Xylem Insights

Prices are rising, but so is India’s appetite for better things. Instead of trading down, Indian consumers are trading up; upgrading lifestyles, choices, and experiences across the board. It’s a shift that traditional economics struggles to explain, but investors can’t afford to ignore. What we’re seeing is the rise of premiumisation: a behavioural upgrade happening one category, one income bracket, and one aspiration at a time. It is either driven strongly by the wish to imp

The Sun Also Sets: An Exhaustive Autopsy of the Japanese Asset Price Bubble, the Tokyo Housing Mania, and the Lost Decades 1. Introduction: The Anatomy of a Mania The Japanese asset price bubble of the late 1980s stands not merely as a chapter in economic history, but as the definitive clinical case study of financial mania. It was a period where the laws of economic gravity were suspended, replaced by a hallucinatory mix of monetary malpractice, corporate financial engineeri

Few investors carry the kind of gravitational pull Michael Burry commands. He is a quiet anomaly, a financial oracle who speaks rarely, trades quietly, disappears often, and yet his footprints shape the loudest, most critical debates in global markets. When Burry takes a position, it isn’t a passive trade; it is a worldview rendered in derivatives. His shorts are not just transactions; they are definitive judgments on the cycle, the incentives, the behaviour, and the collecti

The Evolution of the Professional Speculator Jesse Lauriston Livermore (1877–1940) is a pivotal figure in market speculation. Initially the "Boy Plunger," he became the notorious "Great Bear of Wall Street" by anticipating and profiting from major economic downturns. His career evolved from a quick-money scalper in unregulated bucket shops to a systematic speculator relying on long-term economic analysis and strict psychological discipline. Livermore gained fame for profiting

The global energy transition is gaining momentum, with renewable energy emerging as an integral pillar of sustainable development. Defined as energy harnessed from naturally replenishing sources - such as sunlight, wind, water, and geothermal heat, renewables are not just alternatives to fossil fuels; they’re the future. Among them, solar energy has witnessed explosive growth, driven by falling panel costs, supportive policy, and vast untapped potential across sun-rich geogra

The Relative Strength Paradox at the Trough Market troughs rarely align perfectly with index bottoms. Broad indices, shaped by structural...

Background If you drove on India’s highways in the 1990s, you might remember the first time you had to stop at a toll booth. It felt odd...

How obvious stories fool investors Stock markets are full of exceptions and peculiarities. This fact etches a super thin line between it...

It’s about knowing the game, playing it right and making it to the hilltop.

“The mantra of “buy and hold forever” is often glorified-but in reality, even the most successful investors sell, trim, and churn their portfolios when needed.”

At Xylem, we neither claim nor possess the ability to time the absolute top or bottom of the market. That kind of precision belongs more...

India’s fintech story is nothing short of a revolution. Over the last decade, technology has completely reshaped how people manage money,...

Liquidity is the lifeblood of the stock market- when it's abundant, markets thrive; when it dries up, panic sets in. This blog explores...

As part of our work, we review asset allocations across dozens of client portfolios and one pattern is crystal clear. Most investors are...