Data points.

A new wave of micro-investing

When a video of the Brave Girls performing 'Rollin'' went viral in early 2021, South Korean Kim Seong-min saw an opportunity. He logged onto Musicow, a platform launched in 2016 where users can buy a small percentage of the rights to music royalties, and got himself some shares to the song for 670,000 won ($506) apiece. A few months later, their value had doubled. Encouraged, he bought more. Young South Koreans are unusually keen to put their meagre savings to work. Particularly in vogue are fractional investment platforms, which allow buyers to hold very small stakes in assets. Such investments exist worldwide, but South Korea, ever the fast adaptor, has been unusually adventurous in its offerings. Such tiny shares of non-traditional assets represent a beguiling but not entirely safe, entry-level investment. A survey in 2021 found that eight in ten people in their 20s and 30s invest in stocks, cryptocurrencies or other assets.

Tough times for Indian tycoons

Gautam Adani's $236 billion infrastructure empire has shrunk by more than three-fifths in a month.

But while his relentless rise and spectacular fall hog headlines, a smaller storm may be brewing for another well-known magnate. Anil Agarwal's once-London-listed Vedanta Resources Ltd. has a pile of debt, including a $1 billion bond due January. Yet, his most recent attempt to trim the load has upset the one partner he can't afford to annoy: New Delhi. Around this time last year, when the US Federal Reserve was still to begin raising interest rates to tame inflation and Russia's war in Ukraine had started to send commodities surging to their best quarter in more than three decades, Agarwal was toying with the idea of merging debt-laden Vedanta Resources with its cash-rich, Mumbai-listed unit, Vedanta Ltd. That plan didn't go anywhere. Bondholders in Vedanta Resources, a highly leveraged mining group, are jittery about getting repaid next year.

Helping employees chart a career path

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