A hypothetical four-team trade proposal floated this week would send Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid to the Detroit Pistons as part of a scenario designed to resolve Detroit’s monthslong contract standoff with restricted free agent center Jalen Duren, according to a trade concept published by Heavy.com. No such deal is reported to be under actual negotiation between the teams.

The Pistons and Duren, a 22-year-old All-Star center coming off a breakout 2025-26 season, have remained deadlocked in extension talks for much of the offseason. Duren initially sought a five-year deal worth roughly 287.1 million dollars, while Detroit has reportedly pushed for an annual value closer to 30 million to 40 million dollars, according to reporting from ClutchPoints. ESPN’s Tim MacMahon has described the negotiations as “awfully nasty,” and NBA insider Jake Fischer said this week that people close to the talks still expect Duren to eventually sign a four-year deal worth around 160 million dollars to remain in Detroit, though no agreement had been reached as of this weekend.

Against that backdrop, Heavy.com’s Adel Ahmad outlined a speculative trade structure under which Detroit would send Duren to Philadelphia via sign-and-trade on a four-year, 194.1 million dollar contract, along with forward Duncan Robinson and a 2032 first-round pick, in exchange for Embiid and Philadelphia’s 2027 and 2028 second-round picks. The Los Angeles Clippers and Houston Rockets would round out the proposed four-team framework, with the Clippers receiving guard Gary Harris and the Rockets receiving forward Taurean Prince as part of the broader package needed to make the money work under the NBA’s salary-matching rules.

Embiid, 32, remains under contract on a three-year extension that will pay him roughly 57.9 million dollars in the 2026-27 season, rising to as much as 67 million dollars in its final year. The former MVP has been limited by persistent injuries in recent seasons, appearing in only 38 games last season, though that figure did mark double his total from the season before. He has never played more than 70 games in a single NBA season, a durability concern that has increasingly shaped how rival executives and analysts discuss his trade value despite his continued production when healthy.

Under the hypothetical framework described by Heavy.com, Detroit would need to move four separate contracts, including both Duren and Robinson, to absorb Embiid’s salary while remaining below the NBA’s first tax apron. The outlet noted the Pistons would be left with only 11 standard roster spots after completing every piece of the proposed deal, underscoring how difficult such a scenario would be to execute in practice even if all parties were willing.

The concept of moving Embiid comes as Philadelphia has reshaped its roster around a different timeline this offseason, headlined by the free-agent addition of LeBron James, who signed with the Sixers in late July after leaving the Los Angeles Lakers. James joins Embiid, All-Star guard Tyrese Maxey, forward Jaylen Brown and rookie VJ Edgecombe on a Philadelphia roster built around an immediate championship push. That timeline has fueled speculation, including in Heavy.com’s report, that the Sixers could ultimately prefer a younger, healthier center over Embiid’s continued injury risk, even as the team has shown no public indication it is actively shopping its longtime franchise player.

Duren, for his part, earned his first All-Star selection and a spot on the All-NBA Third Team last season, when he averaged 19.5 points and 10.5 assists across 70 games for a Pistons team that finished first in the Eastern Conference before losing in the second round of the playoffs to the Cleveland Cavaliers. His production reportedly dipped somewhat during that postseason run, a factor some reports have said contributed to Detroit’s reluctance to meet his initial contract demands. Duren opened free agency by scheduling meetings with the Sacramento Kings and Los Angeles Lakers, though neither team ultimately signed him to an offer sheet, leaving him to continue negotiating exclusively with Detroit as a restricted free agent.

With training camp approaching in the coming weeks, both the Duren negotiations and any broader roster maneuvering involving centers like Embiid remain fluid. No official trade talks between the 76ers and Pistons involving Embiid have been reported by league insiders, and the scenario outlined by Heavy.com should be understood as speculative analysis rather than a deal either franchise has been reported to be pursuing.

Kirit Somaiya, former Member of the Lok Sabha and vice president of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Maharashtra unit, has sought the Securities and Exchange Board of India’s (SEBI) attention over the sharp swings in the Sensex during the Closing Auction Session (CAS) on August 27.

The Sensex plunged more than 2,000 points within minutes during the CAS on Thursday, falling from around 77,200 at 3:17 pm to nearly 74,983 at 3:23 pm. The index subsequently recovered some of its losses but still ended the day 539 points, or 0.7%, lower at 76,934.

India changed how closing prices are determined from August 3. Instead of calculating the close using the volume-weighted average price (VWAP) during the final half-hour of trading, exchanges introduced a short Closing Auction Session, in which buy and sell orders are aggregated, and a single equilibrium price is discovered.

In a communication seeking attention to the August 27 movement, Somaiya asked whether the sharp intra-session swing pointed to a weakness in the CAS mechanism and called for an inquiry and action.

“On 27 August, during the last 12 minutes of trading at NSE/BSE, the Sensex crashed over 2,200 points and then recovered 2,000 points,” Somaiya said, asking whether “it is a weakness in the CAS system”.

He also asked whether the move could have been linked to any deliberate attempt to undermine the implementation of CAS, while calling on SEBI to examine the matter.
“SEBI must not take this CASUALLY,” he said. “If it is a weakness, then the officials who drafted it should owe an explanation. If it is done knowingly, is it healthy? Is it sabotage to stop implementation of CAS?””Shockingly, such things happened during the process of having a healthy system,” Somaiya said, adding that he wanted “not only inquiry but action also.”

Liquidity concerns after 3:15 pm

Along with his communication, Somaiya shared an observation that attributed the sharp movement partly to a lack of liquidity after 3:15 pm.

“The fundamental problem is also – there is no depth due to lack of liquidity after 3.15. All now trade before 3.15 pm. Any person who wants to purchase/sale after 3.15 pm doesn’t find liquidity and hence volatility,” the observation said.

The accompanying note proposed temporarily suspending CAS and reintroducing it after a redesign, citing several concerns around liquidity, price discovery and the interaction between the cash and derivatives markets.

Under the present framework, continuous trading in CAS securities ends at 3:15 p.m., after which the market moves into a separate auction. Equity derivatives, however, continue to trade until 3:40 p.m.

The note argues that this structure removes continuous-market liquidity before the auction begins. At 3:15 p.m., the continuous price-discovery mechanism is stopped and replaced by the auction order book, which the note describes as materially shallower.

Separate auctions on NSE, BSE

The note also raises concerns about the fragmentation of closing liquidity between NSE and BSE. It points out that the same security can undergo separate closing auctions on the two exchanges, with separate order books, imbalances and potentially different equilibrium prices.

According to the note, on the first day of CAS, reported auction turnover was approximately Rs 1,276 crore on NSE compared with around Rs 10.8 crore on BSE, a difference of more than 100 times.

It argues that while the purpose of a closing auction is to concentrate liquidity, separate auctions on the two exchanges could instead fragment liquidity.

Questions over closing-price formation

The note also questions whether a relatively small amount of auction trading can provide a sufficiently robust price for a much larger pool of capital whose value is determined using the official closing price.

The closing price feeds into mutual fund NAVs, portfolio valuations, index closing levels, passive-fund tracking, mark-to-market valuations, derivative settlement economics and performance measurement, according to the note.

It therefore argues that the framework should consider minimum liquidity and market-quality conditions before an auction price automatically becomes the official close.

Another concern relates to the CAS’s ±3% auction band. The note argues that such a range could result in a significant change in the marked-to-market value of large companies even when the quantity actually matched in the auction represents only a small portion of the company’s outstanding shares.

For a company with a Rs 5 lakh crore market capitalisation, the note estimates that a 3% movement would change its marked market capitalisation by approximately Rs 15,000 crore.

It proposes a more conservative, dynamic collar that expands only when supported by substantial two-sided auction liquidity.

Cash and derivatives operate on different timelines

The note further highlights the different trading timelines for the cash and derivatives markets. While continuous cash trading for CAS securities stops at 3:15 p.m., equity derivatives continue trading beyond the auction.

According to the note, this means futures and options can continue to reflect changing information and expectations even after the underlying cash security has ceased continuous price discovery.

It argues that this weakens the normal cash-futures arbitrage mechanism at the point when the official closing benchmark is being established.

Concern over thin liquidity and expiry-day volatility

The note also argues that inadequate CAS liquidity could create a self-reinforcing cycle. If large institutions perceive liquidity in the auction as insufficient, they may execute before 3:15 p.m., further reducing auction liquidity. Lower liquidity could then increase price impact and execution uncertainty, discouraging participation further.

The note calls this a “negative liquidity flywheel”: low liquidity increases auction impact, weakens execution certainty, reduces participation and further drains liquidity.

“Participation is therefore partly an outcome of good market design, not merely a

prerequisite that can be assumed to emerge over time,” it said.

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Google confirmed Saturday that Lake Ontario will begin appearing as “Lake America” on Google Maps for users in the United States, following an executive order President Donald Trump signed this week directing federal agencies to rename the body of water amid escalating trade tensions with Canada.

“These updates follow our long-standing policy for bodies of water with names that vary from country to country, and are starting to roll out now,” Google said in a statement Saturday, according to Newsweek. Under that policy, Google Maps users located in the United States will see “Lake America,” users in Canada will continue seeing “Lake Ontario,” and users elsewhere in the world will see both names displayed together.

Trump signed the executive order Thursday from the Oval Office, directing Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to work with the U.S. Board on Geographic Names to formally rename the lake within 30 days. The order specifically targets the body of water bounded by New York state to the south and east, one of the five Great Lakes and one that straddles the U.S.-Canada border, according to a summary of the order’s text published by Tech Times.

Officials moved quickly to implement the change even ahead of that 30-day window. In a message shared by the White House on X, U.S. Geological Survey Director Ned Mamula said, “As of 4:30 pm today the U.S. Geological Survey has officially designated the former Lake Ontario to be renamed as Lake America in all official USGS electronic documents.” Mamula added that the change had also been made official in the Geographic Names Information System, the federal database Google has said it relies on when updating geographic labels for U.S. government-designated names, and that the new name would begin appearing in printed federal documents within days.

The move closely mirrors Trump’s decision last year to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America” for U.S. federal purposes, a change Google adopted for American users within days of the underlying federal database being updated. Tech Times reported that if the Lake Ontario rename follows a similar implementation timeline to the Gulf of Mexico rollout, in which Google began displaying the new name to U.S. users roughly three days after the federal database update, the “Lake America” label could plausibly have started appearing for American users sometime around mid-to-late September, though Google’s Saturday announcement suggests the company moved faster than that earlier precedent might have suggested.

Unlike the Gulf of Mexico, which lies entirely offshore and does not have a land border running through it, Lake Ontario presents an added cartographic complication because the international boundary between the United States and Canada runs directly through the lake itself. That geography means Google Maps must display different labels for the same body of water depending on which side of the border a user is viewing it from or is physically located in, a challenge Tech Times noted the earlier Gulf of Mexico rename did not require Google to solve in the same way.

Canadian officials have firmly rejected the name change. Ontario Premier Doug Ford ordered the installation of a large sign along the Canadian shoreline of Lake Ontario reading “Lake Ontario. Now and Always” in both English and French, according to Newsweek. Canadian officials have also publicly criticized the move; CBC News reported that Canadian officials described the rename as “real foolishness” amid broader ongoing trade tensions between the two countries.

The U.S. State Department took a more lighthearted public tone in response to the change. “It was brought to our attention that Lake America was erroneously labeled as Lake ‘Ontario’ on our website,” the department wrote in a post on its official X account. “We have corrected this mistake and apologize for deadnaming the lake.”

Reaction from private companies has been mixed. Mapping service MapQuest publicly refused to adopt the new name, writing on X, “We’re not changing it,” alongside a screenshot that continued to display “Lake Ontario.” The company later launched a tool letting users generate and share their own custom names for the lake, including one example reading “Lake Are We Doing This Again?” according to Newsweek, with the original post drawing more than 4.7 million views.

Betting platform Polymarket had tracked the odds of Google adopting the rename as roughly 61% likely in the days before the change was confirmed, reflecting the uncertainty among market participants over whether the tech giant would follow the same approach it took with the Gulf of Mexico rename in 2025. With Google’s Saturday confirmation, that uncertainty has now been resolved for American users of the platform, even as the underlying diplomatic dispute between Washington and Ottawa over the name shows no signs of cooling.

Dolly Parton helped transform Pigeon Forge from a small mountain town into a global tourism destination, creating jobs, fueling local businesses and giving back to the East Tennessee community she called home, City Manager David Wear told FOX Business.

“Pigeon Forge and Dollywood kind of grew up together,” Wear said. “After that, it really just took off and made a huge economic impact in our area.”

The country music icon died in Nashville on Aug. 25 at age 80 following a “brief battle with cancer,” her team confirmed to Fox News Digital. Her death prompted global tributes and has deeply affected the community where the star’s influence is woven into the local economy.

Parton partnered with the operators of Silver Dollar City, an existing Pigeon Forge theme park, to open Dollywood in 1986. The attraction helped put Pigeon Forge “on a world map,” drawing visitors from across the U.S. and around the world, according to Wear.

BUSINESS LEADERS PAY TRIBUTE TO DOLLY PARTON AFTER COUNTRY ICON’S DEATH

“[Dollywood] is a wonderful place. It has kind of put Pigeon Forge not just on the map, but on a world map where people know that Dolly is from here and that’s what they think about when they come to this area,” Wear said.

That visitor traffic has generated a ripple effect for businesses across the region. Dollywood is also Sevier County’s largest employer, according to Wear, creating jobs and paychecks for local families.

From the beginning, Parton wanted to ensure “her people” could find work and build lives in the community where she grew up, Wear said.

“She always referred to her Sevier County home as ‘my people,’” he said.

Although Pigeon Forge welcomes millions of visitors annually, Wear said it remains a tight-knit town of about 6,300 residents. 

In the days following Parton’s death, locals have been sharing personal stories about the entertainment icon and her impact on their lives.

HOW DOLLY PARTON BUILT A LEGACY OF GIVING BEYOND COUNTRY MUSIC

“If you’re from here, you’ve got a Dolly story,” Wear said. “Everybody is really just sharing their experiences, honoring her and, I think, probably trying to live a little better – live a little bit like Dolly.”

Wear said Parton’s philanthropy may ultimately be even more impactful than her role in building the local tourism economy.

“The economic impact is huge. However, I think the larger impact to Sevier County and to Pigeon Forge is her philanthropic work and her charity work,” Wear said.

Wear said he experienced her generosity firsthand through the Buddy Program, which the country star launched in the early 1990s to combat Sevier County’s high school dropout rate. Seventh- and eighth-grade students paired with a “buddy,” and Parton promised each student $500 upon graduating from high school, according to the website for Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library.

Wear participated in the program and later returned to his hometown to work in local government.

“That was my first experience with her,” he said. “It’s just amazing that I got to experience that charity, get to know her a little bit and then come back here to my hometown.”

DOLLY PARTON OPENS DOLLYWOOD’S 41ST SEASON, PROMISES MORE PROJECTS AHEAD: ‘I AIN’T NEAR DONE’

Parton again came to the region’s aid after devastating wildfires swept through East Tennessee in 2016.

Through the My People Fund, Parton’s Dollywood Foundation provided financial assistance to families whose homes were destroyed or left uninhabitable.

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“Dolly came in, raised a lot of money and gave it out to her people,” Wear said. “That changed the trajectory of our recovery significantly.”

Those efforts represent only a fraction of Parton’s contributions to East Tennessee, he said.

“Her impact is significant in our economy, but her impact in this community and to the people here is even more significant,” Wear said.

Fox News Digital’s Janelle Ash contributed to this report.

Dalal Street’s biggest stocks may be monopolising portfolios, but they are no longer driving returns. Samco Mutual Fund CIO Umesh Mehta says Nifty’s mega caps are “languishing” as widespread institutional ownership leaves them with few incremental buyers, even as growth and earnings momentum migrate further down the market-cap ladder.

Samco has responded with an unusually aggressive positioning in its Flexicap fund, allocating around 70–75% of the portfolio to mid caps, small caps and select micro caps, while maintaining limited large-cap exposure. Although Mehta sees mega caps offering downside protection, he believes investors seeking growth must take calculated risks beyond the headline indices.

Edited excerpts from an interview.

The Nifty 50 has delivered little at the index level over the past two years, even as sector-specific activity has continued, particularly in mid- and small-cap stocks. Where do you think the market is in the current cycle?

The largest Nifty 50 companies by market capitalisation are languishing. These are mega-cap companies, and traditional businesses globally are not receiving the valuations they historically commanded.

Fortunately or unfortunately, traditional businesses account for a large part of our indices. That is why the headline indices have not generated the kind of returns investors might have expected over the past two or three years. But if you move beyond the mega caps and look at the next rung of the market—mid caps and small caps—there is considerable activity. That should continue because numerous opportunities are opening up.
The world is changing rapidly. Government spending remains supportive, while global developments sometimes provide tailwinds and sometimes create headwinds. There is considerable flux: some stocks are performing well, while others are languishing.At an aggregate level, smaller pockets of the market are moving, but a significant part of the market—large caps and mega caps—is doing very little. Even for foreign institutional investors, it can appear as though India is going nowhere.

In this environment, a bottom-up approach will help investors, traders and asset managers. They need to focus on individual stocks instead of looking only at the headline indices.

After two years of underperformance, do mega-cap stocks now offer value, or should investors continue looking beyond them?

When stocks underperform, can they become good investment opportunities? The answer is yes. But the second question is whether it makes sense to invest in a stock that is already fully owned by everyone. The answer may be no.

Everyone who wants to own these mega-cap stocks may already own them. Every fund and asset manager may have exposure to them, leaving few net new buyers. Even if incremental buyers emerge, there may also be incremental sellers. Investors therefore do not necessarily need to own all these stocks.

The other consideration is where growth is coming from. We are largely looking at growth investing. Small caps, mid caps and other growth stocks are rising, and their valuations may be high because their businesses are growing and investors are willing to pay for that growth.

The market offers a wide spectrum of risk-reward opportunities. Investors seeking safety can consider large mega caps because they may offer downside protection. Those seeking growth will need to take calculated risks and invest in growth companies.

Flexicap funds often tend to have a very strong large-cap bias. How have you positioned Samco Flexicap Fund in this market?

Flexicap funds have traditionally been managed as surrogate large-cap funds. We have instead built our portfolio around the areas where the action and momentum are.

Around 70–75% of our portfolio is tilted towards small caps, mid caps and some micro caps, with very limited exposure to large caps. That is where the market action is, and the portfolio has been designed to capture those opportunities.

The overall earnings season was very good. Mid- and small-cap companies, in particular, delivered an earnings season that broke several records.

Do the earnings delivered by mid- and small-cap companies justify their valuations and the subsequent rally?

We need to differentiate between the sources of those earnings. Did the improvement come from inventory gains, with companies liquidating stock at higher prices, or is there a genuine industry tailwind? Has geopolitics allowed a company to create a sustainable earnings and revenue stream? There are many moving parts.

At an aggregate level, the numbers were good and stock prices reflected that performance. But will the momentum sustain across the board? Obviously not. Supply-chain restrictions remain and are likely to have an impact. The same earnings numbers may not be repeated over the next three or six months.

Some companies will continue to benefit from the advantages they have captured. Refining margins are one example. Integrated companies may face difficulties, but pure refining businesses that are not also involved in retailing could have a significant opportunity. Russian refineries and some Middle Eastern capacity are moving out of the system, which could increase refining cracks and support the earnings of pure refiners. These companies have created genuine economic streams from the war.

Defence is another sector that has developed—and should continue to benefit from—a strong earnings tailwind because of geopolitics. Opportunities will continue to emerge.

Besides defence and oil and gas, which sectors look attractive?

Power, at an aggregate level, offers a significant opportunity. The challenge is that the stock market discounts developments faster than they unfold on the ground. Power projects take time and can face delays, creating a mismatch between secondary-market expectations and project execution.

Over the past three or four years, power stocks have experienced a whipsaw, moving sharply in both directions. Following the correction, the sector looks attractive again, but it remains a long-term theme requiring substantial capital expenditure before earnings follow. Demand and growth are present, but investors need a longer-term horizon to realise that potential.

AI ancillaries also present an opportunity, much like real-estate ancillaries such as cables and related products. Trillions of dollars are being spent globally on artificial intelligence, and Indian companies will participate in parts of that value chain. This could include heavy electrical cables required for power transmission, optical-fibre cables and other AI-related infrastructure.

These opportunities could remain relevant over the next one to two years. Growth investing can work in such areas, and higher valuation multiples may sustain, rewarding investors willing to take the associated risks.

Within power, do you prefer power producers or companies linked to power-sector capital expenditure?

Both. Power generators are undertaking capital expenditure and expanding across thermal, solar and wind power. However, these projects take time to deliver. The opportunity exists, but investors must be patient rather than chase stock prices.

There is also a substantial opportunity in power-sector capital expenditure. India requires investment not only in generation but also in transmission, distribution and substations. In metropolitan areas, distribution will increasingly move underground from the present overhead system. That creates a large opportunity for heavy electrical-cable manufacturers and the engineering, procurement and construction companies that install those cables.

The opportunity is sizeable, sustainable and potentially high-margin. Capacity cannot be created overnight, so heavy electrical-cable manufacturers could have a significant profit-pool opportunity for the next year or two.

Power capital expenditure is currently a very hot market theme, and valuations have risen. However, the sector will correct again because bidding up a stock is much easier than executing a project on the ground. When quarterly numbers fail to meet expectations, some liquidation will follow. Power will remain cyclical rather than move in a straight line. Several power-capex companies are also exporters.

Could exports become a bigger opportunity for power-related companies than the domestic market?

India has performed well in domestic power and solar manufacturing, and today there is overcapacity. Globally, however, solar capacity remains inadequate outside China. The US has a substantial deficit and needs additional power generation, although vested interests and lobbying are affecting the entry and impact of renewable-energy players. Politics therefore plays an important role alongside economics.

Solar is the quickest way to add power capacity, as India has demonstrated. China and Europe are also expanding, and the US will eventually have to do the same. But these opportunities will not be determined by economics alone; politics will remain an important factor.

Indian companies with solar-cell and module-manufacturing capacity currently face headwinds, although the sector retains considerable long-term potential. Nuclear power is another emerging theme, but its gestation period will be long.

Is this the right time to invest in the nuclear-power theme?

When we speak with industry participants, they indicate an eight-to-10-year time frame before the first nuclear power begins flowing and companies start earning from it. That illustrates the length of the gestation period.

The stock market can bid up share prices well before plants are established. When the narrative is driven by a theme, government support or a policy tailwind, the relevant stocks can rise. But as time passes and execution does not immediately follow, those stocks can become available at lower valuations.

That would be the more appropriate time to evaluate nuclear-power investments, rather than bidding up the stocks now, including companies catering to the broader nuclear ecosystem.

Could the high earnings base begin weighing on sectors such as automobiles and consumption from the second half of the financial year?

Automobiles are a typical sector where the base effect could become visible. The GST reduction was the opposite of a black swan—a “good swan.” That favourable window is likely to end, after which the high-base effect will begin to play out.

The auto index is already correcting. The last phase of the rally was concentrated in auto ancillaries, where considerable euphoria emerged. Eventually, reality should set in.

Maruti is near the bottom of the return table even though Maruti, Hyundai and Mahindra are among the biggest customers and value accumulators for these ancillary businesses. Auto ancillary stocks have outperformed the passenger-vehicle manufacturers they supply. The market should eventually recognise this divergence. The cyclical effect will reassert itself, leading to a correction and normalisation in prices.

Some auto-ancillary companies are increasing exports and diversifying into areas such as aerospace. Could that cushion the domestic slowdown?

Exports represent a significant opportunity, although their current contribution remains small for passenger-vehicle and commercial-vehicle manufacturers in aggregate. The impact is more visible for ancillary companies because the incremental export opportunity is substantial relative to their size.

India aspires to become a global manufacturing and automotive hub, and the government is supporting that ambition. These companies continue to generate domestic sales while also expanding exports.

If exports perform well, they could make the Indian automobile sector more secular and less cyclical from an investment perspective. For now, however, exports remain a relatively small proportion of the business. The high-base effect in the domestic market should therefore result in mean reversion, with automobile stocks likely to correct.

Over time, investors should monitor export growth. Bajaj Auto, for example, is performing very well in overseas markets, and other companies will eventually attempt to expand their export presence.

How do you assess the current IPO momentum and the quality of new listings?

IPO momentum is strong, but if it keeps accelerating, it could take momentum away from the secondary market. Liquidity is the biggest driver of stock-market performance. If liquidity is absorbed by primary issuances, that may be positive for the economy, but it can create difficulties for the secondary market.

If increasingly large IPOs continue to arrive, retail money channelled through mutual funds is absorbed by new supply, and FIIs do not return, the net liquidity equation becomes adverse. When liquidity deteriorates, markets can correct.

Either FIIs must return and provide enough liquidity to sustain the market, or IPO supply must slow. If fundraising continues at this scale, it could wreck the market. One of those two conditions needs to change for the market to sustain. We have seen this dynamic since 2024.

The supply pressure is not limited to IPOs. We are also seeing offers for sale, including LIC’s ₹32,000-crore OFS, along with numerous qualified institutional placements.

Consider the market as an investor facing a series of suppliers. If one issuer takes ₹30,000 from the investor and another subsequently seeks ₹20,000, the investor must either find additional money or sell an existing holding. At an aggregate level, a continuous stream of new supply eventually forces selling in the secondary market, creating a cascading effect on prices.

With the possibility of interest-rate cuts and renewed momentum in gold, how should investors approach asset allocation?

The past five or six years were very good for equities, but they were also very good for gold. Over the next two, three or five years, gold will remain an equally important asset class that investors should not ignore, as long as the current US administration remains in power.

Gold has historically delivered strong or comparable returns. The probability of gold generating better risk-adjusted returns is now much greater than it was two, three or five years ago.

As geopolitics intensifies and currencies are increasingly weaponised, the world is recognising that gold is money. Governments and investors cannot rely exclusively on electronic forms of money. A reserve currency gives its issuer the power to impose sanctions. If that currency is repeatedly weaponised, countries will become more inclined to diversify into gold because their savings are otherwise held in a system that can be used against them.

The reported freezing of a judge’s assets because of a decision favouring a particular country is another trigger for governments and investors to reconsider their gold exposure. Gold is currently in a strong secular bull-market trend.

Investors should allocate to gold through instruments such as exchange-traded funds or multi-asset allocation funds. It is time to consider gold alongside equities as a means of preserving wealth because markets can surprise on both the upside and downside.

For a moderately aggressive investor with a five-to-10-year horizon, should the allocation to gold exceed 10% and potentially reach 15–20%?

Easily. Whether one begins the comparison in 1979, 2000 or 2010, gold has generally delivered returns that were either better than equities or within one or two percentage points of them. Although gold’s long-term return has been slightly below the Sensex, it remains a wealth creator.

Gold cannot manipulate itself and does not generate negative or positive earnings surprises. It is a pure demand-and-supply asset: if demand rises, its price increases, and if demand falls, its price declines.

The precious-metals universe is also relatively simple, consisting primarily of gold and silver. By owning one asset, investors have historically generated returns, whereas equity investors must select from thousands of stocks while managing a much wider spread of risks to deliver a similar outcome.

Gold is therefore a valuable asset class. Over a one-year horizon, it could deliver better returns than equities. Over five to 10 years, its returns should be broadly in line with equity returns.

After having been in the investing world for more than 25 years from private banking and investment management to private and venture capital; I have pretty much “been there and done that” at one point or another. I am currently a partner at RIA Advisors in Houston, Texas. The majority of my time is spent analyzing, researching and writing commentary about investing, investor psychology and macro-views of the markets and the economy. My thoughts are not generally mainstream and are often contrarian in nature but I try an use a common sense approach, clear explanations and my “real world” experience in the process. I am a managing partner of RIA Pro, a weekly subscriber based-newsletter that is distributed to individual and professional investors nationwide. The newsletter covers economic, political and market topics as they relate to your money and life. I also write a daily blog which is read by thousands nationwide from individuals to professionals at www.realinvestmentadvice.com.