Amit Upadhyaya

Zero/Low brokerage doesn't necessarily mean Low cost when investing in US stocks!

Currency conversion charges, the underlying broker, and tax compliance are equally important.

I recently shared my perspectives with Business Standard for an article comparing five international investing platforms — INDmoney, Interactive Brokers, Vested, Paasa and ZFunds.

Some interesting nuances around hidden costs, platform structure, Schedule FA and US Estate Tax.

Curious to know which platform you use! 👆

Read the article here:
www.business-standard.com/markets/news/investing-i…

5 hours ago | [YT] | 0

Amit Upadhyaya

How much of your monthly household take-home income goes towards your HOME LOAN EMI? 🏠

Calculate it before deducting regular investments.

Example: ₹40,000 EMI ÷ ₹1,00,000 take-home = 40%

1 week ago | [YT] | 7

Amit Upadhyaya

The most requested video on my channel. I hope it answers all your questions.

https://youtu.be/raIUwjbW59M

1 week ago | [YT] | 4

Amit Upadhyaya

Check out my latest podcast with Upsurge

https://youtu.be/PDDitHMTtHM?si=gBjin...

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 1

Amit Upadhyaya

Friends, just want to inform you that I have deployed the last leg of the opportunity fund in the Indian market. No one knows what will happen next but in my views Indian market is fairly valued and especially large caps are at all time low valuation. Market is showing some signs of recovery in the last few days, so I won't wait much and have deployed my last tranche of the opportunity fund.

Let me know what you are doing.

If you are not aware of the concept, check the video - https://youtu.be/ydWw_tFR1ZM?si=Zsy7A...

Disclaimer: Do your own research before investing. I am only sharing my decisions.

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 8

Amit Upadhyaya

How did you find your term insurance cover?

4 weeks ago | [YT] | 13

Amit Upadhyaya

How confident are you about your retirement corpus?

I quit my corporate job two years ago with a retirement number in mind.

That number was based on assumptions around expenses, inflation, returns and safety margin.

Two years later, it is time to see how those assumptions have stood the test of reality — and whether I would calculate my corpus differently today.

I am working on a video around this.

Meanwhile, how confident are you about your own retirement number?

1 month ago | [YT] | 5

Amit Upadhyaya

Nifty has now fallen for 7 consecutive weeks. This is certainly a rare event.

In the last 25 years, this has happened only 4 times before —
- Twice in 2001
- Once in 2008
- and, once in 2020.

But when I looked a little deeper, I felt the 7-week number alone does not tell the complete story.

- In 2008, Nifty fell roughly 22% during the 7-week streak
- In 2020, the fall was roughly 33%
- This time, the fall is only around 6%

So yes, the streak is rare. But the impact is very different. There is another layer to this.

- Nifty crossed 26,000 in September 2024.
- Two years later, it is around 23,000.

So the market has effectively gone through a long period of stagnation.
Again, this feels unusual, but it is not unprecedented.

- NSE's long-term data shows that roughly 1 in 6 historical two-year periods produced negative returns.

What is also important is what has happened underneath the index.

While market prices have struggled, company earnings have continued to grow. So even without a major crash, valuations have corrected.
- Earnings have grown
- Prices have remained flat or fallen,
- and P/E has come down.

History also gives an interesting perspective.

An Edelweiss study looked at 11 similar two-year flat periods since 2001. In those selected cases, the subsequent 1-year and 3-year returns were positive. That is useful data.

But I would still be careful about using it to predict what happens next.

For me, the more useful way to read the current market is to look at all the
relevant data together.

➡️ Rare 7-week fall? Yes.
➡️ Crash comparable to 2008 or 2020? No.

➡️ Two-year stagnation? Yes.
➡️ Historically unprecedented? No.

➡️ Earnings still growing and valuations becoming more reasonable? Yes.
➡️ Does history guarantee what happens next? Absolutely not.

Data is extremely useful. But when we selectively use it, data can very quickly become storytelling.

1 month ago | [YT] | 57

Amit Upadhyaya

Don't make the mistake of having term insurance with the wrong cover.

Spend a few minutes understanding how your term insurance requirement should actually be calculated — and then validate whether your current cover is really enough.

https://youtu.be/y3LK8lCk3bY

1 month ago | [YT] | 3

Amit Upadhyaya

India’s merchandise exports rose sharply in August, while imports grew at a much slower pace.

The result? India’s merchandise trade deficit narrowed — despite crude oil remaining expensive.

But before we get into the numbers, let’s first understand what these terms actually mean.

When we talk about India’s international trade, there are broadly two parts:

1. Merchandise Trade: Physical goods that are bought or sold across countries — such as engineering goods, electronics, chemicals, textiles, crude oil and gold.

2. Services Trade: Services that are bought or sold across countries — such as IT/software, business services and professional services.

Now, when India imports more than it exports, the difference is called the Trade Deficit.

Simply put:

->> Trade Deficit = Imports − Exports

So when we say that the trade deficit has narrowed, it simply means that the gap between our imports and exports has become smaller.

Now, let’s look at what happened in August.

---> India’s merchandise exports rose by a massive 26% YoY.
---> Imports also increased — but at a much slower 14%.

As a result, the merchandise trade deficit came down to $26.86 billion, from $31.98 billion in July.

But here is what makes these numbers interesting.

There were two completely opposite forces working on India’s trade balance during the month.

-->> On one side was crude oil. Brent crude remained close to $90 a barrel in August, pushing India’s energy import bill sharply higher compared to last year.

-->> On the other side was gold. India’s non-monetary gold imports dropped significantly — from around $5.4 billion last year to just $2.3 billion this year.

And this fall in gold imports provided a significant cushion against the higher energy bill.

So despite crude becoming more expensive, India’s trade deficit still narrowed.

(Interestingly, June had reported almost similar YoY numbers, although crude prices were somewhat lower during that period.)

So, what does this mean for investors?

-- >> I would call this a positive data point.

A 26% increase in exports is encouraging and indicates resilient cross-border demand for Indian goods.

But there is a bit of nuance here.

The improvement in the trade deficit was also helped by the sharp fall in gold imports. Crude oil, on the other hand, continues to remain an important pressure point for India.

The Bottom Line

---> Keep an eye on crude.

If oil prices see a sustained fall, it can help reduce India’s current account deficit, ease some pressure on the falling rupee and make the overall trade picture much stronger.

So yes, the August numbers are encouraging — but crude remains the number that can significantly change this equation.

1 month ago | [YT] | 14