Markets Have Thinned Out Now As Traders Take A Break
This is the time of the year when it becomes a little difficult to gauge market sentiment because many market participants are not active on their trading screens
On Episode 759 of The Core Report, financial journalist Govindraj Ethiraj talks to Saurav Ghosh, co-founder of Jiraaf as well as Amit Prothi, Director General at the CDRI.
SHOW NOTES
(00:00) Stories of the Day
(01:48) Markets have thinned out now as traders take a break
(05:10) Copper joins the party, hits all time highs along with gold and silver
(07:05) How the dollar is heading for its weakest annual performance in eight years
(08:27) Why investing in disaster resilience is critical to economic growth
(23:55) The big trends from retail bond markets in 2025 for 2026
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NOTE: This transcript contains the host's monologue and includes interview transcripts by a machine. Human eyes have gone through the script but there might still be errors in some of the text, so please refer to the audio in case you need to clarify any part. If you want to get in touch regarding any feedback, you can drop us a message on feedback@thecore.in.
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Good morning, it's Wednesday, the 24th of December, and this is Govindraj Ethiraj, broadcasting and streaming weekdays from Mumbai, India's financial capital. It's Christmas Eve, and also our last news podcast before we head into a short break for this holiday shortened week, or rather in this holiday shortened week. We are not going off air, though, and we have a series of special interviews starting Friday to keep you engaged in the next few days.
Tomorrow, as it happens, is also the launch of Mumbai's new airport, that's the Navi Mumbai International Airport, which will see its first flights take off. That's on Christmas Day, 25th of December morning. What is the name of that airport going to be? Well, it's an interesting one, but stand by for that.
The topics in these special edition interviews will range from the economy to economic thought and financial markets and where they could go in 2026. Our weekend editions will continue as before, and we are speaking exclusively with the chiefs of India's state-owned oil giants as part of our special series alongside the India Energy Week, which starts next month.
And that brings us to our top stories and themes for the day…
The markets have thinned out now as traders take a break.
Copper joins the party, hits all-time highs, along with gold and silver, who too have hit fresh all-time highs.
The dollar, on the other hand, is heading for its weakest annual performance in eight years
Why disaster resilience investment is critical to economic growth.
And the big trends from retail bond markets in 2025 for 2026.
The Last Week
Now, this is the time of the year when it becomes a little difficult to gauge market sentiment, mostly because many market participants are not active on their trading screens and taking well-deserved breaks, and I hope you too will.
So, smaller trades can result in sharper moves, and keeping that in mind, the markets were somewhat flat on Tuesday with IT stocks losing while financial services, consumer products, and metal stocks gained. The Sensex snapped its two-day winning streak to close slightly lower at 85,524, though the Nifty 50 was up, rising 4.75 points to close at 26,177. So, one of those days where the two benchmarks moved in opposite directions.
Like we said, the markets are thin at this time of the year. Wall Street continues to rise for reasons not clear, that's beyond AI, that is. Overnight in the United States, the S&P 500 gained 0.6%, which was its third positive day in a row.
Broader markets back home were mixed. Nifty, the small-cap index, was up 0.3%. The Nifty mid-cap index was flat. A Bloomberg report says foreign portfolio investors have increased their holdings of Indian stocks by the most in two months last week as the rupee rebounded from a record low.
They bought about $644 million of local stock, the most since middle of October, according to Bloomberg data. And that inflow, or those inflows, coincided with the rupee posting its biggest weekly gain in nearly six months, following about $1.8 billion of equity outflows over the prior three weeks when the currency fell more than 1%, according to Bloomberg. Investors are now positioning for a revival in earnings growth to identify new winners in 2026.
And the NSE Nifty 50 rose about 11% in 2025, which may seem okay, but that trailed the MSCI Asia-Pacific Index by the widest margin since 1998. Now, the bets are that the underperformance may reverse in the new year, thanks to a host of factors, including macro tailwinds. Nifty earnings are expected to grow by around 16% in the next fiscal year beginning April 1st, and nearly double the growth estimated for the current year, according to ICICI securities quoted by Bloomberg.
Meanwhile, money is shifting around in Asia as well. Citigroup has upgraded its recommendation on Taiwan equities, while cutting its view on China, citing stronger links to global AI supply chains and a more favourable earnings outlook. China was reduced to neutral from overweight on less favourable earnings revisions and a lacklustre macro outlook in a December 22 note put out by Citibank, or rather Citigroup, and quoted by Bloomberg.
Now, could some of that lead to newer flows or fresh flows into India is something that we could watch out for. And elsewhere, gold touched another record high on Tuesday, just close to $4,500 per ounce, thanks to, among other things, continued geopolitical risk, as we've been seeing, particularly on the oil front, and a weaker dollar. Silver, too, continued its upward march, hitting a fresh all-time peak.
So spot gold rose to about $4,482 as of Tuesday morning after hitting $4,497. That's almost $4,500 earlier on Tuesday, according to Reuters. And the dollar extended losses for a second day and was on course for its biggest annual fall since 2017, and more on that in a moment.
Copper Times
Copper hit a fresh all-time high, above $12,000 a tonne, as severe mine outages and trade dislocations linked to President Donald Trump's tariff agenda put copper on course for its biggest annual gain since 2009, according to Bloomberg. Prices rose to $12,044 a tonne on the London Metal Exchange, extending a rally that has taken up prices by more than a third this year.
Interestingly, Bloomberg points out that prices have gone up despite underlying usage falling rapidly in China, which consumes about half the world's copper. Now, investors generally view copper as a barometer for global industrial activity, but the slowdown in China has not really changed things. And there is an expectation, as we discussed on the core report with analyst Ajay Kadia last week, that prices will keep going higher as traders ship even greater volumes of copper to the U.S. to front-run potential tariffs.
The India Energy Week Segment
Oil prices were not changed much on Tuesday as potential sales of Venezuelan crude seized by the United States were countered by heightened supply disruptions, or rather fears of supply disruption after Ukraine's attacks on Russia's vessels and piers, according to Reuters. Brent crude futures were at about $62.14 on Tuesday morning, and West Texas Intermediate Crude, or WTI, was up at about $58.05. Prices had risen by more than 2% on Monday and Brent had registered its biggest daily gain in two months, said Reuters.
Dollar Times
And now it's back to dollars, and the dollar is heading for its weakest annual performance in eight years, and the options market is signalling that traders are preparing for more downsides in the final sessions of 2025. The Bloomberg dollar spot index fell 0.3% on Tuesday to the lowest level since October 3rd and is down 8.2% this year, putting it on track for its biggest slide since 2017. Another modest dip, says Bloomberg, would push the currency to its worst year in at least two decades.
Elsewhere, the rupee ended flat on Tuesday thanks to persistent dollar demand from local companies and the non-deliverable forwards market, according to Reuters, adding the rupee close at Rs. 89.65, by say, against the dollar, unchanged from its closing level in the previous session. The Reserve Bank of India has sold a net of $11.88 billion in the foreign exchange market in October, according to data released on Monday, reflecting its efforts to support the rupee.
I wonder what those figures are for the month of December, which, of course, we'll have to wait for. The Reserve Bank said in its monthly bulletin it had bought about $17.6 billion and sold $29.5 billion during the month, while in September it sold about $7.9 billion in the spot market.
Infrastructure Resilience
Infrastructure resilience is a critical global challenge, according to the Coalition of Disaster-Resilient Infrastructure, a global multi-stakeholder partnership including 53 member countries and the private sector. It also says that 14% of global GDP growth is at risk each year from infrastructure losses to climate change and disasters, and 80% of this risk is concentrated in the critical power transport and telecommunications sectors. The CDRA, which was launched by India at the 2019 UN Climate Summit, has released a working paper series under the ambit of the second Global Infrastructure Resilience Report, and this working paper on economic impacts, downstream consequences of infrastructure failures, looks at the cascading economic effects that arise from disruptions and failures in critical infrastructure, something that we should all be thinking about and looking at more closely as the year draws to an end.
This paper highlights how disasters affect economies far beyond the direct damage to assets. When infrastructure services such as water, electricity, and transport fail for prolonged periods, the ripple effects disrupt businesses, livelihoods, and essential public services. The study says that indirect costs are on average 7.4 times higher than direct damages, reaching up to 16 times higher in some countries.
Between 2025 and 2050, infrastructure failures could reduce GDP growth by 5.2% annually, with losses rising to 7.4% by 2050, and even higher in vulnerable nations like Bangladesh and the Philippines. There are more interesting data points around disaster resilience, and I reached out to Amit Prothi, Director General of the CDRI, and I began by asking him to walk us through the key facets of this working paper.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Amit Prothi: This flagship report is a second report that we've put together. The first one was about two years back. We call it our flagship report.
There are three or four key messages. The first report talked about the scale of damage that we're looking at across the world in infrastructure from variety of hazards. So, you know, we pointed out that approximately $700 to $830 billion gets lost every year when you add up all of the damage to infrastructure from cyclones, earthquakes, floods, etc., etc. This report tries to understand what is the economic impact of that damage. So, you know, when your road gets flooded, your businesses don't necessarily function because people aren't able to access offices or get delayed, aren't able to access hospitals. Your road gets washed off in the mountains, hospitals, and things become inaccessible.
Your power lines go down. You don't have electricity, right? So, there is an economic impact when infrastructure gets damaged.
And what we're finding is we look at eight countries as samples, different types of countries. And we're finding that on average, the cost of damage multiplies seven to eight times the cost on the economy. So, one rupee lost because of damage has a seven-time multiplier loss on the economy.
Now, that's huge. So, you know, when we're building infrastructure for economic development, when we're upgrading infrastructure for economic development, and at the same time we're starting to lose infrastructure because of all of these various hazard events, the cost on the economy is quite massive. So, that's message number one.
Second one, we, for the first time, talked directly to businesses. So, we ran a survey of about 500 businesses in more than 30 countries to see how they're preparing for events like cyclones, like floods, like earthquakes. And what we are finding is that, you know, larger businesses understand they have to be prepared.
So, a lot of them have plans, but also what we're finding is that while they may have plans, they're not necessarily trying out those plans. So, you know, for example, if you have a plan to say, what happens when there's an earthquake? Do I have an SOP around it?
Are you testing it? Are you making sure that your workers or supply chain, et cetera, is reacting to that plan when that event happens? So, while the planning efforts are ongoing, the sort of constant preparation is not necessarily happening.
That's for the big businesses. The smaller businesses clearly struggle a lot more. So, you know, a lot of the small businesses are not prepared at all.
And I think that's an area of work that needs to be thought about much more. You know, there's a lot of scope to actually do work in that space. The third part of this I really wanted to also bring out is that we looked at technology, how technology can start to support the agenda of resilience.
And when I say technology, we are trying to look at prior to events. So, in your preparatory phase, how does technology enable you to be better prepared during phase? So, when there is an event ongoing, so for example, a cyclone is going, what role can technology play?
And then how do you actually bounce back quickly through the help of technology? So, for example, in Ecuador, there was a massive earthquake and they were able to use drone technology to come in and understand the scale of damage. In Vanuatu, they're trying to see how they can use technology to come and give payments quickly to people who are affected.
In other places, they're using artificial intelligence to understand flood risk, so the infrastructure can be better prepared for flooding. So, again, you know, in this report, we're also talking about role of technology in those three phases of before an event, so planning for it during an event and post an event. Let me stop there.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Got it. So, let me pick up on the private sector part. I mean, and a large number of infrastructure companies are actually private companies and many of them, according to your survey, had less than 10% of their budgets in resilience and 25% nothing at all.
So, there could be many reasons for this. What would you say are the key ones and how does this be addressed or how can this be addressed from both an awareness as well as a financing standpoint?
Amit Prothi: So, I think awareness is partially the fundamental challenge right now is that a lot of companies have not yet understood what happens. I mean, we have anecdotal evidence. So, when you're running a business, you know, you're starting to recognise that your supply chains may be at risk because of a variety of issues.
What we're not necessarily picking up is that because of climate change, the frequency of disasters is increasing and our business is now starting to understand that when they're dependent on global supply chains, we factor in geopolitics. You know, we understand geopolitics and we're trying to secure supply chains from a point of view of is that country going to be able to provide us the supplies in the future. But we've not brought in elements of climate change into that thinking.
I'll give you an example. I was in Washington DC about 2011 and I was ordering hard disc for a computer from Amazon and it was backed up for three months. And why was it backed up?
Because the hard disc was coming from a western digital company. These hard discs were being manufactured in Thailand and there was a massive flood in Thailand. So, things had gotten backed up.
So, as you start to look at your supply chains, as you start to look at your physical assets. So, you know, for example, a lot of manufacturing may be in areas which are to flooding. And we're finding examples where businesses have understood that, you know, they ensure that their factories actually flood proof.
But sometimes what's happening is they're not necessarily factoring in that people have to come to your factory. So, if your employees are living in flood prone areas and are unable to come to your factories, your factory may be standing, but people can't get to it. So, there's a lot of nuances in this supply chain becomes one, physical assets becomes one.
And because the frequency of events is actually increasing quite a bit, companies have not yet understood the complexity of the challenge. And I think what's starting to happen is now globally, financiers are starting to ask this question. Banks are starting to also say they need the asset owners to understand what is the climate risk.
Now, what is also missing is that there isn't enough companies that are providing good evidence to say that, you know, this is how you factor in climate risk in the future. That's a whole growing market now is of companies that are supplying information on how do you factor in climate risk in your business decisions, because that is also a very new field. It's an emerging field.
So, to me, awareness has been a challenge. And then data or tools and methods to actually bring that awareness into decision making is also a challenge that's being addressed.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. And can you expand a little on the resilience dividend, as you've called it, and how companies, particularly in India, can approach that or respond to that?
Amit Prothi: So, you know, if you start to capture today, everything that relates to your loss column. So, for example, when you have a flood and you have to slow down production, or your ports are backed up because of cyclone, and your bottom line gets affected. Or if you're dependent on the railways, and because of extreme heat, the trains are running slowly.
How does all of that already start to affect your businesses? If you can factor in that loss or an understanding of that loss today, and then factor in to say, if I can actually address this, if I can invest in improving, you know, maybe diversifying my supply chain or investing in something where my employees can come to the office quickly, and I reduce those losses, to us, that's what we're calling resilience dividend. Now, we've looked at it much more carefully in the infrastructure sector from the public sector side.
Again, I'll take an example of a road that gets damaged due to a landslide. When a road gets damaged because of a landslide in the hills, and it doesn't function for three weeks, four weeks, five weeks, there is an impact on the economy. If you can introduce measures to strengthen landslide mitigation in that road, finding that the cost of that investment is maybe, you know, if it's one rupee, the savings, because your losses are reduced, is sometimes seven to 12 times that one rupee.
That's what we're calling it as a resilience dividend. So if you actually invest upfront in reducing those risks, in reducing the disruptions that are happening, over time, the payback because of avoided losses can easily translate to seven to 12 times. So we've seen that already in the power sector, we're seeing it in transportation, we're seeing it.
So that's how we sort of talk about resilience dividend.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. You know, as you look back at 2025, and ahead at 2026, what are the standout events for you, which strengthen the case for resilience as an investment, whether it's private or public, and I guess more in the context of infrastructure? And what are the couple of things that particularly business leaders should be thinking of as we go into 2026?
Amit Prothi: So because a lot of my work right now has been in the public sphere, I think one conversation that I picked up very much was well, two actually, one in COP. So in Bellum, there's been a lot of push now for adaptation focused solutions. If you translate that into what that means for decision makers, I mean, it's basically saying that the green transition is part of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
But globally, there's a lot more recognition that we're already surpassing 1.5 degrees in terms of the planet is heating up. And because it is heating up, there is going to be rapid impact on precipitation patterns, etc, which means we do need to put a lot more emphasis on adaptation solutions. That's the global conversation, you know, that was the conversation in a month and a half ago.
And that's going to start translating into all sets of actions on the public sector side on the private sector side. If you look at the World Economic Forum, recently, one of the key risks that they've identified is climate risk to businesses. So that translates directly for business owners, that even the World Economic Forum is now starting to recognise that climate risk is actually one of the bigger challenges that businesses will be facing in the coming years.
So, you know, this is not me saying this is people in COP and people in WEF saying, right. So to me, those two are pointing towards a greater emphasis on starting to understand climate risk in businesses. I'll give you that example from Baltimore, when Baltimore port shut down because a bridge collapsed, and the port did stop functioning, there was a massive economic impact and massive ripple effect on supply chain.
You know, to me, that just points to what happens when a port stops functioning, right? That same analogy can be used for a cyclone that passes through a coastal area, or, you know, you're dependent on roads, transport, power, telecommunication. So all of these systems are actually getting more and more prone, or because of changing, cyclones are getting much more powerful.
So your infrastructure, particularly power and telecommunication, which was built to withstand a certain wind speed is now unable to do it maybe. And that then affects your supply chains. Or if you're, you know, again, cyclones on the coasts are increasing, and they're changing where they're going as well.
You can't be necessarily 100% sure today that certain areas which did not experience cyclones in the past may actually experience them. So that's where climate data, downscaling climate data becomes incredibly important. So my call to businesses is start paying a little bit more attention to it.
You already know in a certain way how to address risk, but you probably never looked at climate risks from the point of view that you need to now look at, because there are fundamental changes, shifts in precipitation patterns, in wind speeds, etc. And then our development patterns as well, we're growing very quickly in some parts of the world. So our development is also not necessarily, it's sometimes exaggerating the risks.
For example, you know, industrial parks, and you're trying to find flat lands to build industrial parks. Often the available land on the outskirts of cities is also farmland close to a river. You know, we've started to see examples where manufacturing plants are built in floodplains.
Now, you should, as a business owner, start to check on that. Start to say, you know, if I'm purchasing land to build a manufacturing unit, is that area prone to flooding? Has there been historical flooding?
Is that going to impact more flooding in the future, right? So just starting to pay more attention is required at this point.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right, Amit, we've run out of time. Thank you so much for joining me, and indeed on a sombre note for 2026.
Amit Prothi: I'm not somebody who's a pessimistic person. I just feel people can solve these problems if they understand them a little bit better.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Amit, thank you so much.
Amit Prothi: Thanks, Govind.
Retail Debt
Well, we usually speak about equity markets and not so much or so often about fixed income or debt markets. 2025 has seen increased retail participation in debt, says GIRAFFE, spelled J-I-R-A-A-F, or Retail Debt Investment Platform. Also, it says investments are coming in much earlier than before and not necessarily because they're switching from equities.
There are other interesting insights, including the newer classes of debt instruments that are coming into the market and the options for investors as we look ahead at investing in 2026. I spoke with Sourav Ghosh, co-founder of JIRAAF, a semi-regulated online bond platform, and I began by asking him, firstly, what were the key trends that he had seen in the bond markets in 2025, particularly from a retail investor's perspective?
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Saurav Ghosh: I think over 2025, this is the advent of, I would say, retained participation in bond markets in India. So it's been a pivotal moment for the bond markets. You know, key trend that I've played out is, you know, I would say quarter on quarter, you know, the industry has grown almost 100% for the last 12 months.
We have seen a bunch of, I would say, individual investors come into the market and that has been quite diverse in the profile of, you know, I would say, investors coming in. So we have obviously the financial savvy customers who are looking for diversification. We have had also new to investment customers who are looking for stability and trying to conserve capital, but also do better than, let's say, FD returns.
And, you know, I would say there are also those people trying to optimise for tax, gold-based investments, and, you know, medium to short term investing options. So I would say from a retail horizon, you know, different investors have now entered the bond market trying to solve for different, you know, say problem statements of their financial portfolio. And this is where we truly see that, you know, bond being accepted as a more mainstream asset class and people really are understanding how the asset category like fits into one's portfolio.
How should I go about investing in them? What is the purpose of bonds in my portfolio? These are, I would say, you know, questions that they are finding answers to.
It's been a pivotal moment in that sense, as I said, you know, we've seen almost 100% quarter and quarter growth for the last 12 months, which is quite phenomenal.
Govindraj Ethiraj: And when you say 100% quarter, this is for your platform, or are you saying in general, when you look around?
Saurav Ghosh: I would say both. So you know, both the platform as well as the overall category has seen some trends in that sense. Yeah.
Govindraj Ethiraj: And what would you say are some of the top fixed income instruments that have been the most popular or what has attracted the most interest again, from your vantage point?
Saurav Ghosh: Sure. So I think for, you know, the larger retail investor segment, you know, what we call as corporate bonds is the category that is most prevalent the last 30, 12 months. Within corporate bonds, obviously we have bonds which fall under the category of different ratings.
So we have triple A, double A, A, and then it goes all the way to investment grade, which is triple B. So the sweet spot that we have seen for retail investors is around the A rated category, which gives you yields anywhere between 10 to, you know, 11 or 12%. So this is the sweet spot for investors that when it comes to participation in our platform, we've also seen a bit of a trend play out on the HNI and you know, the family office side where you know, they invested heavily in G6 and your state development loans or, you know, state government securities.
Ideally, they were, you know, in a falling interest rate cycle, you know, they were savvy investors obviously trying to lock in yields, you know, before the interest cycle kind of interest rates keep reducing. So that was a bit of a, I would say focus for the savvy investors or HNIs, the retail segment, you know, heavily participated, as I said, in the A rated corporate bond category.
Govindraj Ethiraj: And you mentioned triple B. So what is the kind of interest rate one could get if one subscribed to one of those instruments?
Saurav Ghosh: So triple B typically will give you depending on you know, see the underlying issuer and you know, the financial strength of the company, but triple B would give you in the range of I would say, 12 to anywhere up to 15%. So got it.
Govindraj Ethiraj: And investors who come to you, you did say that many of them are financially savvy, but do you get a sense that they are shifting from equities or have been in the last year? Or have they been exclusively setting aside money for debt at start, whatever that start point is?
Saurav Ghosh: So I think there are two factors to this, right? One is that debt or bonds, at least like you know, fixed deposit is a combination of two plays. One is people moving from FDs trying to get those incremental 2, 3, 4% return, trying to optimise over there while at the same time being out say risk averse or trying to, you know, be more focused on conservation of capital.
So that's one side of the investor group. The second, as you said, well, you know, equity investors also trying to rebalance their overall financial portfolios, where they see that, you know, bonds of fixed income can have a meaningful part of their financial portfolio, right? I think it's a play on both sides.
You know, last 12, 18 months, obviously we saw the equity markets being largely sideways. We saw a lot of influx of people who are obviously rebalancing their overall portfolio. So I'm not saying that, you know, people are taking out money from equities and putting into bonds, but effectively what is happening is people who are salaried have monthly, you know, surplus from their monthly salaries.
They are like ours to now taking larger exposure in equity. So the incremental surplus that they are getting on a month on month basis, they are disproportionately allocating to bonds. So now they have a sizable equity portfolio.
They have seen that equity portfolio be volatile or largely sideways. So they're not getting that confidence that I should be allocating more capital. So, you know, they are disproportionately, obviously now investing in bonds from their monthly corpus.
And the second is, as I said, a lot of people have now realised that, you know, FDs are also not beating inflation on a post-tax basis with rates falling. Empty rates also has fallen considerably over the last 12 months. So that is de-incentivising them further to kind of, you know, invest in FDs.
There has been a lot of FDs people have made 2-3 years back, which is now coming up for reinvestment because they have matured. They are not getting the same rates as they had earlier invested in, you know, a few years back. And they're like, you know, now 5-6% is not like looking attractive at all.
What can I do better with my money? And that's where they come to bonds and they feel that's the sweet spot of risk and return.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. And last question, which is really two questions. One is, how is the supply side looking right now and into 2026?
And secondly, how are you seeing from your vantage point, the yield curve?
Saurav Ghosh: So I think the first on the supply side, I think, you know, the last few years has been largely dominated by the NBFC space. So NBFCs in India are obviously are consistent borrowers of capital. So they are in the business of borrowing and in then the business on lending.
Therefore, they obviously adapted to the bond markets the fastest or the capital markets the fastest. Almost, you know, if you leave aside the AAA space, where obviously you see a lot of PSUs and very large-scale Indian corporates participating. If you take that aside, I would say almost 80% of the market is NBFC issuers today.
Right. That's what it has been for the last 2-3 years. But going forward in 2026, I think the overall pie and the market is really expanding.
Recently, we saw Sterlite Technologies, a subsidiary of Vedanta, you know, do a 400 crore listed bond issuance. We've seen, you know, MBC Group, a real estate developer, again, do listed bond issuances. We saw Shapurji Palanjali do one of the largest issuances, you know, in private markets through the listed route.
So we've seen now wide depth of issuers coming into the capital market as one of the major sources of their borrowings. Right. So that is a trend that is, I would say, slowly playing out.
And in 2026, I see like the market share of NBFCs in some sense drop from, as I said, the 80% to probably a 65% outside the AAA category. Because obviously AAA category still dominates the Odan market, where we have all the large Indian corporates and the PSUs participating.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. And your sense of how the yield curve could be?
Saurav Ghosh: So the yield curve, I would say, obviously, going into 2026, I feel that a lot of the rate cuts are now going to obviously is now in the past. So we will not see, I think last 12 months, we saw almost more than 100 BIPs being reduced by the central bank. So I think, obviously, we are not going to see that pace of reduction, if any.
So I think in that sense, the larger part of the rate cuts are behind us. We will see fewer cuts, if at all, in 2026. So from that perspective, the rates broadly have stabilised.
I also feel that in that sense, you know, India's long-term growth story is always intact. Right. So I don't expect, I feel the rate curve to be largely flattish.
I don't expect it to steepen, you know, considerably at all. You know, people find a lot of comfort in that sense, in even long-term investing in India. I feel there has been some short-term impact.
So for the first half of 2026, we might see some impact of the rupee volatility or, you know, the volatility because of, obviously, the trade discussion with the US. But barring that, I feel that towards the second half of 2026, we'll see the yield curve largely stabilise.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Got it. Saurav, it was a pleasure speaking with you. Thank you so much for joining me.
Saurav Ghosh: Thanks a lot.
