What an owner of the equity actually earns over a holding period.
Total return ≈ BVPS growth + dividend yield + change in P/B
why it matters
This is the terminal node. Every other node in the graph exists because it changes one of the three terms here.
HDFC Banklatest -57.76% · 2026-03-31
What drives it
Upstream causes, with sign, lag and how confident the link is.
↑ raiseslag 0q · high · confidence high
Direct: book compounding is the largest empirical contributor to long-run bank returns (std β +0.44, t=7.1).
↑ raiseslag 0q · low · confidence high
Direct cash component of total return.
↑ raiseslag 0q · high · confidence high
Re-rating adds to return; de-rating subtracts. Starting P/B is the only driver significant under every estimator (t=−4.3 clustered).
What it affects
Downstream consequences.
Terminal node — everything ends here.
How to read this. Every edge carries a direction, a sign, a lag in quarters, a strength and a confidence level — the graph is a causal model, not a diagram. Confidence is high where the link is an accounting identity or is strongly supported by the panel, medium where it is historically supported but regime-dependent, and low where it is a hypothesis worth testing rather than a fact. The platform-disintermediation link is deliberately marked low: it is Narain's argument, it is contested, and it is hard to separate from the cycle.