Millionaires Explain: Best options for Wealth Building, Careers & Investing in 2024

hi everyone so on today's video I'm going to have a conversation with bav Kumar bhav is the managing director and partner at Boston Consulting Group Dubai so he's someone who has been able to make an excellent career transitioning from India he studied in India first then he went to Chicago Booth which is one of the top five MBA programs in the world and then eventually he transitioned into management consulting so we are going to have an in-depth conversation about building a very solid career be it in terms of job entrepreneurship we are going to speak about how to manage that career because these days there is so much talk about like you know work life balance and things and finally we are going to get into the integrities of how he manages his money and what would be his tips and strategies to youngsters in terms of managing their money so over to the main conversation and I hope that you like this conversation and let me know which next guest I should invite hi everyone welcome to episode one of millionaire blueprint podcast on this podcast we are going to discuss specific strategies insights on wealth building by bringing in people who have done exceptionally well in their career and I'm extremely thankful for B for taking out the time B is managing director and partner at BCG in Dubai and today we are going to discuss three things number one we are going to speak about how to build a very solid career and build wealth number two how to manage that career and wealth and third and finally because bav has access to a lot of data around macro Trends he has been working all across the globe so he will share insights on these macro Trends extremely important video please watch it till the very the end we will share specific insights and Frameworks thanks AIT for for having me I'm glad to be here and and to share my perspective so from introduction my name is VAV Kumar I'm managing director and partner with BCG in Dubai I lead our digital and banking business in the region have been part of Middle East office for the past 10 years but has a lot of global experience as well including us and other markets so happy to share my perspective okay so let's Jump Right In uh first and foremost let us quickly understand how we can build wealth through jobs this is especially important because a lot of high- income jobs are going away uh you are working at BCG Dubai uh the salary must be very nice and a lot of people have built wealth in the past by getting these high powered jobs but the number of high powered jobs are going now so a what is your take on that and what advice would you have for people who are just entering the workforce as to how to get these high powerered jobs MH good question a right so I think on the first point that high income jobs I slightly disagree here that I don't think they're entirely going away uh I think they are there but the nature of the jobs are are changing yeah so for example when I went to business school 15 years ago Investment Banking Consulting these were the two you know most attractive jobs from a compensation perspective but if you look at now the scenario has changed a lot of the tech jobs have come up a lot of AI jobs have come up we recently saw average salary for an AI engineer in open AI companies is 800,000 us so you you see there are jobs but the type of jobs are different now the skill set they demand are quite different and that's links to your second question that if I am a new entrant entering the market right now I need to look at what are the futuristic jobs that are going to give exceptional returns over the long term and one of them is you know AI I talk a lot about there are technology jobs there are jobs in startups Etc that I still think are very promising so anyone entering the career should look at uh two things one are my skills aligned with these futuristic Trends number two they should also think about I should be you know not only focus on just doing my current job what can I do beyond my current job as well which is a theme that we talk a lot about which is also thinking about alternative income streams that you should all always have you know you never put all your eggs in one basket that's that's the theory but you want to diversify yourself from a career perspective as well so that no matter what happens to your current industry current job it might get disrupted you always have a second or a third leg and that can help you build portfolio so so that would be my quick Insight on that work right so just buing deeper um if we speak about the startup job Trend in India for example they were paying exceptionally well before the funding winter hit post 2021 in my understanding I do see a big part of AI being a fad it might go away what's your take on AI and uh what's your take that and to what extent do you think that this is actually just a trend which might not sustain for a very long period of time uh if you can give some commentary yes so I think it's a good question uh I think AI is is a fundamental disruption that's happening uh in the economy overall and it is similar a little bit to the internet it happened 30 years ago yeah if you think about what internet did to all of us is it's basically gave all the information access to everyone across the globe yeah now what AI is trying to do because on internet you have a lot of information available a lot of them is very unstructured so people struggle to find what is the right information and what is not what AI for example gen AI right now can do it can actually scan all this information is out there and create summary reports from you that are very insightful and re actionable yeah that's just one example of how AI I think is taking the whole internet Trend to the next level second aspect is also it's automating a lot of the things that were previously done manually across various sectors you talk about I I come from Finance you talk about finance a lot of investing is also happening through AI algorithms now so if you talk about my wife is a doctor if you talk about Healthcare there's a lot of robotic surgeries that are happening using Healthcare so I believe AI is a fundamental Trend that's not going away so people who are looking to you know upskill themselves you know faster their careers I think should definitely you know upskill themselves into Ai No matter what domain it is cu that trend is going to impact all the industry just going down deeper into this uh right for example if you speak about the internet uh the 2000.com crash was one of the uh pivot Points right because it separated like weak internet based professions weak internet based companies from the strong ons something similar might happen in the AI space right now it's very broad people might not know the commercial applications of it how companies are going to make money if someone is trying to build a startup in that they might not understand it if someone is looking to find a job in these high powered Industries they might not understand what type of job should I pick or skill should I build so any insights there anything that you would like to add absolutely so it's a good question so one thing you need to understand is what are the use cases that are easily applicable from such a new technology so of course as you mentioned 2000.com bust a lot of the companies were running on hype and as soon as the crisis happened you could see that only the companies that had strong business model survived yeah and the same thing will happen you know with AI as well now one application for example I was talking to an entrepreneur a few days ago who has created a chat GPT type of solution for animation so what you can do is you can just you know literally write your script you know in five 10 lines and this whole tool will generate an automatic movie with all the you know content with all the Creations you know with all the voice over with animation so you can have in 10 minutes a beautiful music video for yourself from your story right so if you think about such applications they could be very disruptive because a lot of guys like yourself who do content creation can actually benefit a lot from this it can also be sold to B2B type of businesses for example many studios you know take months to create such an animation which Cann now be cre in minutes so so such use cases you need to think about what are immediate use cases that can be applied and you can earn a lot of money through them and you need to align to those type of companies right so another like you know talking about one more example here right so if I put in the question that who would be be considered as the father of the internet like you would type some name let us know in the comment box question number two here is that who became Rich from internet then it would be people like Elon Musk Jeff Bezos people of that nature so on that note right I me what I'm trying to separate is that Innovation is there right in terms of AI or any new technology but who gets Rich from that what according to you separates that because that is what our audience might be interested in this Innovation is happening AI right machine learning artificial intelligence so what is it that I should be looking at now if I want to become like next Elon Musk or Jeff bizos yeah so look uh you need to First Look at the macro trends that you believe can shape the future of the world in the next 10 20 30 years right so for example if I talk about Bezos when he started Amazon no one believed in him I mean he was trying to sell books online but everyone said you know it does not make sense and by the way he was a very successful hedge fund manager when he started the job yeah when he started this company of course then the bust happened uh the company still survived and and the rest is history right we saw what happened so you need to align yourself to a trend that you believe in are going to you know stand for the next 10 20 30 years second key aspect is find the right team if you're trying to build a business you know you make sure you have the right people who you work with who share the same vision and who have a potential to actually disrupt the market because if it's more of an incremental Innovation more more more likelihood it may either be bought by someone or it will not survive but if you believe in a trend that's going to be disruptive that's going to create value across multiple sectors I think that's where you should align yourself and try to find a team that is pursuing that the last one I would say is I I see a lot of people now especially the Young Generation they are very impatient uh so everybody wants to become rich very quickly I don't think that's the right way to think about it you need to invest yourself for the long term in certain Trends give them time and again analogy if if someone was in Amazon back in 1990s and it was impatient 2 3 4 years nothing happened the real wealth was created 10 20 years down the line so you need to stick to what you believe in of course if you think it's going in the right direction yeah got it so now contextualizing it to the job and let me ask a very you know pertinent question here because many people would build startups they will get rich from it and many people would equally get or not equally but at least to some extent they will get rich by working in these industries so if you are 17 years old 18 years old getting into a college what are like three specific skills that you would pick in order to get a high powered job and stick to that industry yeah so look I am a fundamental believer in you need to have strong analytical and problem solving skills so that cuts across no matter what you do right so you want to make sure that you develop those strong Quant analytical skills up front that's super important number like like exactly what so for example problem solving right so if you have if you say you are given a problem that this company needs to increase a sales so you need to be able to understand how does the sales come from what is the revenue what is the price how do I dissect it so basic quantitative you know frame of mind you need to have and you should be able to structure things effectively so that you can digest the complexity into simple terms so do you think colleges teach this I don't think colleges teach that and how you how would you it's basically you know you can actually people like yourself do a lot of you know good job on the internet to actually teach people these these Frameworks and basic concepts and these are very easy but you need to really learn them and also practice them day in and day out and then it becomes part of your life so as a consultant you've also been a consultant you know we practice these Frameworks day in and day out solving problems and it helps us in our daily life as well so we can simplify complex problem into small things so I I just Qui add there right so I mean for example one thing that has really helped me right I mean because many of them would not want to become consultants get training the way Consultants typically get uh one key thing is that you could try to figure out improvements right for example if you are ordering something from zato right your order to maybe 20 30 minutes more right then what was the process like how could it be made faster similarly if you're going to a local Kata store right you're saying that you know this guy is not accepting like UPI payment or bunch of other different things so figure out business improvements that you could bring so that's what was saying so that can help you make be more structured absolutely I think the second point is for me it's all about communication yeah I mean more you more I think about what you know separates successful people from less successful is how well you can communicate you may have the best idea in the world in your head but if you cannot communicate that to the Right audience at the right level then it will not work so you need to work upfront on your communication skills and this is not about you know having speaking one language good it's more about being coherent no matter what language you speak in so making sure that it can stick to the audience and you tailor it to the right things and the third is all about what domain you align yourself on to because that's also very important so for example you know when when we were studying back back in the day uh I did my engineering in computer science I think that was a great decision back then because you know then at that time computer science was kicking off it was new thing to do and a lot of things great things happened right going forward from now what you do will be very different one example is space is a great uh great domain now you would see a lot of innovation happening in space domain space tourism is getting pretty big so I if I were a youngster now I would not think about like I just need to do computer science engineering no there are many other things you could do which you can actually accelerate your career going forward yeah right so now this is uh this gives me good information right if I'm a young listening to this chat so far one key concern that I would have is that you know what in the last X number of years the number of high powered job at least in India they are not increasing if not decreasing so to say or not increasing at the rate at which the demand for these jobs is going up uh be it like the top end government jobs they the number of seats have gone down if you look at the investment banking industry after 2008 it has gotten crushed some of the biggest VCS for example seoa capital a couple of other big names have exited the Indian market so if I'm a college student looking to get these high powered job okay AI is one industry I can look at uh what other areas or specific jobs you would ask youngsters to look at more candid yeah so look uh I mean I come from Consulting I would always speak about it so I think Consulting still is a very attractive career from my perspective jobs are jobs are still there because good thing about Consulting is a bit Recession Proof because when the econom is going down still companies need advice how to better structure themselves so we are you know still Consulting as industry is still growing quite rapidly so I I would encourage people who really want to get into this type of domain where they like solving problems for clients for different businesses would be a great great career path right so AI you already talked about I think there are other spaces within the technology domain itself where disruption is going to happen for example medical technology is a great domain to to get into now a lot of innovation is happening how you actually manage your day-to-day health and lifestyle and that Innovation is only going to increase so so that's another field you could you could think yourself taking into Finance I still believe is a great career uh now the type of job you will do as a Finance in finance industry will be different uh guys like yourself you made a great career in you know talking about Finance teaching people Finance because it's an innate skill that people need to develop and there's a lot of demand for people who can teach these skills as well so I would say these are some of the core areas I would see from where people can actually think about specializing in as they starting their college Journey right so you think that Industries are becoming winners take all type of a market uh especially like when it comes to consulting or Tech I think that Trend I believe that's happening uh for example especially in Tech you know you talk about these big three companies you know Amazon Google Apple you see them dominating across I was in us a few months ago I mean you go to any grocery chain for example Whole Foods that also bought by Amazon so Amazon is not only an online player they are into physical they own you know largest data centers in the world so they are in Tech you know they are in e-commerce they are you know retailers this is everywhere right and that's the same thing Google is trying to do so I think the trend is going in that direction is pretty much winners become all but what I would say is there is still space for micro entrepreneurs uh they can still survive the good thing is they can either be bought out by these large players which is still fine or they can still continue there's enough space in the market to go on in Consulting also you see a similar Trend playing out you know the large companies are actually consolidating market share and I think that is going to continue I'm not saying there'll be not be small companies but they will have a space but it's pretty much becoming a winner T market right so now uh contextualizing this conversation for our audiences who might be watching this from India um American Market is very different because it's mostly organized um regulations bunch of other different things Indian market is mostly unorganized so how do you see the difference a in and how would this play out in terms of the type of jobs that are being created in the Indian economy MH yeah I think it's a good question so Indian market is rightly said is very disorganized and a lot of sectors are still getting formalized which means a lot of opportunity for entrepreneurs they can pick any sector in India you would find opportunity to innovate very easily versus in us a lot of that has happened 100 years ago yeah so you would not see obvious opportunities to automate things that are there in India right now yeah so what I would uh if someone is in India right now looking for building a career there are two ways right you can of course start a job at at a normal Enterprise or a startup or you can start your own thing yeah I think both are good but if I were a youngster right now I would rather actually take a path of starting my own thing because I believe the opportunity is so big in this market and and it is Ross the sectors that's other thing right you can pick a small koreana store right there are so many koreana stores that struggle with supply chain day in and day out you can actually do a software which can help automate their supply chain and help them deliver faster right do the last M delivery that's one example you can do there many other examples that are happening uh which will happen in India as well so I would say entrepreneurship is probably a good idea right now in in India stable jobs would always be there but they are more steady uh they're tough to get by I agree with you you really need to get to the right colleges and even if you get the right colleges you have to be in the right set of people to get selected in those jobs so you should consider what your options are but I would strongly consider entrepreneurship at this point in time in India so I would play The Devil's Advocate here right that I would think that people should not become entrepreneurs in India right away right uh multiple reasons why I say it right so number one would be that it's really tough to build a business in India in majority of the industries baring a handful of Industries most of them are not profitable right one key example would be d2c Industries right I mean unless you have massive funding right and if you can go through that hustle it's it's fine uh the point I'm trying to make is that maybe it's it's a good idea to First do a job build some skill set that allowed me right I mean uh thanks to consulting firms who trained me really well I could think in structures I improved my communication skills I was getting paid for getting this training so those are advantages versus starting your business directly or trying to start your business directly uh many people do not or most of them in India would not come from like a business background so again throwing that question back at you if you were 17 or like maybe 20 just graduating from college how would you think about entrepreneurship versus job yeah I think it's also depends on I think you mentioned a point on the context where you coming from a lot of people who have no idea about you know how to build a business or have never seen something like that happen in their family Etc it is a tough ask yeah but so many people who come from I mean I'm not talking about big Industries but even if your family runs a small shop it's actually a business so and when I talk about business you can start a small you know small medium type of business which is a moment pop store could be you can run a small A&B type of business Etc so these businesses are actually not so complicated to run you can easily run or learn those skills on the go as well and you can actually do that but of course if you are if you have no idea about you know uh business in general if you don't come from that background and also if you're not coming from a great school for example then I would agree with you you rather find a job somewhere where you build the basic skill sets that are required to run any business so that's how we would see it it depends upon where are you coming from what your perspective is and what type of training have you got in your education yeah so just one quick question so what are the best skills that you could pick at a job or individually on your own if your eventual goal is to become an entrepreneur MH so look I think we we spoke about this a little bit so you need to understand first of all is understanding the economic structure how the economy operates right that's very important no matter what business you do you need to be aware of what type of macro Trends there are what is the headwinds for this industry in particular how can we you know overcome them that's number one second basic problem solving and structuring is important so that you need to know what problem you're trying to solve CU if you don't understand that you cannot create a solution for that number three how will you sell this product or service to a customer it has to be through Innovation plus also through communication because no matter what good product you have you want to make sure your customer understand what you're trying to sell them and last but not the least you should have good Finance skills yeah because you need to know the basics of Finance to manage your business yeah whether it's the liquidity management how what is my cash flow where is it coming from so these Basics you need to build and you can learn this you know through a job uh so yeah I would encourage anyone who's who's wants to become an entrepreneur to make sure you get these skills lined up during your uh job career so that you when you become an entrepreneur you have access to all these skills yeah all right so on that note let us uh quickly speak about like some simple things that youngsters can do and let's try to brainstorm together on how what a road map of good wealth building would be for someone who is like in their 20s 30s uh so so so basically you can build wealth by doing two or three things one is running a business becoming an entrepreneur that's one path that people get really fascinated about second is the job that you get a high power job third is through Investments uh in many cases It's a combination of all three right so which people do not really necessarily talk about uh so on that note right you spoke about analytical skills structured thinking communication skills but these are things that I've been hearing from the time I was like maybe 12 years old right that you have to learn like problem solving this that specifically right I mean I just need like a hitting Target this if I do right for example we are always given a Target that if you score 95% marks in 10th 12th XYZ soer set right so in order to do your career set right what are like simple things that someone should do or have very clear targets towards yeah look unfortunately there's not not a Magic Bullet here right cuz uh the world is changing so rapidly I think one thing I would add to that that skill set is that you really need to be focused on what you are doing a lot of the youngsters especially especially in the 20s are not really focused on what they want to achieve so if you don't have an idea of what you want to build then it's very difficult to to actually go on that path so I would say the first step is actually think about what is it that I'm going to do in my life right not in you know long term but also in the short to medium term in 5 to 10 years where do I want to head to so we do a lot of career planning with with a lot of our our incoming uh people for for our company and it's very important because it helps them guide their thinking into One Direction and then you can focus and plan your career so so that's step number one second is to me very important is also knowing the right people who have done this previously because so that you are not making the same mistakes that these people have done in the past and you can actually fast track your career quite a bit the third thing I would say is also making sure you stick into that domain long enough don't become impatient very quickly and say no things are not working out let me switch a lot of people try to switch a lot of jobs very quickly which I don't think is the right idea to do if you are in the right industry give it some time uh and it make sure that you have cuz you know there are Cycles all the time uh you want to make sure that when the cycle is right you are at the right job yeah and that may take four five six years which is fine so if you combine all of these skills uh you would create a package so that you can be successful there is no one single Silver Bullet share that you can you know do that and become successful right so one clear Target that I see these days is that um India's population is going to age in like 2065 so there's a lot of competition amongst youngsters for high powered jobs but when it comes to countries like Japan or when it comes to like Western countries even US Canada all are aging but they still need to pump their economy so to say maintain their economy so do you see this Global Mobility a key Trend India say Indian youngsters will go to Japan and start working there build wealth uh maybe they'll contribute to Indian economy also in that that respect but do you see this like as a PIV pival change that will happen in the next 20 years yeah look that I think it has already started you know that so if you think about Indian Community that's working abroad it's pretty sizable already right and I think it's going to go grow even further and the reason are as you rightly pointed out I mean there's less skilled Workforce even young Workforce in a lot of these countries that obviously need more more manpower and India is in the right position to to supply all of that what I wish to see from India is is that we supplying more high-end labor rather than you know low skill labor which is happening a lot for example where I come from Middle East there's a lot of low skill labor that goes there and and work which is okay but I think going forward it's beneficial for India if we upskill our labor and then they can actually do more highend jobs and do more design type of work in in these these economies so I think this trend is is going to uh grow further and it's a great way to build wealth coming back to your point that you know working abroad initially at least in the initial years of your career is actually a fantastic way to you know build up basic wealth and then of course you need to grow it multiply it using investing but uh if you do the same job in India you probably will not make that that much money plus in some jurisdictions like UAE where I come from there is no income tax it's even more advantageous to to you know start build your career there and then later down the line once you grow in your career 10 15 20 years down the line you can always come back to India because at that level your salaries sometimes normalize as well but initially it's a great way to build your career if you and also your wealth if you start working Abad right so just just simplifying that right so what b saying is that see he works in the mid East right and the tax is zero suppose right similarly many countries offer good tax incentive so to say right in I was speaking with him yesterday he was telling me that in the US it's 40% depending on City you are in so it's fairly high right even higher than in India uh to cut the long story short right I mean if you go to a market where competition is less that's one clear win uh number two if you work abroad uh that allows you to save more we can have like PPP conversation and you know purchasing part but at the end of the day you will build wealth based on the savings that you creating that's uh Point number two uh Point number three is that go to a tax efficient country I think that's a point that people Miss they just look at the CTC right and so therefore it becomes critical that you understand this tax implication while Viewpoint so how do you see this trend playing out in terms of Rich shopping for taxes right because these days like I mean Kevin oi has got like an amirati citizenship hn in India are leaving for tax efficiency perspective so do you see this trend uh accelerating over the next few years yes I see see it accelerating right I mean postco there's has been a lot of wealth creation across you know the globe right and then of course if you tax someone at 30 40 50% even in some countries you know people don't want to give away their wealth like that so that's why a lot of countries are now attracting such people and India is no exception yeah if you talk about India I personally are I'm not a big fan of the tax structure in this country because here it's it's very complicated you know and there are so many loopholes ET people try to manipulate things so for a person you know who's in hni you know who really wants to you know preserve wealth grow it it's obviously not efficient to stay here yeah so that's why you see the trend you know people going out but in the other countries as well you see the similar Trend so for example the famous example is you know the founder of Facebook you know he he left us for came to Singapore as soon as the ipu happened you know it's because wanted to save taxes so this I think is an important thing uh for youngsters also to keep in mind you know as you're trying to grow your wealth you know build your portfolio think the tax implications because they can be pretty significant on that note like let me switch gears and ask a slightly different question that uh what are some really simple things that someone could do right now sitting in 2024 almost to accelerate their career right I mean one example that I would like to add is that you know what don't scroll through your phone a lot right or just stop using your phone as much as possible that's a very simple thing so what are some simple tips right I mean we were speaking at the other end of the spectrum skill and all that stuff but simple things have powerful effects yeah yeah no I think the first thing is links to your point is distraction is too much these days yeah you get easily distracted with so many things and that limits your ability to focus and grow your career in one thing that's I think the biggest impediment that I see in youngsters these days uh that they are just trying to rush into so many different things at the same time I think it's better to really try to limit things and then Focus on One Direction right I think the second aspect that I see is also consider a lot of people really focus on building career wealth very fast you need to take it's it's a long-term game you you want to also prioritize things in the right way so that you can build a sustainable career because it's not a Sprint but it's rather a marathon and you need to make sure you prioritize your health your family Etc in addition to building your career right so I think these are some of the Practical tips you can think from day one CU when I was young I was just focusing on building my career yeah I had to you know I pretty much did you did you ever focus on health when you were in 20s not at all I wish I would have right so because by that time it was like a brainwash situation for me that you just focus on building your career everything else was a second priority right absolutely and did you focus on work life Val not at all not at all that's what I'm saying I and now I can tell people that what you should not do right so this is something you should never do you should from get go think about work life balance you know get go think about how do I make a sustainable career and it's not a Sprint right Marathon so on that note let us speak about part two which is around Building Wealth and managing wealth right so this is a part that we discussed now let us get into the specifics of how personally uh B thinks about investing and what is his perspective on it um so over to you B so if you can explain a little bit about your philosophy of wealth building right and how you have gone about a creating wealth we understood right that it's mostly through job as of now and we have created a substantial Corpus and on that note right how you're thinking about managing your wealth for the next phase of your career yes so I think the first step is how do you build wealth which we spoke about in terms of how do you you know maintain and sustain and grow your wealth there are various models how you do it right some people of course if they are not inclined towards managing it yourself you can obviously you know partner with someone who is well qualified to manage it for you or some people take the other way you know where you say okay look I know what is the view of the market I can take a position I can invest accordingly right for me personally the uh the key themes that I apply in in managing my wealth is one is diversification which I'm a big fan of that you want to make sure that your nest is Diversified enough that no matter what happens in the economy uh in one particular sector you are Diversified and I'm when I talk about diversification is not only about the asset classes which is you know stocks bonds Etc but also geographically yeah you need to make sure you have exposure to you know two three at least different markets so that you have natural Hedges build into the portfolio so that's number one second is taking a long-term View again uh you want to make sure that you invest in uh for a long term and are not carried away by short-term volatility that happens you know so frequently in the markets third thing is I want to also make sure that uh the portfolio is enough liquid so that in case any emergency situation happens that I have a purpose to draw down upon right so that's that's that's the last thing and I think the fourth thing I would say is if you are a beginner if you have no idea about the markets and you don't want to learn it just focus on index index investing yeah it's the best thing that that is out there for anybody because it's it's super Diversified if you like indiaan economy for example if you believe it will grow just put your money in the index fund here and that's it right don't make it complicated the more complicated you make investing the lower the chances of successful you are right so I would say simplification diversification you know taking a long-term duration prob these are the key key uh philosophies that I have for investing yeah so how according to you has investing changed in the last 20 years yeah I think for in if you look at 20 years before uh I think there was no exposure to these multiple different asset classes that exists right now and how easy it is to access these Investments so for example now you know we spoke yesterday about REITs yeah which is you know how can you own fractional you know shares in some real estate portfolios now if you don't have big money you can actually buy you know some of these things that are available to you as a retail investor as well these things 20 years ago were not available all these instruments but do you think that that's a fancy version of derivatives so to say right collapsed the 208 yeah I mean it's a bit different right so I think derivatives I would say it's more speculative this is more about breaking down large chunk of investments into smaller chunks so that retail investors can actually buy into them but that can lead to speculation right it can yeah it can so you have to obviously do the due diligence you're right but more instruments are available right now for you to take exposure for example you know gold is another thing right you don't need to physically buy gold you can do exposure through gold ETF for example if you bullish on that thing so so that is one Trend I think second is there are a lot of good autom ated AI driven investment algorithms that are there you know we talk a lot about Robo advisory these days a lot of my clients also use them so it's but do you think it works it works it works to I mean again if you are if you know what you want to get out of it it works right so there are simplistic there are two three models that they have if you want to preserve your wealth it can allocate create an asset allocation model for you which can work simply right so again for people who really don't have much knowledge about these things these are some good solutions they can look into uh and the last thing I would say is there are there's a lot of change because of internet and people like yourself that people can now upskill them themselves which was not available 20 years ago so I need to run to a broker to buy a share you know which is not the case anymore I can do it in online and then I can learn people like yourself to be more knowledgeable about these things so that was not there 20 years ago yeah got it got it got it so on that note what is something that you would not do with your money right now and I will also answer this question after you so so look for me by the way I think indan markets are you know quite highly valued right now so I would not not put money right now in IND markets but uh uh what I would not do also is I'm not a big fan of gold for example I don't think that's a good asset class for me so I would not put there uh I so right now what actually I think it's a great investment at least the short term is actually investing in US dollar yeah you're getting you know 5 6% risk free on dollars so at least in the one to two years it's a great investment to have because you know dollar for me is is a safe currency especially in in a highly volatile world and if you get risk fre 5 6% it's a no-brainer so things like that are are are you know very attractive to me right now so this contextualizing it and then I'll give my answer to this question so U there are like real assets right in the sense that you can buy limited Supply things like real estate you can buy gold physical gold not the bonds version of it do you see value in these limited Supply assets I think real estate for sure yeah I think that's something uh which I am a big believer on now that as an asset class it will do really well especially of course you need to see where are you buying the real estate what is opportunity Etc but overall I'm pretty bullish in that as a class and of course from a diversification perspective as well this helps quite a bit so uh gold not so much CU I think that's a very it's a very different Dynamic that plays out in Gold how it is controlled Supply demand perspective so I would still keep you know less exposure towards gold but more on on on the real estate side yeah right so just very quickly answering the question that I had asked B that number one I would not buy in a market that is going up buy very less of it majority of my buy have been bul Buy in a falling market so that's one I completely agree with Bava number two I'll have exposure to fixed Supply assets this is something that I've realized I think that this is a trend that will pick up going forward uh this would not comprise of sovereign gold bonds why I'll probably write a separate post on this um number three I would ensure that I have asset class diversification which is critical people keep on speaking about the fact stocks X it's critical to diversify uh one thing that I've learned from bav is that you also need to diversify across geographies now this is something that I'm I will look slightly more um more closely into so just delving deeper into that point Geographic geographical diversification uh why do you say that right where do you see the next Crisis coming from and why geographical diversification is important yeah so uh I think if you look at the global economy R it's it's kind of there's a very de averaged picture in terms of growth that's happening right you look at the more Western markets you know us you know Western Europe they are slowing down considerably yeah if you look at India for example still the healthy growth rate that's projected China is slowing down you know Middle East is actually going quite fast pockets of Africa are going quite fast right so so it's a very different picture if you look at different parts of the world and that's why I say it's important to have a geographical diversification as well for example you know the investments in in Middle East are doing really well right now as well yeah and it's obviously linked a lot to the oil price but if you bullish on the oil price that's a good you know geography to take exposure towards if you're bullish on you know high-tech Innovation you know of course the tech sector in US is still a good bet from my perspective yeah India overall as an economy is doing quite well so overall I think I'm pretty bullish here so but it's in China I would not invest money right now no way I think there is a a major crisis Brewing there be their real estate you know be be there even their you know lending books if you look at the banks not healthy at all so so China is actually in in a pretty bad shape uh from a investing perspective so so hence I would say if you are an investor you don't want to put all your eggs in one basket asset classes is clear but then if you also diversify it Beyond you know countries so then you say okay uh if there is a crisis you know somewhere oil prices goes up Middle East will do well so that's a natural hedge in terms of you know if you want to hedge against a crisis situation yeah so you you need to think strategically where do you place your portfolio in what geographies as well and that can give you the nice diversification beyond the S classes so one interesting conversation we having yesterday was regarding the Dubai real estate market right and so what's your view on that yeah so I think Dubai real estate has done really well over the last you know four five years especially after the covid times and especially after the the Russian Ukraine war but there are various different reasons why it happened uh for example a lot of the wealthy Russians and ukrainians they came into Dubai flooded the market with money but now as you see I think the market is peing uh and I would not expected to grow from here so I would be cautious in investing money in the real estate in Dubai right now uh overall the market needs a lot of triggers to actually sustain that kind of momentum which I don't personally see in the next you know 6 to 12 months so I would stay away from the market right now but it has done handsome well for a lot of investors over the past few years yeah right um on that note right I mean uh something critical that I picked from what you were saying was that when it comes to China and the US the growth is slowing down so do you think that world can grow and more specifically India can grow with without us and China grow it's a good question so I think India has to build two legs to its growth right so one is the domestic consumption story which I still believe is quite strong the second is export Le story which is I don't think it's it's a great one to be honest right and that's where we need to be very focus on if India has to grow double digits so right now we say 6 7% to me that's that's not good at all from my perspective India should be looking at growing double digits what China did 20 30 years ago for a long period and then we can be become a developed Nation pretty quickly but in order to do that we need to focus on our exports because domestic consumption will grow which I'm bullish which will continue in terms of the export sector we need to think about what like it exports we did pretty in a very good way but now we need to think about what are the other sectors that we can you know and it could be more services oriented industry for example if you we can export you know highend legal lawyers advisory that is happening quite a bit now a lot of the top law firms in New York are setting up offices in India because that thing can be automated and a lot of Indian lawyers are actually certified to serve and give advice management consulting is a good example we can have a lot of good Consulting expertise here that can serve outside market so we need to think about what can we export with our more high value ad services and it can help us grow faster so I think India can still grow at a pretty decent pace even though there is a Slowdown in us and and China China we are not so linked to in any in any case us my view is it will not slow down terribly it will still grow 1 2 3% which is good enough for India to actually grow at a double digit rate yeah from that perspective uh because majority of the audiences who are watching this podcast might be investing exclusively in India so if you have to suggest them the next Market to look at what would that market be and why Beyond India Beyond India so I would say look at the Middle East Market yeah because it's two reasons one it is very close to India yeah so it's very easy I mean a lot of people go to Dubai you know for vacation but in which area would they be investing in the sense that stocks I don't think that is allowed yes now uh now it has opened up right so I think it is possible to actually take exposure to even stock markets in these countries so which I think is a good hedge for for people sitting in India and you can you should just go there and explore and see the market for yourself yeah so uh and I'm not saying you know go all into that market but take some exposure there you know from a diversification perspective so that market you should look at the second one which I'm always a big fan of is the tech sector in US yeah you should always look at because still a lot of the major Innovation that is happening in the tech sector that will change the trends globally is happening in us and Silicon Valley I know India is growing fast you know it's happening but still we are much far behind the ecosystem that's there in in us so you should definitely look at the tech sector in US plus look at Middle East from a diversification perspective I think that's need two solid markets to to look after right so uh the final Le that we are going to quickly wrap upon would be raising our kids right soab has two young kids I have two young kids a what skills or what top three skills you would want them to pick up and why right so then I'll try to answer that so so for me one you know I so my son actually he's space Enthusiast which is Not By Design but he he loves it right so and he talks about for him he has figured his passion that that is what he wants to do and and I was really glad when he said that to me and that's all what he does you know that's his Focus that's what he talks about he goes to you know different schools about learning about the same thing so I like that aspect of him that he's his his Focus from from GetGo secondly that I'm teaching him is is to get into some professional sports as well I think that teaches you a lot of the skills that are relevant for when you become when you come into working life I mean how you work in teams you know how how do you actually gel together focus on a goal Etc so all of those skills you can learn through comparative Sports so that's other thing that I'm teaching my kids and the last thing also I'm teaching them is actually meditation okay because a lot of the kids as I was mentioned right their attention span is not there yeah it's it's it's very limited now so what I tell them is to how to take a step back you know even if it's 30 minutes every day take a time to you know chill down and then again shut on your brain so that that can help you better manage yourself yeah so I think that's a wonderful answer on that note I will just give my answer and then you know I'll ask P if he has any more comments to add so in my case I would probably ask my kids or you know sort of um coach my kids more on own language speaking language that's that's uh very critical entrepreneurial skills starting something with them is again very important they will feel involved uh third is that finding that mental peace and being less distracted so four that is one thing I don't know whether I'll be able to do that or not but that's a uh that's a concentration that will definitely go so on that note anything else that you would want to add no I think this is pretty pretty good right maybe the last thing I just want to say to the audience is right there's a lot of gloom and doom scenarios that are being painted uh overall and people get very easily discouraged because of this I fundamentally believe you know these scenarios will will always be there but there will always be a lot of pocket for growth in different areas in the economy no matter what the situation is you need to be proactive enough to find the right areas to focus on and then you know be persistent and you the success will come it's not about you know how quickly you get there you will get there but it's more about the journey that you take and make sure it's sustainable so that's the last thing right wonderful I hope that you found this chat to be insightful if you did do drop in your comments and do like and subscribe to the channel and hopefully uh we'll continue to bring more guests who have done exceptionally well in their careers and would share continue to share these insights with you thank you so much for watching and I'll see you next

Channel: Akshat Shrivastava

Views: 155,298

Keywords: akshat shrivastava, cases over coffee, wisdom hatch, wisdom hatch courses, stock market courses, akshat shrivastava courses, stock analysis, Akshat Shrivastava, Akshat Shrivastava investing, Akshat Shrivastava stock market investing, Akshat Shrivastava portfolio, Akshat Shrivastava mutual fund, Akshat Shrivastava stock analysis, investing for beginners, make 1 crore, build a business, 1 crore business, millionaire mindset, bcg dubai, md at bcg, jobs at bcg

Id: F9CQecczpVs

Length: 44min 33sec (2673 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 25 2023