TMS Ep583: Small retail loans, sugar supply, Rahul Singh, Google's Gemini

The Reserve Bank of India told banks and non-banking financial companies last month to set aside more capital for risk weights. The central bank was concerned about the recent rise in unsecured personal loans. And now, top lenders have asked their fintech partners to curtail issuing tiny personal loans. Paytm has already announced its plan to go slow on sub-50,000-rupee-loans. So is it the end of small retail loans? 

The central bank, meanwhile, has said that inflation may soar in November and December. The government too looks circumspect. Its list of food staples facing export restrictions is getting longer as general elections are approaching. Export restrictions on one of the items in the list, which is sugar, were extended beyond October 31 last week. No reason was cited. At the same time, the government also directed sugar mills not to use sugarcane juice or syrup for making ethanol this year. In today’s special segment, find out if it is a good idea. And will it fix the sugar supply?

Clearly the ruling party doesn’t want to take any chance as 2024 is the election year. But what does the calendar year 2024 hold for the markets? Will the small-caps continue their dream run? To what extent geopolitics impact market sentiment? Will 2024 belong to debt/bond market investors instead of equity investors as interest rates remain higher for longer? What about FII and DII flows into equities as an asset class? Puneet Wadhwa caught up with Rahul Singh, chief investment officer for equities at Tata Asset Management to find out

After this interesting interview, let us now move on to our explainer segment. Google's parent firm Alphabet recently came out with its most advanced artificial intelligence model, called Gemini. It is Alphabet’s highly anticipated AI model, which may blow people off their feet with its reasoning capabilities. Let us find out more about it in this episode of the podcast for more.