In theory, the inquiry should be impartial and informative – a learning process focused solely on improving passenger safety. But in the case of AI171, the information revealed by the investigation so far has triggered a major backlash from safety campaigners, pilots’ groups and lawyers acting for the bereaved relatives.

A key factor in this has been the preliminary report issued by the AAIB a month after the accident. The 15-page document did not draw any conclusions about the causes of the crash, or make any recommendations.

Nonetheless, just two short paragraphs generated a great deal of controversy.

First, it was noted that according to the aircraft’s flight data recorder, the two fuel cutoff switches – normally used when starting the engines before a flight and shutting them down afterwards – transitioned from the run to the cutoff position seconds after take-off. This would have deprived the engines of fuel, causing them to lose thrust rapidly.

The report then says: “In the cockpit voice recording, one of the pilots is heard asking the other why did he cutoff. The other pilot responded that he did not do so.”

This brief statement, provided without a transcript or any indication of who was speaking, sparked intense speculation about the actions of the pilots. Newsweek, for example, focused on the “troubling possibility: that a seasoned captain may have deliberately doomed his jet – and nearly 250 lives”. Former NTSB chairman Robert Sumwalt told CBS News the report showed “this was not a problem with the airplane or the engines. Instead…somebody in the cockpit shut the fuel off to those engines.”

A few days later, The Wall Street Journal weighed in. Citing people familiar with the matter, it claimed that recordings of dialogue between the pilots suggested it was the Captain, Sumeet Sabharwal, who had flipped the fuel switches.

It is important to note that this was merely a preliminary report, and within days, the AAIB issued a statement condemning “selective and unverified reporting” in the international press as “irresponsible”. It urged the public and the media to “refrain from spreading premature narratives that risk undermining the integrity of the investigative process.”

By then, arguably, the damage had already been done.

“When a pilot is alive he can defend himself” says Capt. CS Randhawa, president of the Federation of Indian Pilots (FIP). “When the pilot is dead, all the agencies can collude – and they put the blame on the pilot, to save the manufacturer. And this is seen the world over. It’s not the first time”.

His organisation, which represents around 6,000 pilots, condemned the preliminary report as “irrevocably compromised”. Together with Sumeet Sabharwal’s 91-year-old father, Pushkar Raj Sabharwal, they took their concerns to India’s Supreme Court, demanding a judicial investigation into the crash.

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Jio Financial Services shares rose to Rs 262.65 apiece on Monday, extending a more than 10% jump in a week. The company paid a dividend of Rs 0.5 per share to its shareholders last year. After announcing the latest dividend in April this year, the stock currently has a dividend yield of 0.19%, according to data on Trendlyne.

Fixing the record date as August 10 means that only shareholders who own the company’s shares in their demat accounts as of August 10 (next Monday) will be eligible to receive the dividend, subject to shareholder approval at the upcoming Annual General Meeting (AGM).

Earlier this month, Jio Financial Services reported 155% year-on-year (YoY) jump in its consolidated net profit at Rs 830 crore in the first quarter of FY27, while revenue from operations increased 227% YoY to Rs 2,004 crore during the quarter under review.

Consolidated total income rose 141% YoY to Rs 1,496 crore from Rs 619 crore. It was up 47% from Rs 1,020 crore in the March quarter. Interest income grew 165% YoY to Rs 962 crore, while fees and commission income surged to Rs 325 crore from Rs 54 crore.

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Also read | Jio Financial Services sets record date for dividend. Check details

Jio Financial Services share price

Jio Financial Services shares had jumped nearly 4% to close at Rs 256 apiece on Friday. The stock gained more than 10.5% in a week and over 9% in a month. However, it is down nearly 12% in 2026 so far.
In the longer term, the shares of the company have fallen around 21% in a year. The company currently has a market capitalisation of more than Rs 1.73 lakh crore.Motilal Oswal has a Buy rating on Jio Financial Services with a target price of Rs 315 apiece. The brokerage said the company delivered a healthy quarter, driven by strong growth in Jio Credit, whose assets under management (AUM) crossed Rs 300 billion.

It also highlighted steady progress across the payments, insurance, and asset management businesses, although operating expenses remained elevated due to continued investments in incubating new businesses and expanding existing operations. Motilal Oswal cut its FY27 and FY28 EPS estimates by 4% and 6%, respectively, to account for higher operating costs, but expects consolidated PAT to grow at a 46% CAGR between FY26 and FY28.

Also read | For investors with some patience: 6 mid-cap stocks from different sectors with upside potential of up to 20%

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)

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Warren Buffett’s decades-old advice to put money into low-cost S&P 500 index funds remains one of the most widely followed pieces of investment guidance in the world. But as the index has grown increasingly dominated by a small handful of technology giants, analysts say the strategy today carries different risks than when Buffett first popularized it. Here are 10 things to know about the guidance and how it applies to today’s market.

1. The advice traces back to Buffett’s 2013 shareholder letter. In that letter, Buffett instructed the trustee overseeing a bequest to his wife to allocate 90% of the funds to a low-cost S&P 500 index fund, with the remaining 10% directed toward short-term U.S. government bonds. He recommended Vanguard specifically, though he did not name a particular fund or ticker.

2. VOO is widely seen as the closest match to Buffett’s description. Vanguard’s S&P 500 ETF, trading under the ticker VOO, carries an annual expense ratio of just 0.03%, among the lowest available for a fund tracking the index, and aligns closely with the kind of low-fee vehicle Buffett described in his original guidance.

3. Technology now dominates the index far more than it once did. According to recent index weighting data, technology stocks make up roughly 37% of the S&P 500. Just three companies, Apple, Nvidia and Microsoft, together account for roughly 20% of the entire index’s value, meaning a large share of any S&P 500 index fund’s performance now hinges on the fortunes of a small handful of mega-cap technology firms.

4. That concentration has grown dramatically since Buffett first gave the advice. Ten years ago, the S&P 500’s 10 largest stocks represented just 15.3% of the index’s total market capitalization. Five years after Buffett’s 2013 letter, that figure had risen to 27.2%. Today, according to MacroMicro data, the top 10 stocks account for roughly 37.5% of the index, down slightly from an all-time high near 43% reached earlier this year, but still among the highest concentration levels in the index’s history.

5. Artificial intelligence spending is now a major driver of index-wide earnings. Goldman Sachs has forecast that companies tied to artificial intelligence could contribute roughly half of the S&P 500’s overall earnings growth in 2026. That dependence means a slowdown in AI-related capital spending or disappointing earnings from a handful of mega-cap technology companies could weigh disproportionately on the entire index, a risk that did not exist to the same degree when Buffett first offered his recommendation.

6. Long-term return expectations for U.S. stocks have moderated. Vanguard’s broad U.S. equity return model now projects 10-year annualized returns of between 4.2% and 6.2%, down from an earlier forecast range of 4.9% to 6.9%, reflecting the impact of higher current valuations on expected future returns. By comparison, the iShares Core S&P 500 ETF, trading under the ticker IVV, posted an annualized gain of 15.47% over the 10 years ending in June, a pace analysts generally view as unlikely to be sustained indefinitely.

7. Current valuations remain a point of debate among analysts. According to FactSet data, the S&P 500 currently trades at a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.6, a level some analysts view as elevated relative to historical averages, though others argue current earnings growth, particularly among AI-linked companies, helps justify the higher multiple.

8. Money continues flowing into S&P 500 index funds at record levels. Vanguard’s VOO recently became the first exchange-traded fund in history to surpass $1 trillion in assets under management. According to data cited by Reuters, the fund has attracted roughly $69 billion in net inflows so far in 2026, following $118 billion in 2024 and $138 billion in 2025, with no other ETF attracting more investor money this year.

9. Experts generally still endorse the strategy despite the added concentration risk. Analysts writing for outlets including the Motley Fool and 24/7 Wall St. have said Buffett’s underlying advice remains sound in principle, since S&P 500 index funds continue to offer low costs and broad exposure to the U.S. economy. But those same analysts caution that investors should understand the fund no longer provides the same level of diversification it once did, given how heavily its performance now depends on a small group of dominant technology companies.

10. Buffett himself has continued monitoring risk within specific holdings tied to his broader philosophy. In more recent commentary, Buffett has reportedly cautioned about the risks tied to specific high-profile stocks, including SpaceX, following sharp declines in that company’s share price after its public listing, reflecting his continued attention to volatility and valuation risk even within widely held names.

Analysts broadly agree that Buffett’s core message, favoring low fees, broad diversification and long-term patience over active trading, remains valid advice for the average investor. But they emphasize that today’s S&P 500 looks meaningfully different from the one Buffett first pointed to in 2013, and that investors relying on the index for diversification should understand just how concentrated their exposure to a handful of technology giants has become, particularly if they are also invested in other tech-heavy benchmarks such as the Nasdaq Composite.