Continue reading “Do Stocks Increase or Decrease After the New Year?”

A gold loan is a quick way to raise funds in times of need. In an earlier post, we had discussed gold loan products from the State Bank of India. With such gold loan products, you can take a loan against physical gold and jewellery. However, purchasing physical gold and gold jewellery is not the only way of owning gold. As an investor, you can also take exposure to gold by way of Gold Mutual funds, Gold ETFs and Sovereign gold bonds too. Is there a way through which you can monetize these gold investments while continuing to retain ownership these investments? To put it simply, can you take a loan against these gold investments? Yes, you can.

In this post, let’s look at a loan product from the State Bank of India where you can pledge your Sovereign Gold bonds to get a loan. Please understand this loan product is only for loan against Sovereign Gold Bonds (and not gold mutual funds or gold ETFs). Before, we dig deeper into the loan offering, let’s first look at the basics of Sovereign Gold Bonds.

Continue reading “SBI Loan against Sovereign Gold Bonds”

A look at investor attitudes to war and uncertainty in the modern era.

Coming up on the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II, the world is now focused on the possibility of an armed conflict between the U.S., its allies and Iran. So far the U.S. has spent an estimated $6.4 trillion on wars post 9/11, and going by the president’s latest tweets, it appears willing to keep spending if things escalate. But there is little clarity of how far Iran, its economy already struggling and its leadership deeply unpopular, is willing to go to avenge the death of its top general.

Security experts are weighing in, and only time will tell, but investing experts are sending out reminders that past wars didn’t push U.S. equities lower long-term.

LPL Financial said in a note that stocks have largely shrugged off past geopolitical conflicts. “As serious as this escalation is, previous experiences have indicated it may be unlikely to have a material impact on U.S. economic fundamentals or corporate profits,” said LPL Financial Chief Investment Strategist John Lynch. “We would not be sellers of stocks into weakness related to this event, given stocks have weathered heightened geopolitical tensions in the past.”

Continue reading “How the Modern Stock Market is Affected by War”