Personal finance insights: News & Features

By: Dr K C Gupta, YBB Personal Finance

CONTRARIAN INDICATORS

AAII Bull-Bear Spread -8.9% (below average)
CNN Fear & Greed Index 21 (extreme fear)
NYSE %Above 50-dMA 39.06% (negative)
SP500 %Above 50-dMA 58.80% (positive)

ICI Fund Allocations (Cumulative), 8/30/26
OEFs & ETFs: Stocks 63.33%, Hybrids 3.85%, Bonds 16.83%, M-Mkt 15.99%

INTEREST RATES

CME FedWatch
Cycle peak 5.25-5.50%
Current 3.75-4.00%
FOMC 10/28/26+ hold
FOMC 12/9/26+ hike

Treasury

T-Bills 3-mo yield 4.22%, 1-yr 4.44%; T-Notes 2-yr 4.69%, 5-yr 4.82%, 10-yr 5.00%; T-Bonds 30-yr 5.33% (normal yield-curve);
TIPS/Real yields 5-yr 2.34%, 10-yr 2.66%, 30-yr 3.08%
FRNs Index 4.138%

Bank Rates www.depositaccounts.com/



Stable-Value (SV) Rates, 10/1/26
TIAA Traditional Annuity (Accumulation) Rates
Restricted RC 5.75%, RA 5.50%
Flexible RCP 5.00%, SRA 4.75%, IRA-101110+ 4.65%
TIAA MYGA 5.30% (3-yr), 5.40% (5-yr), 5.50% (7-yr)
TSP G Fund 5.375% (previous 4.875%)

India Fear & Greed MMI 30.62 (fear)
Weekly ETFs: INDA -2.52%, EPI -2.83%, INDH -1.88%, SMIN -5.59% | SPY -0.43%

The data above are as of Sunday preceding the publication date.

CONSUMERS

Haldiram’s has opened its first US restaurants in 10/2026 in Frisco, TX that serves Indian meals in family-casual settings; it also has a retail snacks & sweets area. It closed few days after opening to increase its kitchen capacity & has reopened. Frisco is a rapidly developing suburb in Dallas-Fort-Worth (DFW) area. Haldiram’s is in UK & 80 other countries; Singaporean Temasek owns 9%.

HEALTHCARE

A rush of foreign money (US KKR, General Atlantic, TPG, etc; Netherlands EQT, Singapore Temasak, etc) in Indian healthcare may have raised costs (including for hospitals) in specialty areas (surgeries, robotic surgeries, cardiology, oncology, nephrology, etc) beyond the reaches of insurers & wealthy patients. It will boost medical tourism but that’s won’t be sustaining without local utilization. Insurers may cover private hospital costs only partially, so patients may be caught in the middle. A parliamentary committee is looking into price caps or other limits.

SPACE TECHNOLOGY

Musk’s India dreams may be fading – poor Tesla EV sales, problems with Indian regulators over X/Twitter & stuck approvals for Starlink. Government is considering satellite-mobile (last-mile) proposals from Starlink (LEO); Eutelsat OneWeb (LEO)/ Bharti Airtel; SES (MEO, GEO)/ Jio Satellite Communications; a forthcoming proposal from Amazon Leo/Kuiper (still looking for a local partner).
Notably, India-EU FTA is done, while India-US FTA is stuck. There are continuing threats of US sanctions, restrictions on work-visas & unpredictable mood swings in DC. Indian Government sources also noted that India-US trade negotiations have reached a plateau. So, a European-based satellite-mobile services may launch before Starlink.
Before Elon came out swinging at everybody (Jio, Mukesh Ambani, PM Modi), Jio & Airtel were its local partners. Unclear where that stands now. Jio also has future plans for its own LEO satellites, while Bharti Enterprises already owns 18.7% of Eutelsat OneWeb.

SPECIAL TOPIC – MUTUAL FUND CLASSES

Mutual fund (OEF; open-end fund) assets are still the largest (60.9% ex-money-market) among the US funds although ETFs (exchange-traded funds) are catching up fast.

Common mutual fund classes are A (front-load), B (backend-load; discontinued), C (level-load; the worst type), I (institutional), R (retirement), F (fee arrangements), W (no-fee, but via advisors), & there can be several more. Some classes have subclasses, e.g. I-1, I-2, I-3; F-1, F-2, F-3; R1,…,R6, etc. American Funds family is easily the champion in mutual fund classes with 18-20 classes.

Classes differ in loads, management fees, distribution fees (12b-1), administration fees & other fees that define their overall annual expense ratios (ERs), but the underlying portfolios are the same. If funds use leverage, then the costs of borrowing are also included in the ERs. However, funds’ brokerage costs aren’t included the ERs; these can be found in funds’ SAIs (Statements of Additional Information). All fund classes have similar CG (capital gain) distributions.

Morningstar now evaluates each fund class separately.

Recent developments are ETF classes of active or passive mutual funds, mutual fund conversions to ETFs & some shift from mutual funds to retirement plan CITs. Previously, only Vanguard offered patented ETF classes for its indexed mutual funds. Alts (lifetime income, real estate, private-equity/credit) are getting into retirement plans through CITs (collective investment trusts).

Fund firms & brokerages have not given up on lucrative fees for mutual funds. Brokerage NTF (no-transaction-fee) platforms charge 25-50 bps platform fees & may impose 60-90 days holding periods. Many large firms don’t participate in other firms’ NTF platforms, but smaller firms & fund boutiques without their own distributions like NTF platforms despite their fees.

High mutual fund fees are a drag on performance, so stick with low-cost indexed or active mutual funds.
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