those who want to get started with the stock markets, but dont know where and how to start.
Thanks to Trisha Bora and @HarperCollinsIN for nudging me constantly to work on this book :)
It feels odd to say this - but the link to preorder the book is in the comments below 😬
Another disappointing performance from Chennai Super Kings 🙃
Bowlimg units looks clueless as they can't defend a 200+ in home ground. Despite bringing in Prasanth Veer into XI and not using him raises questions.
Expecting a turn around very soon👍
#CSKvsPBKS#CSK
Motilal Oswal Nasdaq 100 ETF ✅️
Trading above 200SMA and having a positive ROC (Rate of Change) for the past one month.
Very rare to find the ETFs in positive ROC in these economic conditions.
Momentum can change as war situation.
#Nifty50#MomentumTrading#AngelOne#MON100
When you sell stocks, your shares are debited from your demat account and delivered to the clearing corporation for settlement. This debit is what attracts a DP (Depository Participant) charge. At Zerodha, this is ₹13.5 + GST per transaction (includes ₹3.5 depository fee).
Most brokers charge a flat DP fee. But some charge a percentage of the sell value. A 0.04% DP charge = ₹400 on a ₹10L sale. Low brokerage + high DP charges. Doesn't make sense.
Another thing to watch: some brokers charge DP fees on every sell transaction. If you sell Reliance 4 times in a day, you pay 4 times. At Zerodha, we charge DP fees once per stock per day, no matter how many times you sell it.
DP charges don't show up like brokerage does, so most people miss it. It's worth checking what you're actually paying. These things add up.
Why a DP charge in the first place?
Every time you sell shares, your broker's DP (Depository Participant) takes on the effort of ensuring the trade settles. This means debiting the shares from your demat account and delivering them to the clearing corporation. The depository levies a fee for this, and we charge a small fee on top for facilitating it. This adds an additional risk for us.
What a start to the T20 WorldCup 2026
Faheem Ashraf proved to be the hero for Pakistan, Netherlands dropped the match at final moments, good try though.
#T20WorldCup#PAKvsNED
Steady increase in AUM in ETF's over the years.
The growth isn’t just due to market rallies—liquidity in sectoral ETFs has improved meaningfully.
Tech ETFs stayed resilient despite global volatility.
#ETF#FinanceNews#NIFTYIT