By: Dr K C Gupta, YBB Personal Finance

SENTIMENTS

AAII Bull-Bear Spread +5.8% (below average)
$NYA50R, NYSE %Above 50-dMA 74.44% (overbought)
$SPXA50R, SP500 %Above 50-dMA 68.40% (positive)
Delta MSI 77.9% (overbought)

ICI Fund Allocations (Cumulative), 5/31/25
OEFs & ETFs: Stocks 60.61%, Hybrids 4.16%, Bonds 17.70%, M-Mkt 17.54%

INTEREST RATES

CME FedWatch
Cycle peak 5.25-5.50%
Current 4.25-4.50%
FOMC 7/30/25+ hold
FOMC 9/17/25+ cut

Treasury

T-Bills 3-mo yield 4.41%, 1-yr 4.09%; T-Notes 2-yr 3.90%, 5-yr 3.99%, 10-yr 4.43%; T-Bonds 30-yr 4.96%;
TIPS/Real yields 5-yr 1.55%, 10-yr 2.06%, 30-yr 2.64%
FRNs Index 4.301%
US Savings I-Bonds rate from 5/1/25 – 10/31/25 is 3.98% (previous 3.11%); the fixed rate is 1.10%, the semiannual inflation is 1.43%.

For current banking rates, see www.depositaccounts.com/

Stable-Value (SV) Rates, 7/1/25
TIAA Traditional Annuity (Accumulation) Rates
Restricted RC 5.25%, RA 5.00%
Flexible RCP 4.50%, SRA 4.25%, IRA-101110+ 4.50%
TSP G Fund 4.25% (previous 4.500%).

Weekly ETFs INDA -1.63%, EPI -1.87%, INDH -1.19%, SPY -0.20%

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

MARKETS

SEBI has banned Jane Street (US). It made HUGE profits exploiting the lack of intermarket trading controls in India (options & underlying stocks/Indexes). Irregularities are suspected. But SEBI should also focus on developing those controls & penalizing Jane Street shouldn’t be the end.

ECONOMY

US tariffs on India are still pending. The drama at WTO also continues. US tariff letters to several countries indicated tariffs of 20-50%; the sectoral tariffs will be separate.

SPECIAL TOPICS

AAIB preliminary report on Air India 171 (Boeing 787/Dreamliner) crash indicated that during the takeoff, both engine fuel switches suddenly “transitioned” from RUN to CUTOFF. There are locking mechanisms to hold switches in position & deliberate manual efforts are required to flip them. Both pilots seemed surprised. Switches “transitioned” back to RUN. This initiated the auto-restart cycles for engines. One engine turned on but the other had difficulty restarting. Unfortunately, the flight crashed into a medical college complex near Ahmedabad Airport.

Torrent Pharma (a subsidiary of Torrent Group) will acquire a controlling stake in J B Chemicals & Pharma from KKR (US) & combine the entities in stages. Stage 1 – 46.39% stake from KKR, 2.80% stake from certain KKR employees, 26.00% stake from open public offer. Stage 2 – Merge Torrent Pharma & J B Pharma.

PORTFOLIO ANALYTICS SOFTWARE (Part I)

If you have multiple investment accounts, it becomes difficult to monitor all those portfolios. There are several portfolio analytics software that handle uploaded, stored or linked portfolios, but don’t have any transactional capabilities. The analytics may include total-returns (TRs), rolling-returns, inflation-adjustments, portfolio value charts, drawdowns, U/D CR, benchmarking, SWRs/PWRs, MPT statistics (alpha, beta, correlation, standard deviation, Sharpe Ratio, etc), etc.

MFO Premium (MFOP)

It has great analytics at low-cost that is partially tax deductible. Partial site updates are daily, weekly, biweekly or monthly. It can handle mutual funds/OEFs, ETFs, CEFs & insurance VAs (internal tickers, selected Q-tickers), but not stocks. There is charting for portfolio components but not for portfolio values. Monthly return data are used for analytics. There are regular enhancements. MFOP runs are not linkable. MFO = Mutual Fund Observer; it’s a 501c3 organization.

Portfolio Visualizer (PV)

Its free version is now limited to 10-year lookback from the date of the PV run, so that practically means 9 recent full years; the subscription version has medium-high costs. The PV runs can be longer with older start & end dates. It can handle mutual funds/OEFs, ETFs, CEFs & stocks. Portfolio can be manually entered or uploaded from Excel or csv files. An interesting feature is to include cash additions or withdrawals as percentages or that are uniform (with or without inflation-adjustments; default balances are nominal, but inflation-adjustment balances are also available). Monthly return data are used for analytics. PV runs are linkable.

TestFol

It’s relatively new & rapidly evolving. It has a free version only & maybe a good substitute for PV as it doesn’t have timeframe limitations. It can handle mutual funds/OEFs, ETFs, CEFs, stocks, & some VAs with Q-tickers. Login isn’t offered, but it saves recent portfolios using browsers’ local storage features. Cash additions/ withdrawals are also available. Unfortunately, the inflation-adjustment is applied to both the additions/ withdrawals (good) & final balances (not good), so the results won’t match with the default balance values in PV. A unique feature is that it uses daily return data, so its MPT statistics won’t match those from sites using monthly return data. Sometimes, the daily return data jumps around the ex-div dates & that may introduce small errors in MPT stats. Several rolling-stats are also available (TRs, SDs, Sharpe Ratios, etc). TestFol runs are linkable.

For more information, see https://ybbpersonalfinance.proboards.com/