A Sovereign Gold Bond is a government bond whose value is denominated in gold. The RBI issues it on behalf of the Government of India, you pay rupees at the current gold price, and at the end of 8 years you get back rupees equivalent to the prevailing gold price, plus 2.5% interest annually along […]
An NCD is essentially you lending money to a company at a fixed interest rate for a fixed period. The company agrees to pay you interest, quarterly, semi-annually, or annually depending on the structure, and returns your principal at the end of the tenor. The “non-convertible” part means this loan stays a loan; it does […]
NCDs offer higher interest than FDs, and that extra yield has a reason: you are taking on corporate credit risk. The question is whether that extra 1–2% justifies the risk and complexity. For most people keeping money in the safe bucket of their portfolio, it does not. For people who understand what they are lending […]
RBI Retail Direct is a platform where individual investors can buy government bonds directly from the Reserve Bank of India, without needing a broker or a bank intermediary. No brokerage. No hidden charges. The securities sit in a Retail Direct Gilt account maintained by the RBI itself. For someone who wants government-level safety with yields […]
54EC bonds are not a general investment product. They exist for one specific purpose: if you have sold a property and have long-term capital gains, you can invest up to ₹50 lakh of those gains in these bonds within 6 months of the sale, and the capital gains are exempt from tax. The catch is […]
Most people think of fixed income as the boring part of a portfolio, the money sitting in FDs earning whatever the bank offers. That framing costs real money over time. India has a rich fixed income landscape: government bonds, state bonds, treasury bills, corporate debentures, gold bonds, and specialised tax-saving instruments. Each serves a different […]
State Development Loans are bonds issued by state governments of India. They work exactly like central government bonds, G-Secs, but are issued by states like Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, or Karnataka. Because states are seen as slightly less creditworthy than the central government (which has the RBI’s full backing), SDLs typically yield 25 to 50 […]
A REIT is simply a listed company that owns commercial real estate, office buildings, malls, warehouses, and passes most of the rental income to you as a unit-holder. You don’t need a crore to buy a flat in an IT park. You can own a slice of one for around ₹10,000–₹15,000. India has had listed […]
The most common financial mistake I see among middle-class Indian families is having their entire net worth in one flat. One illiquid asset, in one city, in one micro-market, with all the concentration risk that implies. And then wondering why their wealth doesn’t grow the way they expect. This is not a knock on homeownership. […]
An InvIT owns a toll road, not an office building. That one sentence captures the essential difference from a REIT. The cash flowing to you as a unit-holder comes from vehicles paying tolls, or from a utility paying for power transmission, or from a gas company using a pipeline. It’s infrastructure, physical, essential, slow-moving, and […]