The Inverted Triangles of Indian Banking Sector

That's when he recalled how NIM-obsessed Indian bank analysts had been of late

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It's halfway through the reporting season and Bertie is struggling to recall a quarter that has felt this meh. Well, statistically there would have been poorer earnings growth in the past, but that would have been accompanied by significant macro upheavals. But for what is a macro-placid time in India, this outcome just feels disappointing. Bertie has scrolled through dozens of result notes but is yet to find anything that has made his eyes light up.

To be sure, there are a few 'doing-alright-under-the-circumstances' candidates, and a bland institutional portfolio can be constructed around them. But that is rather like the backhanded compliment that Bertie sometimes receives. "You look OK for a man in his forties." Bertie wants to look like a million bucks without any qualifying asterisk and small print—and also find similar stocks—but both seem to be getting progressively harder.