Best Asset Allocation Strategy Now? | Feroze Azeez on Equities vs Gold

追加: 2026-05-13

[00:00:00]Hi, good morning uh Feroze and Suranjana. Great to  see both of you uh on the program today. Welcome to money control. Thank you Surabhi and uh it's such a  pleasure to be on your show. Okay. And uh imagine that why shouldn't flexiap funds get the money  right and by by the way 10,000 crores came in. I just want to tell our viewers that flexi cap funds  got 10,000 crores this month. Large cap funds are hardly getting flows. They just get between two  to two and a half,000 rupees to two to 2 and a half thousand cr rupees. uh midcap funds and small  cap funds have received about 6,000 cr rupees this uh this month but flexi cap is a category getting  10,000 crores that really uh says something fose hi I mean imagine you just had the head of  institutional equities of ambit saying please don't go headlong into equities you know spread  out your investments look at various asset classes now we know that fose has always loved equity  and Indian equity at that but fose it's been a challenging time as well right for the market. I  mean what do you make of just investor sentiment overall and what we've seen in the last one two  months? Uh Suri uh you're absolutely right Indian equities have not delivered over the last year and  couple of months if I look at last financial year but one thing which people have to keep reminding  themselves is equity unlike gold and other asset classes have multiple prices multiple funds. Gold  has two prices at best 24 karat maybe four prices rupee and dollar from an Indian standpoint but  uh if you look at uh what should you buy depends on what is your time frame what's your objective  now let's assume now people are very sad between yesterday and today that market by my model  portfolio 14 schemes as of 8th of May from 1st of April is 13.58% compound the return over the last  8th May of course couple of percent would go away if you incorporate yesterday's and today's NA but  uh the portfolio has beaten nifty by about 5.4%.

[00:02:03]There'll be good times and bad. If you look at 1st  April 2025 where is when Trump has created havoc from a trade war on 7th of April last year my  investor who bought on 1st of April last year has made baj right 6 and a half%. So point I'm trying  to make is if your objective of being in equities every month I should be at peak. It's definitely  not going to happen. Will you be able to from here on if you don't buy equity and if you say that  if you buy equity today and then hold it for 3 four years will you make more than opportunity  cost? In my mind it's all about the odds there is 90% plus odds and that's what has happened.  year and 1 month one year and 1 month has delivered 7% return this this period then wise  should hope be lower and the reason why equity is getting money is media houses like you sur I'm  not uh I'm not saying it just because I'm on your show but you've done Abhan after abhan right  uh to make this happen right when every like last month was not the most positive sentiment  in that getting 40,000 crores or 38,000 crores I don't know why people forget ETFs Those are  index funds. If you add it, it's 53,821 crores in equity. So that's a large amount of money and  in the last four days, last four five days of May we've got,000 crores. Okay. So um Fose, now what  are you telling investors? I mean I know that you run a a model portfolio. It comprises of a whole  range of actively managed uh equity funds. But as we can see the uh the interest is very high in mid  and small caps. The interest is very high in flexi cap funds. So going forward given how uncertain  things are and most managers are talking about earnings cuts you know at least another tough  two three quarters. So given this environment what are you advising investors now fose? Uh Suri  uh you're absolutely right. Midcap and small cap has had interest. Flexi cap has had interest.  In my judgment, India's uh retail uh assuming mutual fund investments are a proxy to retail's  behavior. They're doing the most sensible thing.

[00:04:11]See if you've got 40 50,000 crores and if you  put 67,000 crores in small cap as a proportion, it's 13 14%. If you put 6 7,000 crores in midcap,  it's again 13 14%. And then you have the implied exposures through other schemes another 10 12%.  So very similar to what uh doing all the research I come to 55 20 and 20 for example 22 and 22  that's precisely how India has invested. So that's a great thing to see one. Second, I love  the fact that flexi caps are being favored a lot more by the Indian retail because what happens in  large cap for example uh there is a mandate that if this if the stock moves from large to mid and  mid to small that keeps happening every 6 months uh the fund manager is given one year 1 month  to to actually realign to 80%. Now that's uh that's to my mind create can create a lot  of selling unwarranted selling. So in a flexi cap because there's a flexibility if I like a  stock if it has moved from large and mid unlike in a large cap category I don't have to sell that  just because I it has moved to midcap I'm wanting to own that share for the next 10 years maybe so  flexi cap requires lesser forced management this is a very nuance point and that's one reason why I  like flexiap having said which if you look at the SIP number that's very heartening people say SIPs  have fallen 3% yeah in March you had four days uh lesser, right? So, so in April you had  March had four days more because February ended and all the February SIPs got spilled over  because 26th was the last day of February. So, March was a larger base. I was reading an article  on one of the media uh reports saying that there is an SIP drop of 3%. It's actually not a  drop. It's a 1% one and a half% amortized if you rightly amortize the number of days or a  portion the number of days it's gone up. last year uh same April was 26,000 and in the same year  where there has been such bad sentiment 26,000 has become 31,000 and I said this 5 years back that  by FYI 25 you'll reach 25,000 and I'm still saying that by FY FI 28 29 you will reach 50,000 crores  and that's disciplined investing for sonified okay all right well stay invested keep the faith  I think that is the mantra uh for investors across the board any final advice any final tips  or advice. Uh, of course, we've not discussed uh, you know, precious metals, but I mean those ETFs  are constantly getting a little bit money here and there. Finally, what would you like to tell the  investor? Suri, I would say that listen to Modi G, don't buy gold. Uh, why would I say that? See,  if an asset, why am I saying that? Let's see we have 2 crores 2 crores of gold holding in Indian  households equity mutual funds ETF put together is 48 lakh crores and if we as an industry sell  what sells then how will we do right asset allocation you have to look at asset allocation at  a total balance sheet level not at what I get as a business right if India's asset allocation is 2  crores four times more in gold I am also saying manage may not be right because on Minisha's  Manisha's show I've said it several times at 3,500 she asked me 4,000 because that's the momentum  now you are at 20% lower than where it had gone 5,600 down to 4,700 gold has been saved by the  rupee depreciation to my mind if you have enough gold and other forms please don't use mutual  funds and force uh uh we have 5070 billion of imports of gold which on a base of uh two crores  uh is is 2 3% for one year. If you don't buy two, if you don't as add an asset allocation of  2 3% further in gold, I don't think you will miss out too much. Especially at $4,800, $4,700,  it was just about $1,800. In thousands of years, it comes to $1,800. And what happened in a in  a year uh that you got a more than thousands of years of rally and you still you can avoid  that is my point. would it not make 6 7%, yes I think it can uh 8%, but I think rupee is  already depreciated enough to not buy foreign assets be it gold or foreign uh equity. Okay, so  FOS is saying go with what the premise is saying and don't buy gold not just the jewelry and the  coins and bars but maybe even the ETFs. All right, got that point. Uh good conversation as  always Feroze and Suranjana. Thanks for joining in.