[21st June] Good Reads Roundup!
Interesting articles I read recently.
From , Liquid vs. Illiquid careers | Link
I used to believe cracking a top-tier finance or consulting role is the endgame of life. A consultant at McKinsey. Selling fancy PPTs to fancy people. But I did not think about it from a liquidity standpoint.
Liquid careers are easy to evaluate, highly tradable, and provide security and predictability. A highly skilled job does not ensure job security. McKinsey can find 10 replacements for you faster than you can type your resignation letter.
Illiquid careers are non-linear, unique paths that are harder for employers to assess and trade. Less security and predictability but offers outsized personal and professional returns.
Gold mutual funds charge you more than what they show.
A reddit post pointed out that gold mutual funds are just a wrapper that invests in their own gold ETF and that you pay two expense ratios: one for the MF and one for the ETF.
Say Nippon India Gold Savings Fund. The MF charges 0.14% as the expense ratio. But the ETF inside it (Nippon India ETF Gold BeES) charges 0.84% of its own. So, technically you pay 0.96% TER.
Here are the charges for popular gold MFs and the ETFs they invest in.
But ETFs in India are highly illiquid. An article from ValueResearch on the same. So if MFs are providing you an additional service of easy liquidity, they are, in my opinion, well within their rights. But yes, they should be transparent about the charges.
The Bank of Japan is messed up. | Link
Rates are high. Bond yields are spiking. Both still a hairline below the running inflation. Unrealized losses are going up. Insurers who purchased long-term JGBs are sitting on huge losses. Not near a balance sheet collapse, but still. These are retail institutions. Prone to public outcry and panic.
Below is my take.
Everything that’s happening in India’s monetary policy lately, from the SBI research desk. Link
“If you read good books, you'll have an easier time understanding what you should or shouldn't pay attention to,” says Morgan Housel.