Tracking Wealth Through the AI Lens
Tracking Wealth Through the AI Lens
The term "mantra" has been appearing in my feeds with unusual frequency this month, but it’s bifurcated. It refers to two entirely different, almost opposing, concepts of faith and strategy. In one instance, it’s a literal, spiritual invocation at a community gathering in Pearland, Texas. In the other, it’s a bloodless financial directive whispered by market analysts managing billions.
One mantra is about congregation. The other is about diversification. One seeks to strengthen local identity; the other seeks to escape local risk. And as I examined the data points behind both, I realized they tell a fascinating, and deeply modern, story about where we place our trust and our capital.
On October 5th, a nonprofit called Mantra Pearland hosted its annual Durga Pujo celebration (Mantra Pearland celebrates Durga Pujo at Orissa Cultural Center - Diya TV). For those unfamiliar, this is a major Bengali festival, but organizer Vrutant Shah notes it’s becoming an event where “everyone is united.” The data suggests he’s right. What started four years ago as an informal gathering—a “gali ka puja”—has grown into a significant regional event held at the Orissa Cultural Center, a large complex complete with a temple and even a goshala for about twenty cows.
This year, the event added a new feature: a free medical camp for the uninsured. They offered dental checkups, blood pressure tests, even B12 injections. This isn't just a party; it’s an investment in social infrastructure. It’s the conversion of donations and volunteer hours into tangible community health and cohesion. The return on this investment isn’t measured in basis points or quarterly earnings. It’s measured in the steady hum of a growing crowd, in the preservation of a culture thousands of miles from its origin.
I've analyzed countless corporate ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) reports, and they are often filled with glossy, unverifiable claims about "community impact." What’s happening in Pearland is the raw, un-marketed version of this. It’s a direct, transparent allocation of resources to build a resilient local network. This is a portfolio of shared identity, and by all qualitative metrics, its value is compounding annually. But how does one quantify the long-term value of an "'everyone is united' kind of feeling"? And more importantly, can that feeling protect you from a downturn in the Sensex?
The numbers suggest it cannot.
While the community in Pearland was investing locally, the dominant financial "mantra" of the moment is to do the exact opposite. The consensus among analysts is that a prudent investor should now be allocating 10-15% of their equity portfolio to global stocks (Investing mantra: Why your portfolio needs global diversification - explained - Times of India). The rationale is cold, simple, and undeniable.
Let’s look at the performance over the last year. India’s primary indices, the Sensex and Nifty, have been functionally flat. The situation is worse in the tech sector, where the BSE IT index has fallen by 18.7%. Now, contrast that with the US markets. The Nasdaq Composite is up 21.7%, and the S&P 100 has climbed 17.3%. That’s not a small discrepancy; it’s a chasm. To be more precise, the performance gap between the BSE IT index and the Nasdaq is over 40 percentage points.
This divergence is amplified by currency dynamics. The Indian rupee has depreciated 5% against the US dollar since last October, meaning any Indian investor holding US-denominated assets saw their returns automatically boosted by that margin. The result is starkly visible in mutual fund performance. SBI Focused Fund, with its global exposure, returned 7.15%. Parag Parikh Flexicap Fund, the largest equity fund in India (with an AUM of Rs 1,19,723 crore), delivered 6.62%. These aren't spectacular numbers, but they are positive—a status few domestic-only funds can claim this year.
And this is the part of the data that I find genuinely telling. The argument for global diversification is often framed as a defensive "shield" against local shocks. But it’s also a "springboard." An Indian investor has limited direct access to the engines of global tech innovation—companies like Nvidia, Microsoft, or Apple—that dominate indices like the Nasdaq. Clinging to a domestic-only portfolio in this environment is like trying to navigate the global shipping lanes using only a coastal map. You know your home port intimately, but you’re blind to the massive currents shaping the rest of the world.
The logic is inescapable. To protect and grow your wealth, you must look beyond your own borders. Your financial mantra must be one of radical de-localization.
So here we have it. Two mantras, two mandates. One tells you to invest your time, energy, and spirit in your immediate community, to build deep, local roots that sustain cultural identity. The other tells you to invest your capital as far away from that local reality as possible, to diversify across continents to protect yourself from the very economic stagnation your community might be facing.
This isn't a contradiction. It's the fundamental balancing act of modern life, especially for diaspora communities. You are required to manage two different portfolios. The first is your cultural portfolio, which is inherently local, illiquid, and valued in terms of belonging. The second is your financial portfolio, which, according to every piece of rational data, must be aggressively global, liquid, and valued in dollars.
The success of the Mantra Pearland festival shows a community that understands the first portfolio exceptionally well. The question is whether the individuals within that vibrant community are also heeding the second mantra. Because in today’s world, securing your heritage and securing your capital are two very different, but equally essential, jobs.