Investor says people with ₹50 lakh ‘liquid’ net worth are ‘lower middle class’

An investor has started a fierce debate online with his polarising take on net worth and wealth

An investor has started a fierce debate online with his polarising take on net worth and wealth. Sourav Dutta shared a post this week saying people with a liquid net worth of ₹50 lakh should be considered “lower middle class.”

An investor's wealth classification has started a debate online.

In fact, the Europe-based investor and trader shared a full table of wealth categories by net worth. People with ₹10 lakh of liquid net worth, he said, would fall in the “poor” category.

On the other hand, the “middle class” should constitute people with liquid assets of ₹1 crore. Similarly, “upper middle class” would be people with a net worth of ₹2 crore, and “rich” would be ₹5 crore.

A High Net Worth Individual (HNI), said Dutta, would be someone who has liquid assets worth ₹10 crore or more. He himself falls in the HNI category, he claimed.

Dutta clarified that a person’s net worth for this categorization should only include assets that can be liquidated to get money in two days. Therefore, a person with a ₹2 crore house who can only liquidate assets worth ₹10 lakh in two days would be considered “poor.”

“House isn't liquid Net-worth… The house of ₹2 crore is consumption like a car. No one adds car in net worth,” he explained. While calculating net worth, people should also subtract the loans they need to pay off, Dutta added.

Take a look at his post below:

Since being shared two days ago, the post has collected nearly 8 lakh views and generated much outrage.

Several X users disagreed with Dutta’s take. “I always thought I am in upper middle class but today got to know that I'm poor,” wrote one X user.

“It actually sounds funny that a crorepati is struggling to be middle class. Think of it this way ...how quickly is the value of money going down,” said Alok Jain, founder of Weekendinvesting.

“This is called being a condescending prick. You don’t flaunt your wealth like this,” another person said.

“This is just a basic classification by 1 person, not a scientific data based research. Personally, I think this is pretty decent classification as of today,” an X user said in response to the post.