Investing Psychology: Winner’s Curse

Investing Psychology- Winner’s Curse :

Have you ever had a chance to participate or witness an auction?

If yes, then you would relate to this better! As interesting as the name of this phenomenon sounds, the outcomes are pretty relatable too.

Many statisticians, mathematicians, and successful investors have discovered and scribbled a pretty common sequence of scenarios that happens mostly during the auction. Let’s try to give you an overview of this:

A bidder sitting in an auction and trying to repeatedly bid on an asset often gets intimidated to continue his bidding even if it is not profitable.

As obvious, in such scenarios, the last one to bid gets the asset and hence gets the title of “the winner”.

But has he actually won? What do you think? The inference can be a bit deeper than you are assessing it to be.

Such scenarios are quite noticeable everywhere – from IPL auctions to jewelry auctions to the real estate to the stock market, you might get to see this every time. The phenomenon could be explained clearly with the use of a couple of suitable examples in this article.

“Winner’s Curse” is quite noticeable in the domain of investing. Generally speaking, a newbie tends to fall in such pitfalls quite often! Keep reading this article to know more about the winner’s curse!

Also read: How to Earn Rs 13,08,672 From Just One Stock?

The Auction Scenario:

If you haven’t had a chance to witness an auction yourself then you have a chance to virtually experience it over here!

Basically, an auction is a set up organized by the “current owner” of an asset who is interested in selling the asset to one of the bidders who are participating in the auction. The owner can be a bank or any other financial institution as well.

A set of people who are interested in purchasing the “on sale” entity are called bidders who have the leverage of placing the bids on the entity. The bidding starts with a base price (the one put forward by the “current owner”) and the bidders have to one-up their biddings to own the asset/entity.

The mentioned set of actions is repeated until no bidder out rules the last bidding. As a result, the final bidder gets the asset – sound simple?

Where is the loophole?

Suppose if the real (true value) price for the asset was 1 hundred thousand dollars and if the final bidder claims it for two hundred thousand dollars, would he still be called as a winner?

Psychologically speaking, the overwhelming and competitive environment of bidding in an auction makes the bidder claim the entity at a higher price than what is profitable (admissible).

This overestimation of the final bid for an entity is actually the cause of “winner’s curse”.

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What triggers this curse?

They say, “Emotional stability is one key factor when it comes to investing”.

You would have seen various collaborations of multinational companies. In fact, the whopping amount for which the shares for a certain company get sold is quite huge, right? Well, the winner’s curse is actually playing the cards for it sometimes.

In fact, various multinational giants get caught in this trap. Is it emotional friction or winning at any cost? I’d say both.

The human brain works in a pretty competitive way and the reason can be delved into the core of cognitive science. After the “successful bidding” one gets to realize the loss incurred but the dust gets settled by then.

A rapid increase in an entity’s price followed by its contraction is a sequence followed by various financial experts. The strategy works when a number of people get lured by the so-called “lower prices” of the assets and end up paying for it.

Also read: Efficient Market Hypothesis -The Only Theory That You Need to Read Today.

Winner’s Curse in the Stock Market:

Winner’s curse is not new to the stock market. You can notice multiple scenarios in the stock market where the investments of the people are influenced by the winner’s curse. Few of the best examples are:

1. Buying stocks at a high price.

In the stock market, every now and then, you may come across a storyline where people are buying expensive stocks because they don’t wanna lose the opportunity. Here, they are ready to bid a huge price to win that stock. However, purchasing an overvalued stock (only for the sake of winning) is never advantageous for the investors.

2. Investing in IPOs where the insiders are selling their stakes and public is bidding.

IPO is a scenario where a company offers its shares to the public for the first time. During an IPO, insiders like Promoters, Family, Early Investors- Angel capitalist, Venture capitalist etc are selling their stakes to the public.

However, do you really think that the insiders will sell their stakes to the public at a discount?

Anyways, in order to win, the public is ready to bid a high premium (most of the time) for that IPO. However, after the IPO gets allotted to the people, the winner’s curse starts playing its role.

Also read: Is it worth investing in IPOs?

You might want to steer clear of this the next time you go for a hefty investment, right? Don’t worry you can try out some precautionary measures with which you should do fine at the “war zone”.

Things to Remember while Bidding:

1. Just as analysis and research are two important things to do before making an important investment. Similarly, knowing the true value of the asset you are bidding for is quite important before you even go for it. You should know that you stick to your actions even better once you have the basics cleared in mind.

There must be a fair standard price of the commodity you’d be bidding for. Get to know about it beforehand.

2. Draw a line: Putting aside an emotional mindset is the best thing that you can do while bidding for an asset as emotions and finance don’t mix well together. As soon as you start placing your first bid, you should know where to draw the line. This would help you hold your grounds in a much better way.

3. Know how important it is for you to win: Rational arguments are always better when you are in a confused state of mind. Ask yourself why does winning actually matter to you?

Also read: Loss Aversion- How it Can Ruin Your Investments?

November 28, 2018 Sonali Sharma Investing Psychology, Investment Basics No comments yet

Dupont Analysis: A powerful tool to analyze companies.

How to incorporate the Dupont analysis while researching stocks?

As investors in the stock markets, it is important to find high-quality along with fairly valued companies to invest our capital. The rationale behind this is simple. Our aim in the markets is to always preserve our capital first and then produce profits.

There are several robust tools that investors use during their stock analysis.

In this post, we will make an attempt to share one such powerful framework to assess the quality of stocks that we target for our portfolio -The Dupont Analysis.

The topics we shall aim to cover are as follows-

What is the DuPont Analysis? Who made it?
The technical background of the DuPont Analysis.
Real world DuPont Analysis of Eicher Motors
Conclusions

The post should be an easy read and we hope our readers find this to be of great value to their time. Feel free to reach out to us or post comments in case of any doubts or clarifications.

1. What is the DuPont Analysis? Who made it?

DuPont analysis was created around the 1920s by Donaldson Brown of Dupont Corporation. Initially, when Brown invented the framework it was used for assessing the managerial efficiency of the company before it got adopted by public market investors. His genius was breaking down the formula for Return on Equity (ROE) into its constituent parts to analyze the root cause of ROE.

2. The technical background of the DuPont Analysis

Breaking ROE into its constituents helps us investors analyze the company’s business model and how it manages to achieve excess returns for its shareholders.

Since most investors (including Warren Buffett) use ROE to judge the quality of a stock it would be of great use to us to understand how deep “Quality” actually runs within the business.

To understand how the analysis technique is used let’s start with the very basics. As most of us already know, Return on Equity (ROE) is calculated from the following formula –

Now, our friend Brown brown multiplied and divided the expression to get the following–

This expression is now also summarised as below-

But Brown did not stop there, he took this expression and went one step further. This time he multiplied and divided the expression with Total Assets to give us the DuPont formula-

Which is again summarised as,

From the last expression, it becomes clear that ROE is not merely a ratio (as per the formula we started with) but a framework to understand the business and capital position of the company as a whole.

Valuable insights can be derived from knowing which of the attributes drives the rise or deterioration of ROE over a period of time. It can also be used to compare companies with their peer sets to get a deeper understanding of the differences in the business models between the companies.

Also read: How to read financial statements of a company?

3. Real world DuPont Analysis on Eicher Motors:

Let us perform the DuPont analysis on Eicher motors for the period 2014-2018.

The summary table and the evolution of the three attributes from the analysis is as given below.

Financial Ratio	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	Net Effect
ROE	19.2	24.5	31.3	31.2	27.9	Increased
Net Profit Margin	5.8	7.0	21.9	23.7	21.9	Increased
Asset Turnover	203.3	222.4	105.5	100.3	94.1	Decreased
Leverage Ratio	162.9	156.2	135.2	131.1	135.5	Decreased

From the table, we can see that the company has improved its ROE from 19.2% to 27.9% in 5 reporting periods.

We can also see that the company decreased its leverage and asset turnover but this drop was offset by close to 3.7 times rise in the net profit margins.

Further, notice that the leverage ratio has been stable since 2016 while asset turnover has seen a drop in 2015-2016 and then moderate decreases from 2016-2018.

This analysis can now set the foundation for further analysis, the questions raised from the above figures could be as below ( this may not be very exhaustive but may give an idea as to how the framework is used)-

What is causing the decrease in asset turnovers? Is it because of rising inventory? A fall in efficiency? Or perhaps a decrease in capacity utilisations at manufacturing facilities?
Is the Net Profit Margins led by rise in prices or decrease in costs of goods sold?
What caused the spike in net profits and the corresponding drop in asset turnover?

Answering the above questions in additions to questions generated by assessing the financial statements could help the investors analyze Eicher Motors in greater depth.

Also read: How To Select A Stock To Invest In Indian Stock Market For Consistent Returns?

4. Conclusion

Since ROE is used as a measure of the quality of management by many investors, the incorporation of DuPont Analysis could help quell any illusions developed by using ROE at face value.

According to DuPont formula, ROE is a function of net profit margins, asset turnover, and the leverage ratios. A rise or dip in ROE could be because of a corresponding rise/fall in any of these metrics and hence a high ROE doesn’t always indicate better performance.

Our readers are advised to use DuPont Analysis along with the other stock evaluation frameworks and not to solely depend on data provided by the financial websites. In addition, you can read further about DuPont analysis here.

That’s all for this post. I hope it was helpful to you. Happy Investing!!

Levin Jenson

Levin is a former investment banker and a hedge fund analyst. He is an NIT Warangal graduate with around 5 years experience in the share market.

November 26, 2018 Levin Jenson Investment Basics, Valuations 2 comments

10 Best Blue Chip Companies in India that You Should Know.

“… but blue chip companies are boring. It’s better to invest in growth stocks with huge upside potentials.”, Gaurav argued energetically.

“Yes, blue chips are not the ‘hot’ stocks in the market. However, they are a good option for the investors who are looking for low-risk investments with decent returns.”, I replied.

Gaurav has been investing in the stock market for the last two years and he likes to discuss his investment strategies with me. Nevertheless, his investment style is totally different from that of mine. Gaurav loves to invest majorly in mid-caps and small-cap companies (including penny stocks) which can grow at a fast pace. On the other hand, I like investing in a diversified portfolio.

“That’s true, dude. But most of these blue chip companies have already reached a saturation point. They can not continue to grow at the same pace and hence can’t similar returns as they used to give in the past. Once a company has sold a billion products, it’s difficult to find the next billion customers.”, Gaurav challenged me with his witty reply.

“I know the rule of large numbers, Gaurav. Thank you for reminding me. Moreover, I agree that the large-cap companies cannot maintain the same pace of growth forever. But bro, it doesn’t mean that they won’t be profitable in future or can’t give good returns to their shareholders… They have already established their brand. If they use their resources efficiently, they can make huge fortunes for themselves as well as for their shareholders…

For example- take the case of Reliance Industries. Reliance is a market leader in its industry and has a lot of customers. But they are also using their capital efficiently to grow their business. Two years back, they entered a new market- Telecommunication Industries, and now they are also a leader in that industry.

Because of their strong financials- they were able to bring the latest 4G technology to the Indian market and hence were able to quickly acquire a lot of customers. As the initial set-up cost in this industry is very high, they have created an entry barrier for the small and mid-cap companies. This is what a blue-chip company can do if they use their resources properly.“

Gaurav looked a little mind-boggled. That’s why I thought better to give him another example to make him understand the capabilities of blue chip companies.

“Let’s discuss another example- Hindustan Unilever. If you think that HUL cannot grow any further because it is a large-cap company, then you might need to reconsider it. HUL already have popular products in the market like Lux, Lifebuoy, Surf Excel etc which are generating them a good revenue from those products. But, they still have a large rural area to cover. They are not so popular in the village areas, are they? So, they can definitely grow in the rural areas…”

…besides, as they have enough resources and financials, they are also continuously working on new product development in their Research & development (R&D) department. If they can make another great product, their profits will add-up in the future….“

Finally, when Gaurav didn’t argue further, I concluded-

“…a good blue chip company is like Rahul Dravid. If you want fast scorers (or T-20 players), then you may not like his batting style. However, if you are looking for dependable players, then you will definitely appreciate Rahul Dravid’s consistency.”

Blue Chip Companies in India:

If you start counting the numbers, you’ll find that the stocks can be categorized into many groups. Based on the market capitalization, they can be defined as small-cap, mid-cap, and large-cap companies. Based on the stock characteristics, there are categorized as growth stocks, value stocks, and dividends (income) stocks.

However, there is one particular type of stocks which gets a lot of attention from every kind of investors (beginners to the seasoned players)- and they are the BLUE CHIP stocks. In this post, we are going to discuss what are blue chip companies and the ten best blue chip companies in India. Here are the topics that we will cover in this post-

What are the blue chip companies?
Why are they called blue chips?
Key characteristics of blue chip companies.
10 Best Blue chip companies in India.
Summary.

This is going to be a long post, but I promise that it will be worth reading. So, without wasting any further time, let us understand the blue chip companies in India.

What are Blue Chip companies?

Blue chip companies are large and well-established companies with a history of consistent performance. These companies are financially strong (usually debt-free or very low debts) and are capable to survive in the tough market situations.

Most of the blue chip companies are the market leaders in their industry. Few of the common examples of blue chip companies in India are HDFC Bank, ITC, Asian Paints, Maruti Suzuki etc.

Signature Characteristics of Blue Chip Companies-

Here are few signature characteristics which you can look forward while researching blue chip companies—

They are large reputed companies.
They have a widely used products/services.
Most of these companies are listed in the market for a very long time.
Blue chip companies have survived a number of bear phase, market crisis, financial troubles etc. But they are still going strong.
Blue chip companies have a strong balance sheet (a large number of assets compared to liabilities) and a healthy income statement (revenues and profits continuously growing for the last few decades).
These companies have a good past track record of stable growth.

Almost all blue chip stocks are older companies. You might already know many of the blue chip companies in India and have been using their products/services in your day-to-day life.

For example- Lux, Lifebuoy, Surf Excel, Rin, Wheel, Fair & Lovely, Pond’s, Vaseline, Lakmé, Dove, Clinic Plus, Sunsilk, Pepsodent, Closeup, Axe, Brooke Bond, Bru, Knorr, Kissan, Kwality Wall’s and Pureit —- all these products are offered by the same blue chip company in India – Hindustan Unilever (HUL).

New to stocks? Confused where to begin? Here’s an amazing online course for beginners: ‘HOW TO PICK WINNING STOCKS?‘ This course is currently available at a discount.

Why are they called blue chips?

Oliver Gingold- who worked at Dow Jones, is credited to name the phrase ‘Blue Chip’ in 1923. The term ‘blue chips’ became popular after he wrote an article where he used ‘Blue chips’ to refer the stocks trading at a price of $200 or more.

Quick Note: There are other sets of investors who believe that blue chip companies got its name from the Poker game, as in that game- blue chips are relatively more valuable. Similar to the game, the stocks which are more valuable in the market are termed blue chip stocks.

Although Oliver Gingold used the term ‘blue chips’ for high priced stocks, however, later people started using this word more often to define high-quality stocks (instead of high priced stocks).

What are the financial characteristics of blue chip stocks?

Apart from the signature characteristics discussed above, here are few key financial characteristics of blue chip companies –

1. Blue chip companies have a large market capitalization -As a thumb rule, the market cap of most of the blue chip companies in India is greater than Rs 20,000 Crores.

2. Good past performance: Blue chip companies have a track record of good past performance (like consistently increasing annual revenue over a long-term).

3. Low debt to equity ratio: The bluest of the blue chips are (generally) debt free stocks. However, a lower and stable debt to equity ratio can also be considered as a significant characteristic of blue chip companies.

4. Good dividend history: Blue chip companies are known to reward decent dividends to their loyal shareholders.

5. Other characteristics: Apart from the above four- few other key characteristics of blue chip companies are a high return on equity (ROE), high-interest coverage ratio, low price to sales ratio etc.

Also read: How To Select A Stock To Invest In Indian Stock Market For Consistent Returns?

10 Best Blue Chip Companies in India:

Now that you have understood the basic concept, here is the list of top 10 best blue chip companies in India. (Disclaimer- Please note that the companies mentioned below are based on the author’s research and personal opinion. It should not be considered as a stock recommendation.)

ITC

Indian Tobacco Company (ITC) is one of the biggest conglomerate company in India. ITC was formed in August 1910 under the name of Imperial Tobacco Company of India Limited. It has a diversified business which includes five segments: Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG), Hotels, Paperboards & Packaging, Agri-Business & Information Technology. Currently, ITC has over 25,000 employees.

As of 2016, ITC Ltd sells 81 percent of the cigarettes in India. Few of the major cigarette brands of ITC include Wills Navy Cut, Gold Flake Kings, Gold Flake Premium lights, Gold Flake Super Star, Insignia, India Kings etc.

Apart for the cigarette industry, few other well-known businesses of ITC are Aashirvaad, Mint-o, gum-o, B natural, Sunfeast, Candyman, Bingo!, Yippee!, Wills Lifestyle, John Players, Fiama Di Wills, Vivel, Essenza Di Wills, Superia, Engage, Classmate, PaperKraft etc.

HDFC BANK

HDFC Bank is India’s leading banking and financial service company. It is India’s largest private sector lender by assets and has 84,325 employees (as of March 2017).

HDFC Bank provides a number of products and services which includes Wholesale banking, Retail banking, Treasury, Auto (car) Loans, Two Wheeler Loans, Personal Loans, Loan Against Property and Credit Cards. It is also the largest bank in India by market capitalization and was ranked 69th in 2016 BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands.

Infosys

infosys Infosys Limited is an Indian multinational corporation that provides business consulting, information technology and outsourcing services. It has its headquarters in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India. Infosys is the second-largest Indian IT company by 2017 and 596th largest public company in the world in terms of revenue. On April 19, 2018, its market capitalization was $37.32 billion.

Infosys main business includes software development, maintenance, and independent validation services to companies in finance, insurance, manufacturing and other domains. It had a total of 200,364 employees at the end of March 2017.

HUL

hul HUL is one of the largest Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) Company in India with a heritage of over 80 years. It is a subsidiary of Unilever, a British Dutch Company. HUL’s products include foods, beverages, cleaning agents, personal care products, and water purifiers.

Few famous products of HUL are Lux, Lifebuoy, Surf Excel, Rin, Wheel, Fair & Lovely, Pond’s, Vaseline, Lakmé, Dove, Clinic Plus, Sunsilk, Pepsodent, Closeup, Axe, Brooke Bond, Bru, Knorr, Kissan, Kwality Walls and Pureit.

Nestle India

nestle Nestle India is a subsidiary of Nestle SA of Switzerland- which is the world’s largest food and beverages company. It was incorporated in the year 1956. Nestle India Ltd has 8 manufacturing facilities and 4 branch offices in India. The Company has continuously focused its efforts to better understand the changing lifestyles of India and anticipate consumer needs in order to provide Taste, Nutrition, Health and Wellness through its product offerings.

Few famous products of Nestle India are Maggi, Nescafe, KitKat, MUNCH, MILKY BAR, BARONE, NESTLE CLASSIC, ALPINO etc. (On 8 March 2018, Nestle Indias food brand MAGGI completed 35 years of existence in India.)

Eicher Motors

Eicher Motors is an automobile manufacturer and parent company of Royal Enfield, a manufacturer of luxury motorcycles. Royal Enfield has made its distinctive motorcycles since 1901 which makes it the world’s oldest motorcycle brand in continuous production. Royal Enfield operates in over 40 countries around the world.

The Eicher Group has diversified business interests in design and development, manufacturing, and local and international marketing of trucks, buses, motorcycles, automotive gears, and components.

Reliance Industries

This company needs no introduction. Reliance Industries is an Indian conglomerate holding company and owns businesses across India engaged in energy, petrochemicals, textiles, natural resources, retail, and telecommunications.

In December 2015, Reliance Industries soft-launched Jio (Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited) and it crossed 8.3 million users as of January 2018.

Reliance is one of the most profitable companies in India and the second largest publicly traded company in India by market capitalization. On 18 October 2007, Reliance Industries became the first Indian company to reach $100 billion market capitalization. It is also the highest income tax payer in the private sector in India.

Asian Paints

Asian paint is one of the largest Indian paint company and manufacturer. Since its foundation in 1942, Asian paint has come a long way to become India’s leading and Asia’s fourth-largest paint company, with a turnover of Rs 170.85 billion. It operates in 19 countries and has 26 paint manufacturing facilities in the world, servicing consumers in over 65 countries.

Asian Paints is engaged in the business of manufacturing, selling and distribution of paints, coatings, products related to home decor, bath fittings and providing of related services.

TCS

Tata Consultancy Services Limited (TCS) is an Indian multinational information technology (IT) service, consulting and business solutions company. It was established in 1968 as a division of Tata Sons Limited. As of March 31, 2018, TCS employed 394,998 professionals.

TCS is one of the largest Indian companies by market capitalization (Rs 722,700 Crores as of June 2018). It is now placed among the most valuable IT services brands worldwide. TCS alone generates 70% dividends of its parent company, Tata Sons.

Bajaj Auto

Bajaj Auto is a global two-wheeler and three-wheeler Indian manufacturing company. It manufactures and sells motorcycles, scooters and auto rickshaws. Bajaj Auto was founded by Jamnalal Bajaj in Rajasthan in the 1940s. It is the world’s sixth-largest manufacturer of motorcycles and the second-largest in India.

Few of the popular motorcycle products of Bajaj Auto are Platina, Discover, Pulsar and Avenger and CT 100. In the three-wheeler segment, it is the world’s largest manufacturer and accounts for almost 84% of India’s three-wheeler exports.

Also read: Best Stocks for Long term Investment in India.

Summary:

Most people invest in blue chip companies become of their long history of consistent performance and a similar expectation of standard performance in the future. Blue chip companies are low-risk high return bet for the long term.

Many blue chip companies in India like Tata, Reliance, Infosys etc are considered as ‘Too-big-to-fail’ companies as they have survived and remained profitable for a very long time. Nevertheless, this is not always true!!

Kritesh Abhishek

Hi, I am Kritesh, an NSE Certified Equity Fundamental Analyst and an electrical engineer (NIT Warangal) by qualification. I have a passion for stocks and have spent my last 4+ years learning, investing and educating people about stock market investing. And so, I am delighted to share my learnings with you. #HappyInvesting

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kriteshrules/

November 25, 2018 Kritesh Abhishek Investment Basics, Stocks 13 comments

Break all the rules and conquer FIRE- Financial Independence and Early Retirement!

Financial independence and early retirement? Sounds cool, right?

Over the past few weeks, I have been going through the blogs of a lot of successful FIRE enthusiasts who have actually achieved financial independence and are pursuing early retirement.

From different FIRE subreddit group discussions to the story of a software engineer who retired at an age of 30 (yes, that’s 30) by spending only a small percentage of his salary and consistently investing the remainder (particularly in a stock market index fund)… I read them all.

And in this post, I am going to share a few of my learnings regarding what exactly is financial independence and early retirement (FIRE) and why you should sign up for this movement.

I hope you are also as excited as I’m. Let’s get started.

What is Financial Independence and Early Retirement (FIRE)?

Let me start with a question. If I ask you to think about a retiree, what picture comes in your mind? If you are like me, then most probably the picture is of your grandparents.

In general, most people dream of financial independence or retirement only by the age of 50s or 60s. After all, thinking about early retirement might even sound insane to people who are living pay-check to pay-check and have a number of dependents (like spouse, children, parents etc) to support.

However, time and again, a lot of ordinary people with similar financial situations like that of us- have proved that financial freedom can be achieved even at a comparatively young age if people have a definite plan and are ready to put some serious efforts.

“Financial Independence and Early Retirement (FIRE) is a lifestyle movement that aims at reducing expenditures and increasing investments in order to quickly achieve financial freedom and retirement at an early age.”

In simple words, the two terms described in FIRE can be explained as:

Financial freedom — which is a financial situation where an individual does not have to work for the sole purpose of making money anymore.
Early retirement — is a situation of quitting your job/career and pursuing other activities that you’re passionate about.

Anyways, most FIRE enthusiast does not always look forward to quitting their job completely and not working at all. However, after attaining financial independence, one can be picky about their job and choose whether they want to continue working or not. Nonetheless, people who sign up for FIRE targets to become financially free in their 40s, 30s and sometimes even in their 20s.

This movement has got a lot of momentum in recent years. A lot many people are signing up for FIRE- who want financial freedom and early retirement to pursue what they always want to do when they still are young enough to enjoy it.

Does FIRE mean the same for everyone?

Although both financial independence and early retirement are crucial steps, however, both side of the equation of FIRE may not be always balanced for different individuals.

Many people prefer financial freedom over early retirement. Some may even plan to work at the same place when they are financially free just because they enjoy doing it. However, financial independence gives them a choice to choose whether to work or not.

Moreover, how much net worth is required to attain financial independence also varies from people to people. As a rule of thumb, if your net worth is greater than 25 times your annual expense, then you might be financially free.

However, many individuals choose a higher factor just to give a benefit of the doubt in case of unforeseen emergencies.

Who is FIRE for?

In the general population, there is a myth that FIRE can only be achieved by people who earn a lot of money. And I agree to a little. After all, making huge money obviously helps towards the path of attaining financial freedom.

However, this is not the only requirement. In order to obtain financial freedom, one also needs to optimize his spending habits.

FIRE can be more easily attainable for those people who can save money and are willing to follow a disciplined path. Even if you do not earn a huge income, still you can reduce your expenses, build other sources of income and invest intelligently to grow your net worth.

Overall, attaining FIRE depends more on the willingness to develop a financial freedom road-map and sticking to a plan. Moreover, it’s not much difficult if you are ready to make some small but significant optimizations in your life.

The basic principle behind FIRE.

The basic principle behind attaining financial independence and early retirement is very simple-

Spend less than what you make – This is the method used to make a big distance between your income and spending, which most people fail to do.
Invest your savings: By investing intelligently, you can make your money work for you and let it grow with time using the power of compounding.

Anyways, deciding where to invest can be a personal preference. You can choose different investment options depending on your risk appetite like stocks, bonds, index funds, rental properties, real estate etc.

Actionable steps to reach FIRE:

Here are the five actionable steps that can help you to work towards conquering financial independence and early retirement:

1. Figure out WHY you want to attain FIRE.

This might be the most crucial question to ask before you start your journey of financial freedom- Why do you want to attain FIRE?

The reason can be as simple as to spend more time with your loved ones, to travel or to start a long-dreamed business with your pals etc. However, it’s really important that you figure out your why. Having a definite reason will help you keep motivated to pursue FIRE and to stick with your plan.

2. Track your expenses

The next step is to track your monthly (and annual) expenses by looking at your bank statements, credit card statements, and other bills. This will help you out to find how much you are spending and moreover, where exactly you’re spending each month.

Tracking your expenses will also guide you to figure out whether your expenses are meaningful or you are just spending recklessly. Quick Note: You might be a little shocked after calculating your expenses. Generally, it is way higher than what an individual roughly calculates in his mind.

3. Calculate what your lifestyle may cost you per year

After tracking your expenses, you need to figure out how much are your annual expenses and what net income you will require to live a lifestyle that you want to pursue. (Quick tip: Keep in mind about inflation while doing your calculations.)

4. Start working to optimize your expenses and to increase your savings

Once you have figured out your expenses and how much you need annually to start living your preferable lifestyle, then start working to increase your savings. You can cut back the small but significant expenses and optimize your spending so that you can save to the fullest. A few ways to reduce your expenses and save more:

Purchasing used car instead of a brand new.
Lowering your house costs/maintenances
Avoiding frequent visits to restaurants.
Buying monthly groceries instead of frequent visits to the supermarket.
Adding secondary sources of incomes etc

Although these steps are known and quite straightforward, still they are effective to reduce your spending and to increase your savings.

5. Invest your savings

The final step is to spend your savings intelligently in the different investing options which can give you the best possible returns.

Anyways, always keep in mind your risk appetite while selecting the investment option. For example, if you are not much comfortable in taking higher risks, then you can invest in bonds or index funds. On the other hand, if you are young and willing to choose slightly riskier options to get higher returns, direct investment in stocks can give you great returns.

While making decisions, plan your investments in such a way that your future assets should be enough to generate sufficient income for you so that you do not need to work any longer.

Quick Note: Although saving money is considered as the hardest step to attain FIRE, however in actual, the toughest one is to keep patience. After all, it might take years for your money to compound to the level to attain financial freedom. And all that time, you have to avoid the urge to reckless spend your money. And therefore, an individual requires a lot of patience to stick to his plan over long-term.

Closing Thoughts:

Although many people have publically shared how they achieved their financial freedom and retired early through their blogs/articles, still FIRE is a relatively new concept in this society which believes that working continuously from their 20s to 50s is the only way to live a successful life.

Moreover, different people have different versions of FIRE. This movement basically means to live frugally and make your money work for you in order to attain financial freedom and to retire from your full-time work as soon as possible. However, not everyone has the same expectations from it. For example, whether one wants to go for a mini-retirements, part-time retirement or permanent retirement after attaining financial freedom- it totally depends on the individual’s preference.

Anyways, although it’s not easy to achieve financial freedom and retire early, however, it is practical and achievable even by people making average salary by building a financial plan and strictly adhering to it.

That’s all for this post. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading it. Finally, if you are also a financial independence and early retirement enthusiast, then spread the FIRE among your friends and family. Cheers!!

Kritesh Abhishek

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kriteshrules/

November 21, 2018 Kritesh Abhishek Personal Finance No comments yet

Why Should You Invest in the Stock Market in Your 20s?

Why should you invest in the Stock Market in your 20s?

For the people who are in their 20s- stock market investing might seem too early. Plenty of years left to invest, right? Why get involved in the complex world of the stock market so soon? Most youngsters believe that either it is too soon or they do not have too much money to start investing in their 20s.

However, both of these assumptions are wrong.

The best time to start investing in the stock market is when you are in your 20s. Why? Let’s find out!!

Why should you invest in the Stock Market in your 20s?

1. Stock market investing gives the best returns:

Do you know that if your parents have invested Rs 10,000 in the stocks like WIPRO or Infosys in the early 1990s, it’s worth would have been turned out to be over crores by now? (Here’s a case study on WIPRO and Infosys). Note that we are not even talking about hidden gems. Few other common stocks like Eicher Motors (Royal Enfield Parent Company), Symphony, Page Industries (Jockey) etc has given even better returns than Infosys and WIPRO.

Historically speaking, the stock market has outperformed all the other investment options in the long run. If you buy an amazing stock in your 20s and have the patience to hold it for long-term (20-30 years), you can also get a fantastic return. Here, you’re giving your investment enough time to grow.

2. You won’t require extra money anytime soon.

When you are in your 20s, you won’t need to worry about a lot of things like kids, house loans, kids college fees, retirement plan etc. Moreover, at this phase of time- most of the people do not have any dependents like spouse or kids. When you invest in your 20s, you won’t require to sell that stock anytime soon. You can easily invest and forget that money.

3. It’s a great way to plan your future goals.

Planning to buy a beach house by your 30s or become a millionaire by 40s or just having enough saving to retire early — all these can be achieved if you start investing early. Set a definite future goal in your 20s and invest systematically to attain it.

4. You can take a lot of risks.

When you are in your 20s, you can take a lot of risks while investing in stocks.

Instead of investing in just large caps or blue-chip stocks, you can also invest in small caps like promising startups which recently got listed in the stock exchange and have a huge upside potential. Although, the risk associated with small caps are relatively high compared to the well settled and trustable large caps- however, the rewards are also higher.

When you are in your 20s – even if you incur some loss, you have plenty of time to learn and recover from your mistakes. At this stage of time, while you can handle more risks you can also earn great rewards.

Bottom line:

It’s always advantageous to start investing early. One of the greatest investors of all time started investing at an age of eleven.

“I made my first investment at age eleven. I was wasting my life up until then.” -Warren Buffet

Eleven might be a little soon for an average investor in India. However, the 20s is most suitable to start investing in the stock market. At this stage, most of the people have money with no responsibilities.

In the end, here is the golden rule of investing to make build amazing money in the long term—“Invest early, invest consistently and invest for the long term…” #HappyInvesting.

Kritesh Abhishek

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kriteshrules/

November 20, 2018 Kritesh Abhishek Investment Basics 7 comments

How to value stocks using DCF Analysis?

Share market is a place where one can sell you a one-liter packet of milk for Rs 1,000 and if you might be even happy to purchase that. It’s completely impossible to decide whether a stock is overvalued or undervalued just by looking at the market price of the company.

And that’s why valuation is a crucial factor while deciding whether to invest in a stock or not. You do not want to purchase a stock at ten times its valuation. After all, a good company may not be a good investment if you are overpaying for it. It’s always preferable to invest in stocks when they are trading below their true (intrinsic) value.

In the words of the legendary investor Warren Buffett, the intrinsic value of a company can be defined as —

“The intrinsic value of a company is the discounted value of the cash that can be taken out of a business during its remaining life.” — Warren Buffett

Nevertheless, evaluating the value of a company using this definition is easier said than done. After all, finding the intrinsic value of a stock requires forecasting the future cash flows of a company which needs a lot of calculated assumptions like growth rate, discount rate, terminal value etc.

Anyways, one of the most popular approaches to find the intrinsic value of a company is the discounted cash flow (DCF) analysis. In this post, we are going to discuss the step-by-step explanation of how to find the true value of a stock using the DCF method. Further, we’ll also perform the DCF analysis on a real-life company listed in the Indian stock market to find its true value.

Quick note: I’ll try to keep the explanation as simple as possible so that you can easily understand the fundamentals. Let’s get started.

Discounted cash flow valuation:

Before we start the actual calculations, let’s quickly discuss what exactly is discounted cash flow analysis.

Discounted cash flow (DCF) is a valuation method used to estimate the attractiveness of an investment opportunity.

DCF analyses use future free cash flow projections and discounts them, using a required annual rate, to arrive at present value estimates. A present value estimate is then used to evaluate the potential for investment. (Source: Discounted Cash Flow (DCF)– Investopedia)

In other words, discounted cash flow analysis forecasts the future cash flow of a company and later discounts them back to their present value to find the true intrinsic value of the stock (at the time of calculation).

Further, I would also like to mention that valuing stocks using the DCF method requires a little knowledge of a few common financial terms like free cash flow, discount rate, growth rate, outstanding shares etc. Here is a quick walk through the key inputs required in the discounted cash flow analysis.

Key inputs of Discounted Cashflow Valuation:

1. Free cash flow (FCF): Free cash flow can be defined as the excess cash that a company is able to generate after spending the money required for its operation or to expand its asset base. It’s important for an investor to look into the free cash flow of a company carefully because it is a relatively more accurate method to find the profitability of a company than the company’s earnings. Free cash flow of a company can be calculated by using the below formula:

FCF = Cash flow from operating activities — capital expenditures

Also read: What is Free Cash Flow (FCF)? Explained in Just 1,000 Words.

2. Growth Rate: It is the expected rate at which the company may grow in the upcoming 5–10 years. It’s really important to use a realistic growth rate for efficient calculations. Else, the calculated intrinsic value might be misleading.

Different investors use different approaches to find the expected growth rate of a company. Few of the common ways are by looking at the historical growth rate for the earnings/profits, reading the analysts reports to find out what they are forecasting, peeking in the company’s annual report/latest news to find out what the management/CEO is saying regarding the company’s growth rate in upcoming years etc.

Quick Note: In the book- ‘The little book of valuation‘, the author Aswath Damodaran has used an interesting method to find the growth rate of a firm. He argues that for a firm to grow, it has to either manage its assets better (efficiency growth) or make new investments (new investment growth). He used the multiple of proportion invested and return on investment to arrive at the growth rate in earnings. If you haven’t read his book, it is a good place for the beginners to start learning valuation of stocks.

3. Discount rate: The discount rate is usually calculated by CAPM (Capital asset pricing model). However, you can also use the discount rate as the rate of return that they want to earn from the stock. For example, let’s say that you want an annual return rate of 12%, then you can use it as the discount rate.

As a thumb rule for the discount rate, use a higher value if the stock is riskier and a lower discount rate if the stock is safer (like blue chips). This rule is in accordance with the principle of the risk-reward which claims a higher reward for a higher risk.

4. Terminal Multiple Factor: This is the fourth input of the DCF calculation that is used to find the terminal value of the company. Terminal value is the estimated value of a business beyond the explicit forecast period. It is a critical part of the DCF model as it typically makes up a large percentage of the total value of a business.

There are two approaches to the terminal value formula: (1) perpetual growth, and (2) exit multiple.

In this post, we are going to use the exit multiple approach. This approach is more common among industry professionals as they prefer to compare the value of a business to something they can observe in the market. The most commonly used terminal factor is EV / EBITDA. (Read more here).

Steps to value stocks using DCF Analysis:

Here are the steps required to value stocks using the discounted cash flow valuation method:

First, take the average of the last three years free cash flow (FCF) of the company.
Next, multiply this calculated FCF with the expected growth rate to estimate the free cash flows of future years.
Then, calculate the net present value of this cash flow by dividing it by the discount factor.
Repeat the same process for the next 10 years to find the net present value (NPV) of the future free cash flows. Add the NPV’s of the FCF for all the ten years.
Next, find the terminal value the stock by multiplying the final year FCF with a terminal multiple factor.
Add the values from step 4 and 5 and adjust the total cash and debt (mentioned in the balance sheet of the company) to arrive at the market value for the entire company.
Finally, divide the calculated number in step 6 by the total number of outstanding shares to arrive at the intrinsic value per share of the company.

If the final intrinsic value of the company is lower than the current market price of the share, then it can be considered undervalued (and a good time to invest in that stock assuming the quality of the stock is also amazing).

On the other hand, if the final intrinsic value of the company is greater than the current market value, then the stock might be over-valued. In such a scenario, it’s better to keep that stock in the watchlist and wait for the price to come down within the purchase range.

That’s all. This is the exact approach used to find the discounted cash flow value of any company.

In any case, if you are not comfortable in performing DCF valuation using excel sheets, you can also use the Trade Brains’ online DCF calculator to find the intrinsic value of a stock.

Here’s a link to our simplified online DCF calculator (It’s free to use).

Real life example of valuing stocks from Indian stock market using DCF analysis.

Now, let’s calculate the Intrinsic value of Ashok Leyland (NSE: ASHOKLEY) using the Discounted Cashflow Valuation method. (Please note that all the data used here has been gathered from Annual reports.)

First, we will start by finding the free cash flow of Ashok Leyland. Here, we’ll take the FCF for the last 3 years and consider their average as a reasonable FCF. Now, free cash flow is equal to cash from operating activates minus the capital expenditures. The average FCF for the last three years turns out to be Rs 1715 Cr.
Next, we’ll project this FCF only for the upcoming ten years. Although, the company may continue for many more years after the tenth year, however predicting free cash flow for over 10 years is really difficult. Therefore, we assume that the company will sell off all its assets at the end of year ten at a ‘Sell off valuation’ (Terminal value). We’ll use a multiplier of 9 for the tenth year cash flow to simulate the value of these cash flows in the case company would sell all its assets (This is a necessary assumption that we need to make in order to find the value of the company).
Apart from the cash flows, the next important input is cash and cash equivalents which the company reflects on its balance sheet. For Ashok Leyland, this value is equal to Rs 993 Cr.
Besides cash, the next essential input is the debt (as debts have to be first paid off and shareholders are last in the line). Ashok Leyland has a total debt of Rs 515 Cr.
Next, we need to find the annual growth rate for Ashok Leyland. From the historical reports, we’ll consider a conservative growth rate of 12.75% per annum for our calculations of forecasted cash-flow.
Further, here we are considering a discount rate of 13.5% for discounting the future cash flows to their present value.
In addition, we need the total numbers of outstanding shares of Ashok Leyland. It is equal to 294 Crores.
Finally, let’s take a margin of safety of 10% on the overall calculated intrinsic value to give our calculations a benefit of doubt. (Higher the margin of safety, lower is the risk).

After placing the above values in the online DCF Calculator, the intrinsic value per share of Ashok Leyland turns out to be Rs 93.19 (after a margin of safety of 10% on the final intrinsic price). This is the true value estimate per share for Ashok Leyland at the time of writing using the DCF model.

The current stock price of Ashok Leyland is at Rs 105.55. This means that this stock is currently slightly overvalued compared to the calculated intrinsic price.

Quick Note: This intrinsic value is based on my calculations and assumptions. Although I’ve tried to be reasonably conservative in using the inputs, still no valuation should be considered precise as there is no guarantee that the company will grow at the assumed growth rate for the upcoming years. The key while performing DCF is to always consider rational inputs to arrive at a roughly correct intrinsic value.

Also read: How to Find Intrinsic Value of Stocks Using Graham Formula?

Warning: Garbage in, Garbage out

Now that you have understood how to value stocks using the DCF analysis approach, let me give you a FAIR WARNING. DCF is a very powerful tool for valuing stocks. However, this methodology is only as good as the inputs.

For example, even a small change in inputs (like growth rate or discount rate) can bring large changes in the estimated value of the company. (Try changing these values by 1% or 2% and you can notice a significant change in the result). In short, if the inputs are not reasonable, the out will also not be correct -’Garbage in, garbage out’.

Therefore, fill all the inputs carefully as they all have the potential to erode the accuracy in the estimated intrinsic value.

Closing Thoughts:

DCF method is a very powerful method of valuing stocks. However, this method requires rational inputs.

Many investors who have already made up their mind to purchase a stock, can easily infiltrate the final result by assuming a higher growth rate/ terminal value or a lower discount rate. However, if you are choosing wrong or unrealistic inputs for growth rate, discount rate etc, the final intrinsic value per share may also be incorrect. Therefore, it is always recommended to use conservative inputs while performing DCF valuation.

That’s all for this post. I hope it is useful to you. If you have any questions, feel free to comment below. Happy Investing.

Investing for Beginners

If you are new to investing, you can learn how to perform stock valuation and pick profitable shares for consistent returns in the Indian stock market with Trade Brains flagship course ‘How to pick winning stocks’. It is a self-paced online course with lifetime access so that you can learn on your own schedule. This course is currently available at a discount. Check out more here. Happy investing!!!

Kritesh Abhishek

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kriteshrules/

November 20, 2018 Kritesh Abhishek Valuations No comments yet

How to Find Intrinsic Value of Stocks Using Graham Formula?

How to find intrinsic value of stocks using Graham formula?

Valuation is one of the most important aspects while investigating any stock for investing. A good business might not be a good investment if you overpay for it. However, most valuation methods like DCF analysis, EPS valuation, dividend discount model etc requires little assumptions and calculations.

Luckily, there are also a few valuation methods available that are pretty simple to use in order to find the true value of a company.

In this post, we are going to discuss one such valuation method which is really straightforward and simple to use. And this valuation method is known as Graham formula. Here are the topics that we are going to discuss today:

A brief introduction to Benjamin Graham
How to find the intrinsic value of stocks using Graham formula?
Pros and cons of graham formula.
Real life example of valuing stocks from Indian stock market using graham formula.
Closing thoughts.

Overall, this post is going to be really helpful for all the beginners who are stuck with the valuation of stocks and want to learn the easiest approach to find the true intrinsic value of companies. Therefore, make sure to read this post till the end.

Let’s get started.

1. A brief introduction to Benjamin Graham

Benjamin Graham was a British-born American investor and economist. He was a sincere value investor and often credited for popularizing the concept of value investing among the investing population. Graham was also:

Referred to as “The father of value investing”.
A professor at Columbia business school.
Author of the best selling books ‘Security Analysis’ and ‘The Intelligent Investor’
Mentor of legendary investor, Warren Buffett

Graham was a strict follower of value investing and preferred purchasing amazing businesses when they were trading at a significant discount.

In his book- Security analysis, Benjamin Graham mentioned his formula to pick stocks which become overly popular among stock market investors for valuing stocks since then.

2. How to find the intrinsic value of stocks using Graham formula?

The Original formula shared by Benjamin Graham to find the true value of a company was

**V* = EPS x (8.5 + 2g)**

Where,

V* = Intrinsic value of the stock
EPS = Trailing twelve-month earnings per share of the company
8.5 = PE of a stock at 0% growth rate
g = Growth rate of the company for the next 7-10 years

Anyways, this formula was published in 1962 and was revised later to meet the expected rate of return as a lot concerning the market and economy has changed since Graham’s time to present. The revised Graham formula is:

During 1962 in the United States, the risk-free rate of return was 4.4% (this can also be considered as the minimum required rate of return). However, to adjust the formula to the present, we divide 4.4 by the current AAA corporate bond yield (Y) to make the formula legit.

Presently, the AAA corporate bonds are yielding close to 4.22% in the United States. (Source: YCharts). In order to make an apple to apple comparison, we’ll consider the bond yield for 1962 and current yield- both for the United States. Therefore, you can consider the value of Y equal to 4.22% currently, which may be subjected to change in the future.

Quick note: You can also use the corporate bond yield of India in 1962 and current yield to normalize the equation for valuing Indian stocks. In such case, the value 4.4. will be replaced by the Indian corporate bond yield in 1962 and Y will be the current corporate bond yield in India. Make sure to use the correct values.

Note: The Adjusted Graham formula for conservative investors.

Many conservative investors have even modified the Graham formula further to reach a defensive intrinsic value of the stocks.

For example, Graham originally used 8.5 as the PE of the company with zero growth. However, many investors use this zero growth PE between 7 to 9, depending on the industry they are investigating and their own approach.

Further, Graham used a growth multiple of ‘2’ in his original equation. However, many investors argue that during Graham’s time, there were not many companies with a high growth rate, such as technology stocks which may grow at 15-25% per annum. Here, if you multiply this growth rate with a factor of ‘2’, the calculated intrinsic value can be quite aggressive. And hence, many investors use a factor of 1 or 1.5 for the growth rate multiple in their calculations.

Overall, the adjusted formula of conservative investors turns out to be:

V* = EPS x (7 + g) * (4.4/Y)

3. Pros and cons of Graham formula.

The biggest pros of Graham’s formula is its ease and straightforwardness. You do not require any difficult input or complex calculations to find the intrinsic value of a company using the Graham formula. In a few easy calculation steps, this method can help the investors to define the upper range of their purchase price in any stock.

However, as no valuation method is perfect, there are also a few cons of Graham formula. For example, one of the important inputs of Graham formula is EPS. Anyways, EPS can be manipulated a little by the companies using the different loopholes in the accounting principles, and it such scenarios the calculated intrinsic value might be misleading.

Another problem with Graham formula is that like most valuation methods, this formula also completely ignores the qualitative characteristics of a company like Industry characteristics, management quality, competitive advantage (moat) etc while calculating the true value of stocks.

4. Real life example of valuing stocks from Indian stock market using graham formula.

Now that you understood the basics of how you can value stocks using graham formula, let us use this formula to perform a basic stock valuation of a real-life example from the Indian stock market.

Here, we are taking the case study of HERO MOTOCORP (NSE: HEROMOTOCO) to find its true intrinsic value using the Graham formula. For Hero Motocorp,

EPS (TTM) = Rs 186.29
Expected growth (for the next 5 years) = 9.89%

(Past 5-year EPS growth rate per annum (CAGR) of Hero motocorp is 14.14%. Taking 30% safety on this growth rate as it is a large cap, we can estimate a conservative expected future growth rate of 9.89% for next few years).

Now first, let us find the intrinsic value of Hero motocorp using the original Graham formula,

V* = EPS x (8.5 + 2g)
= 186.29 x (8.5 + 2*9.89) = Rs 5268. 28

Now, using the revised formula with conservative zero-growth PE of 7 and growth multiple of one, the intrinsic value of Hero motocorp turns out to be:

V* = EPS x (7 + g) x (4.4/4.22)
= 186.29 x ( 7 + 9.89) x (4.4/4.22) =3280.65

At the time of writing this post, hero motocorp stock is trading at a market price of Rs 2961.90 and PE (TTM) of 15.90. Therefore, by using Graham formula, we can consider this stock to be currently undervalued.

Disclaimer: The case study used above is just for educational purpose and should not be considered as a stock advisory. Please research the company carefully before investing. After all, no one cares more about your money than you do.

You can also use Trade Brains’ online GRAHAM CALCULATOR to perform your calculations fast.

5. Closing thoughts.

An important point worth mentioned here is the concept of margin of safety that Benjamin Graham repeatedly taught in his books.

In simple words, according to the concept of margin of safety, if the calculated intrinsic price of a company turns out to be Rs 100, always give your calculations a little safety and purchase the stock at a 15-25% below that calculated value, i.e. when the stock trades below Rs 75-85.

Overall, Graham formula is a fast, simple and straightforward method to find the intrinsic value of stocks. If you haven’t tried it yet, you should definitely use this valuation approach while performing the fundamental analysis of any stock.

Investing for Beginners

Additional credits: Vasanth (for data inputs in Graham Formula)

Kritesh Abhishek

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kriteshrules/

November 18, 2018 Kritesh Abhishek Valuations 14 comments

3 Simple Tricks to Stock Research in India for Beginners.

3 simple tricks to stock research in India for beginners: Hi Investors. It’s been a while since I have written a blog post. This is because I’ve been working on a new project.

Since launching this blog ‘Trade Brains’ in January 2017, I have received a tremendous amount of emails, messages, and calls concerning stock market investment. Most of my readers are facing a similar problem- how to pick a stock to invest from a pile of over 5,500 stocks listed in the Indian stock market.

Though I have helped most of my readers, who have asked this question; however answering the same question, again and again, is little tiresome and mundane. Further, as this is a big topic, it took lots of hours to explain the same to every individual.

That’s why I created this video course on how to select stocks to invest in Indian stock market. Earlier I decided to include this post- ‘3 simple tricks to stock research in India’ in my course module. However, I felt that this content deserves to be publicly available on my blog as it can be quite helpful to the beginners to start stock research in India.

In this post, I will show how you can research good stocks in India to invest in using three simple implementable tricks. So, let’s get started.

3 Simple Tricks to Stock Research in India

1. Money control- Index composition.

If you want to investigate the stocks in a given industry/sector, why not to start with the market index composition of that sector.

An index composition of an industry consists of all the top companies that are included in that index.

For example, if you want to invest in a company in the metal industry, you should first start by investigating the stocks in the market index- S&P BSE Metal or Nifty Metal. Here S&P BSE Metal consists of companies like Hind Zinc, Coal India, Hindalco, Jindal Steel, JSW Steel, NALCO, SAIL, etc.

The index composition will give you a list of companies that you can investigate further in the industry.

Now, there’s a simple way to find out about the index composition of the different industries (Capital Goods, FMCG, Healthcare, Banks, Auto, Energy etc).

Either you can search for ‘money control index composition’ on google and click on the first link.

This will open the money control index composition page.

Or, you can directly visit the index composition linked here.

On the same page, you can navigate through different industries to know their composition.

Further, you can find the same information on NSE India website.

Here are the steps to find the index composition on NSE India:

Go to NSE India website (https://www.nseindia.com).
Navigate on Live Market-> Equity stock.

Change the view to find the composition of the specific index.

Select the industry which you want to investigate.

Also read: 7 Must Know Websites for Indian Stock Market Investors.

2. Mutual Funds Portfolio:

This is the easiest way for stock research in India. Just look at the portfolio of the top mutual funds and find out its holding stocks.

If the mutual fund is performing good, then the chances are that its top holding stocks will also be doing good.

Check the portfolio of few of the top ranked mutual funds in India and you can get an idea of the portfolio allocation for stock research.

Now, the next question is, where can I check the portfolio of top mutual funds?

The answer is- there are a number of financial websites where you can find the details about the mutual fund portfolio. For example- Value research online, Money Control, Economic times market etc.

However, in this post, I’m going to describe how you can find the portfolio of the mutual funds on money control website.

Here are the steps to find the portfolio of the mutual funds for stock research in India:

Go to money control website.
Click on ‘Mutual Funds’.

‘Best Funds to Buy’ page will be opened. Click on ‘complete details’ link.

Select the fund whose portfolio you want to check.

The fund home page will open.

Navigate down and select ‘Holdings’.

Portfolio Holdings will be shown.

Similarly, you can check the holdings of different mutual funds that you are interested in.

Studying the holdings of the top mutual funds is the simplest way to stock research in India.

In short, if you do not know where to start, which stocks to investigate; then start with investigating the holdings stocks of these top ranked mutual funds.

New to stock market? Here is an amazing book on Indian stock market for beginners which I highly recommend to read: How to Avoid Loss and Earn Consistently in the Stock Market by Prasenjit Paul.

3. Screener:

Url: https://www.screener.in

Screener.in is a stock analysis and screening tool to see information of listed Indian companies in a customizable way.

This is one of the best websites for stock research in India. Screener gives you the facility to screen various stocks based on different criteria like growth, dividend, PE etc.

You can find the list of stocks based on different screens like- ‘The Bull Cartel’, ‘Growth Stocks’, ‘Loss to Profit Companies’, ‘Undervalued growth stocks’, ‘highest dividend yield share’, ‘bluest of the blue chips’ etc.

How to use screener website for stock research in India?

Go to the screener.

Click on screens on top menu bar.
Select the suitable screen according to your preference. For example, if you want to investigate companies with a good quarterly growth, select ‘The Bull Cartel’.

Navigate through the list and investigate the stocks.

Screener also gives you a facility of Query Builder, where you can customize the query according to your preference. We will discuss more how to write a query in Screener in another post.

Using the screens on the Screener website, you can undergo the stock research in India. Further, the different screens help the investors to investigate different stocks based on their choice.

Also read: How to do Fundamental Analysis on Stocks?

That’s all for this post. I hope these simple tricks for stock research in India is helpful to the readers. Please comment below if you have any doubts. Happy Investing!!

Kritesh Abhishek

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kriteshrules/

November 16, 2018 Kritesh Abhishek Investment Basics, Stocks 7 comments

Investing in Bad News: Is it Worth Being Contrarian?

Investing in Bad News: Is it Worth Being Contrarian?

“To succeed as a contrarian you must recognize what the crowd believes, have concrete justification for why the majority is wrong, and have the patience and conviction to stick with what is, by definition, an unpopular bet.” -Whitney Tilson

Hello Readers. Contrarian investing in one popular strategy which has definitely build wealth for all those who have followed this strategy strictly. However, being a contrarian is easier said than done.

For today’s article, we will be exploring the strategy of investing in bad news, which also happens to be a common investing strategy used by most retail investors when dabbling in the stock markets.

The topics we shall be exploring today are as follows:

What is bad news investing?
Can bad news investing go wrong? If so, how?
Cockroach Theory
A thinking model for investing during bad news
Conclusions

It’s going to be a very interesting article, especially in the dynamic market scenarios like that of late. Therefore, make sure that you read the article till the end so that you do not miss out any important concept. Let’s get started.

1. What is bad news investing?

Bad new investing is a simple strategy followed by investing across experience level where they buy stocks of companies that have been beaten down by negative sentiment in the media.

Most investors buy such companies when they believe that the news surrounding the company is only temporary in nature and the company can resume its past stock levels in time.

This is a strategy that was espoused by Benjamin Graham and has been followed by many of the great investors ever since including Warren Buffett, Peter Lynch, Carl Icahn, Mohnish Pabrai among others.

2. Can Bad News investing go wrong? If so, how?

Like all investing strategies, this one too is not without flaws. The strategy if not employed properly can result in losses or worse in permanent loss of capital.

Although it takes courage to go against the herd and a lot of the times it pays handsomely to do so. But, when deciding to invest in a stock surrounded by negative sentiment, it is important to realize that sometimes the stock would have fallen in price because it deserved to be priced lower.

A lot of times investors (including myself) tend to anchor to the price a stock was trading prior to the emergence of the bad news that price that is available at a significant discount to that price may seem to a buying opportunity (Also read- Value Traps).

A lot of times we tend not to redo our homework and perform the valuation for the company factoring in the effect of the news that has emerged instead we buy the stock based on the valuation we may have performed months before to make a buying decision.

3. Cockroach theory, Murphy’s law, and probabilistic thinking

Learning from my experience, a conservative investor would do well to keep these two thumb rules in mind when analyzing investment opportunities arising out of bad news.

The Cockroach Theory is a market theory that states that when a bad news is revealed about a company there is usually many more around the corner. This comes from the common belief that when a cockroach is spotted in a household, it is likely that there are many more in the vicinity.

Murphy’s law is pretty simple and straightforward compared to the former, it posits that whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.

Since investing is an imperfect art and it is impossible to state anything with certainty, investors would do well to think probabilistically to ascertain possibilities of thing going more wrong with the company.

For example, If a company’s management has been accused of fraud, then in all likelihood it is possible that the fraud has been happening for years and not a one-time thing.

On the other hand a factory being shut down due to worker protests could be a major event but the probability of such events impacting a major manufacturing company for the long term is pretty low since managers usually try to solve such issues by entering into contractual agreements with trade unions on new terms of operations and not just a non-written understanding of sorts.

4. A thinking model for investing during bad news

Many a time Warren Buffett has made an compared his investing style to Ted William’s baseball style in ‘The Science of Hitting’. Ted, famously proclaimed that he would wait for a fat pitch before attempting to hit a shot and ignore everything else.

We believe this concept is best explained in his own words, kindly refer to the excerpt below

Now building on his concept, let’s try to develop a map of bad news pitches we would receive as an investor.

From a logical perspective, the bad news could be of two types – it could be a temporary or a permanent problem while the impact this could have on the price could be large or small.

Taking different combinations of these would give us four possibilities as shown in the graphic below.

The sweet spot for us as investors would be to hit only those pitches that come at us from quadrant one since this is likely to be the situation where the market has overreacted to a minor news and has subsequently mispriced the underlying stock.

An investor could then proceed to add the stock into their portfolio all the while averaging down if the price of the stock were to drop below the initial entry price.

New to stocks? Here is an amazing online course for the beginners- How to pick winning stocks? Enroll now and start your journey in the exciting world of the stock market today!!

5. Conclusion

Although Bad news could provide an amazing opportunity for investors to add stocks to their portfolios, it can cause an equally potent damage to the portfolio in the event the buying decision turns out to be a bad one. It is therefore imperative for every investor to take time to think about the new realities the company is faced with before buying its stock.

We believe a prudent investor using a well defined rational process to invest in these situations should be rewarded handsomely over time. Happy Investing…!!

Levin Jenson

Levin is a former investment banker and a hedge fund analyst. He is an NIT Warangal graduate with around 5 years experience in the share market.

November 13, 2018 Levin Jenson Investment Basics No comments yet

How to Invest in Share Market? A complete Beginner’s guide

How to Invest in Share Market? A Beginner’s guide

Hi Investors. Today we are going to discuss one of the most basic topics for a beginner- How to invest in share market? I have been planning to write this post for a number of days as there are many people who are willing to invest, however, do not know how to invest in share market.

Please note that this post might be a little longer as I am trying to cover all the basics that a beginner should know before entering the stock investment world. Make sure that you read the article till the end, cause it will be definitely worthwhile reading it.

Pre-requisites:

For investing in the Indian stock market, there are few pre-requisites that I would like to mention first. Here are the few things that you will need to invest in share market:

Savings account
Trading and demat account
Computer/laptop/mobile
Internet connection

(Thanks to Reliance Jio, everyone has 4G internet connection now.. 😀 )

For opening a demat account, the following documents are required:

PAN Card
Aadhar card (for address proof)
Canceled cheque/Bank Statement/Passbook
Passport size photos

You can have your savings account in any private/public Indian bank.

Where to open your trading and demat account?– This will be discussed later in this post on the section ‘choose your stock broker’ (STEP 4).

Get your documents ready. If you do not have a PAN card, then apply as soon as possible (if you are 18 years old or above).

The basic advice that you need before starting investing:

When you are new to the stock market, you enter with lots of dreams and expectations. You might be planning to invest your savings and make lakhs in return.

Although there are hundreds of examples of people who had created huge wealth from the stock market, however, there are also thousands who didn’t.

Here are a few cautionary points for people who are just entering the world of investing.

— Pay down your debts first:

If you have any kind of ‘high-interest’ paying debts like personal loan, credit card dues debts, etc, then pay them first. There is no point of wasting your energy to give all the returns you made from the market as interests of your debts. Pay down these debts before entering the market.

— Invest only your additional/ surplus fund:

Stop right there if you are planning to invest your next semester tuition fee, next month flat rent, savings for your daughter’s marriage which is going to happen next year or any similar reasons.

Only invest the amount that won’t affect your daily life. In addition, investing in debts/loans is really a bad idea, especially when you are new and learning how to invest in the share market.

— Keep some cash in hand:

The cash in hand doesn’t just servers as your emergency fund. It also serves as your key to freedom. You can take big steps like changing your little flat, or quit your annoying job or simply shifting to a new city, only when you have cash in hand.

Do not get trapped by investing all your money and later losing your freedom. Do not sacrifice your personal freedom in the name of financial freedom.

Also read: 7 Things to do Before You Start Investing

Now that you have understood the pre-requisites and the basics, here are the 6 steps to learn how to invest in share market on your own. Do follow the step sequences for an easy approach to enter the stock market world.

How to invest in share market?

Step 1: Define your investment goals:

It’s important to start with defining your investment goals. Start with end goals in mind. Know what you want.

The time frame for different investment goals will be different. Your goal can be anything like buying a new house, new car, funding your higher education, marriage, retirement etc.

If you are investing for your retirement, then you have a bigger time frame compared to if you are investing for your higher education. When you know your goals, you can decide how much you want and for how long you have to remain invested.

Also read: Why Goal-Based Investing?

Step 2: Create a plan/strategy

Now that you know your goals, you need to define your strategies. You might need to define whether you want to invest in the lump sum (a large amount at a time) or by SIP (systematic investment plan).

If you are planning for SIP, define how much you want to invest monthly. (Related post: SIP or Lump sum – Which one is better?)

Step 3: Read some investing books.

There are a number of decent books on stock market investing that you can read to brush up the basics. Few good books that I will suggest the beginners should read are:

The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham
One up on wall street by Peter Lynch
Common stocks and uncommon profits by Philip Fisher
The Dhandho Investor by Mohnish Pabrai
The little book that beats the market by Joel Greenblatt

Besides, there are a couple of more books that you can read to build good basics of the stock market. You can find the list of ten must-read books for Indian stock investors here.

Step 4: Choose your stock broker

Deciding an online broker is one of the biggest steps that you need to take. There are two types of stockbrokers in India:

Full-service brokers
Discount brokers

• Full-Service Brokers (Traditional Brokers)

They are traditional brokers who provide trading, research, and advisory facility for stocks, commodities, and currency. These brokers charge commissions on every trade their clients execute. They also facilitate investing in Forex, Mutual Funds, IPOs, FDs, Bonds, and Insurance.

Few examples of full-time brokers are ICICIDirect, Kotak Security, HDFC Sec, Sharekhan, Motilal Oswal etc

• Discount Brokers (Budget Brokers)

Discount brokers just provide the trading facility for their clients. They do not offer advisory and hence, suits for a ‘do-it-yourself’ type of clients. They offer low brokerage, high speed and a decent platform for trading in stocks, commodities and currency derivatives.

Few examples of discount brokers are Zerodha, ProStocks, RKSV, Trade Smart Online, SAS online, etc.

Read more here: Full service brokers vs discount brokers: Which one to choose?

I will highly recommend you to choose discount brokers (like Zerodha) as it will save you a lot of brokerage charges.

I, initially, started with ICICI direct (which is a full-service broker), but soon realized that it was too expensive when compared to discount brokers. It doesn’t make sense to pay extra brokerage charges even if you get similar benefits. And that’s why I shifted to Zerodha as my broker. (Related Post: Different Charges on Share Trading Explained- Brokerage, STT & More)

Zerodha (a discount broker) charges a brokerage of 0.01% or Rs 20 (whichever is lower) per executed order on Intraday, irrespective of a number of shares or their prices. For delivery, there is zero brokerage charge in Zerodha. Therefore, the maximum brokerage that you’ve to pay per trade while using Zerodha platform is Rs 20 and it doesn’t depend on the volume of trading.

This is way cheaper compared than ICICI direct (full-service broker) which asks a brokerage of 0.55% on each transaction. If you buy stocks for Rs 50,000 in ICICI direct, then you have to pay a brokerage of Rs 275 (for delivery trading). [Learn what is Intraday and delivery here.]

Further, as this amount is charged on both sides of the transaction (buying & selling), hence you have to pay a total of Rs 550 for the complete transactions in ICICI direct (way too expensive than Zerodha).

In short, if you are planning to open a new trading account, I would recommend opening accounts in discount broker so that you can save lots of brokerages. If you’re interested to open your account with Zerodha, here’s the direct link to fill account opening application!

Step 5: Start researching common stocks and invest.

Start noticing the companies around you. If you like the product or services of any company, dig deeper to find out more about its parent company, like whether it is listed on the stock exchange or not, what is its current share price, etc.

Most of the products or services that you use in day to day life — From soap, shampoo, cigarettes, bank, petrol pump, SIM card or even your inner wears, there is a company behind everyone. Start researching about them.

For example- if you’ve been using HDFC debit/credit card for a long time and satisfied with the experience, then investigate further about HDFC Bank. The information of all the listed companies in India is publicly available. Just a simple google search of ‘HDFC share price’ will give you the following pieces of information.

Similarly, if your neighbor bought a new Baleno car lately, they try to find out more about the parent company, i.e. Maruti Suzuki. What other products it offers and how is company performing recently- like how are its sales, profits, etc.

You do not need to start investing in stocks with hidden gems. Start with the popular large-cap companies. And once you are comfortable in the market, invest in mid and small caps.

Step 6: Select a platform to track your performance

You can simply use an excel sheet to track the stocks. Make an excel sheet with three tables containing:

The stocks that you are interested in and need to study/investigate,
Those stocks that you have already studied and found decent,
Miscellaneous stock- for the other stocks that you want to track.

This way, you can easily follow the stocks. Further, there are a number of financial websites and mobile apps that you can use to keep track of the stocks.

Related post: 7 Best Stock Market Apps that Makes Stock Research 10x Easier.

Step 7: Have an exit plan

Its always good to have an exit plan. There are two ways to exit a stock. Either by booking profit or by booking loss.

If your investment goals are met, then you can exit the stocks happily. Further, if the stock has fallen under your risk appetite level, then again exit the stock. Also, keep in mind the time frame till which you want to remain investing before exiting.

It’s really important that you know how to take out your money.

Also read: What are the capital gain taxes on share in India?

There were seven steps that will help you learn how to invest in the share market. Now, here are a few other important points that every stock market beginner should know:

Additional points to take care of.

1. Start small:

Do not put all your money on the market in the beginning. Start small and test what you have learned. You can start even with an amount of Rs 500 or 1000. For the beginners, it’s more important to learn than to earn.   You can invest in a large amount once you have more confidence and experience.

2. Diversify your portfolio:

It’s really important that you diversify your portfolio. Do not invest all in just one stock. Buy stocks from companies in different industries.

For example, two stocks of Apollo Tyres and JK Tyres in your portfolio won’t be called as a diversified portfolio. Although the companies are different, however, both companies belong to the same industry. If there is a recession/crisis in tyre sector, then your entire portfolio might be in RED.

A diversified portfolio can be something like Apollo tyres and Hindustan Unilever stocks in your portfolio. Here, Apollo Tyres is from Tyre industry and Hindustan Unilever is from FMCG industry. Both the stocks are from different industry in this portfolio and hence is diversified.

Also read: How to create your Stock Portfolio?

3. Invest in blue-chip stocks (for beginners):

These are the stocks of those reputed companies who are in the market for a very long time, financially strong and have a good track record of consistent growth and returns in the past many years.

For example- HDFC banks (leader in the banking sector), Larsen and turbo (leader in the construction sector), TCS (leader in the software company), etc. Few other examples of blue-chip stocks are Reliance Industries, Sun Pharma, State bank of India, etc.

These companies have stable performance and are very less volatile. That’s why blue-chip stocks are considered safe to invest compared to other companies.

It’s recommendable for the beginners to start investing in blue chips stocks. As you gain knowledge and experience, you can start investing in mid-cap and small-cap companies.

Also read: What are large-cap, mid-cap and small-cap stocks?

4. Never invest in tips/advice:

This is the biggest reason why people lose money in the stock market. They do not carry enough research on the stocks and blindly follow their friends/colleague’s tips and advice.

The stock market is very dynamic and it’s stock price and circumstances change every second. Maybe your friend has bought that stock when it was underpriced, however now it’s trading at a higher price range. Maybe, your friend has a different exit strategy than yours. There are a number of factors involved here, which may end up with you losing the money.

Avoid investing in tips/advice and do your own study.

5. Avoid blindly following the crowd:

I know a number of people who have lost money by blindly following the crowd. One of my colleague invested in a stock just because the stock has given double return to another of my college in 3 months. He ended up losing Rs 20,000 in the market just because of his blind investing.

Related post: 6 Reasons Why Most People Lose Money in Stock Market

6. Invest in what you know and understand:

Will you buy ABC company which produces Vinyl sulphone easter and dye intermediates even though you have zero knowledge of the chemical industry?

If you will, then it’s like giving some stranger 1 lakh rupee and expecting him to return the money with interests.   If you are lending money to someone, you ask a number of questions like what he does, what is his salary, what is his background, etc.

However, while investing Rs 1 lakh in a company which people do not understand, they forget this common logic.

7. Know what to expect from the market:

Do not set unrealistic expectations for the stock market. If you want to make your money double in one month, from the stock market, then you have set your expectations wrong. Have a logical expectation form the market.

People are happy with 4% simple interest from the savings account, but a return of 20% in a year sounds underperformance for them.

Also read: How To Select A Stock To Invest In Indian Stock Market For Consistent Returns?

8. Have discipline and follow your plan/strategy:

Do not get distracted if your portfolio starts performing too well or too bad in the first few months of investing. Many people increase their investment amount just in few weeks if they see their stock doing too well, and ends up losing in the long run.

Similarly, many people exit the market soon and are not able to get profits when their stocks start performing.   Have discipline and follow your strategy.

9. Invest regularly and continuously increase your investment amount:

The stock investment gives the best returns when you invest for long term. Do not invest in lump sump at just one time and wait for the next 10 years to see how much returns you got. Invest regularly whenever you get a good opportunity.   Further, increase the investment amount as your savings increases.

10. Continue your education:

Keep learning and keep growing. The stock market is a dynamic place and changes continuously. You can only keep up with the stock market if you also continue your education.

Besides, there are a number of more lessons which you will learn with time and experience.

Ready to start your journey to become a succesful stock market investor? If yes, then here’s an amazing course for newbie investors: HOW TO PICK WINNING STOCKS?

That’s all for this post on how to invest in the share market. I hope this is helpful to the readers. If you have any doubts, feel free to comment below.

Kritesh Abhishek

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kriteshrules/

November 7, 2018 Kritesh Abhishek Beginner's guide, Investment Basics 66 comments

5 Common Behavioral Biases That Every Investor Should Know.

5 Common Behavioral Biases That Every Investor Should Know.

Ever heard of Tech gender problem? It is a situation where the employer favors male candidate over female thinking women are no good at tech because they are women.

Even one of the biggest companies in the world, Amazon, faced this bias. (Read more here: Amazon’s machine-learning specialists uncovered a big problem: their new recruiting engine did not like women — The Guardian.)

Anyways, gender bias is nothing new. Throughout history, when jobs are seen as more important or are better paid, women are squeezed out. And similar to this one, there are multiple common biases that we can notice in our day to day life.

But, what actually is a bias?

According to Wikipedia– “Bias is disproportionate weight in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair.”

In other words, it is an inclination or preference that influences judgment from being balanced. Biases lead to a tendency to lean in a certain direction, often to the detriment of an open mind.

Behavioral Biases in Investing:

Investors are also ordinary people and hence they are subjected to many biases which influence their investment decisions. Although it takes time to control the behavioral biases, however, knowing what are these biases and how they work — can help individuals to make rational decisions when they are susceptible to these situations.

In this post, we are going to discuss five common investing biases that every investor should know.

Confirmation Bias

When a human mind is determined towards one particular behavior, it subconsciously rejects the pieces of evidence against it while confirming the ones that go in its favor. This is known as confirmation bias.

Psychologically speaking, an investor would be more inclined towards his pre-occupied information and knowledge about certain kinds of investing. While considering the pros and cons of a certain kind of investment, the buyer would most likely go with what he used to believe until now.

For example: Making an investment in Bitcoin is dangerous and pointless. If this is an investor’s pre-occupied notion then he would most likely not invest in bitcoins in future.

Gambler’s Fallacy

Gambler’s Fallacy is one such proof which states that a human mind often interprets the outcomes of a future event judging by its corresponding past events even if the two are completely independent of each other. It is inspired by the “failures of gamblers” due to their probabilistic illusions to make decisions in casino games.

Gambler’s Fallacy can be very well explained with the help of a basic example involving a coin. For future reference, let’s suppose that the coin is fair with both sides (heads & tails) having an equal probability of landing on top.

Suppose a coin is flipped 10 times and the result of each event was “Heads”. What would you bet for the next coin flip?

Now, if a human bet on the outcome of the 11th flip of the coin to be “Head” seeing the past events, then it can be considered a bias.

The above context does only imply a simple rule: The occurrence of an independent event is not dependent on past events. In this example, the 11th flip of a coin would result in both heads and tails with a 50% chance of being associated with each one of them.

Buyer’s Remorse:

The regret after purchasing a product is called a buyer’s remorse. Here, the buyers may regret that either they overpaid for the product or they didn’t actually need that product.

Nevertheless, purchasing commodities are not the only thing where people feel “buyer’s remorse”. Stock investors are also like ordinary people, and they too feel this remorse after purchasing equities.

“Was buying this stock a mistake?”

“Was my timing right?”

“Did I just buy a lemon of a stock?”

“Is the market going to collapse?”

“What if I lose money?”

In general, investors feel remorse when they make investment decisions that do not immediately produce results.

Herd Mentality:

An investor’s natural instinct goes with the ones of masses, which means that he/she doesn’t seem to have a rational view on a certain investment but is more likely to deviate where the majority mass is moving — this little phenomenon is known as the “Herd Mentality”.

The term has been derived from the natural instinct of a number of sheep walking together in a herd so as to avoid falling into the pitfalls of danger.

Interestingly, you can also find a large population of investing community following herd mentality psychology in making various financial decisions like buying new property or investing in the stock market. Seeing others getting profited with an investment, our brain tells us to go for it without a second thought.

Winner’s Curse

A bidder sitting in an auction and trying to repeatedly bid on an asset often gets intimidated to continue his bidding even if it is not profitable.

As obvious, in such scenarios, the last one to bid gets the asset and hence gets the title of “the winner”. But has he actually won? What do you think? The inference can be a bit deeper than you are assessing it to be.

Such scenarios are quite noticeable everywhere, including investing.

Closing Thoughts

Most biases are pre-programmed in the human nature and hence it might be a little difficult to notice them by the individuals. These biases can adversely affect your investment decisions and your ability to make profitable choices.

Anyways, knowing these biases can help you to avoid them causing any serious damage. Moreover, a good thing regarding these biases is that — like any habit, you can change or get over them by practice and efforts.

Kritesh Abhishek

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kriteshrules/

November 6, 2018 Kritesh Abhishek Investing Psychology 2 comments

Investing Psychology: Winner’s Curse

Investing Psychology- Winner’s Curse :

A bidder sitting in an auction and trying to repeatedly bid on an asset often gets intimidated to continue his bidding even if it is not profitable.

The Auction Scenario:

Where is the loophole?

New to stocks? Confused where to begin? Here’s an amazing online course for beginners: ‘HOW TO PICK WINNING STOCKS?‘ This course is currently available at a discount.

What triggers this curse?

Winner’s Curse in the Stock Market:

Things to Remember while Bidding:

Dupont Analysis: A powerful tool to analyze companies.

1. What is the DuPont Analysis? Who made it?

3. Real world DuPont Analysis on Eicher Motors:

4. Conclusion

10 Best Blue Chip Companies in India that You Should Know.

Blue Chip Companies in India:

What are Blue Chip companies?

Signature Characteristics of Blue Chip Companies-

Why are they called blue chips?

What are the financial characteristics of blue chip stocks?

10 Best Blue Chip Companies in India:

ITC

HDFC BANK

Infosys

HUL

Nestle India

Eicher Motors

Reliance Industries

Asian Paints

TCS

Bajaj Auto

Summary:

Break all the rules and conquer FIRE- Financial Independence and Early Retirement!

What is Financial Independence and Early Retirement (FIRE)?

Does FIRE mean the same for everyone?

Who is FIRE for?

The basic principle behind FIRE.

Actionable steps to reach FIRE:

1. Figure out WHY you want to attain FIRE.

2. Track your expenses

3. Calculate what your lifestyle may cost you per year

4. Start working to optimize your expenses and to increase your savings

5. Invest your savings

Closing Thoughts:

Why Should You Invest in the Stock Market in Your 20s?

Why should you invest in the Stock Market in your 20s?

1. Stock market investing gives the best returns:

2. You won’t require extra money anytime soon.

3. It’s a great way to plan your future goals.

4. You can take a lot of risks.

Bottom line:

How to value stocks using DCF Analysis?

Discounted cash flow valuation:

Key inputs of Discounted Cashflow Valuation:

Steps to value stocks using DCF Analysis:

Here’s a link to our simplified online DCF calculator (It’s free to use).

Real life example of valuing stocks from Indian stock market using DCF analysis.

Warning: Garbage in, Garbage out

Closing Thoughts:

**Investing for Beginners**

How to Find Intrinsic Value of Stocks Using Graham Formula?

1. A brief introduction to Benjamin Graham

2. How to find the intrinsic value of stocks using Graham formula?

V* = EPS x (8.5 + 2g)

Note: The Adjusted Graham formula for conservative investors.

3. Pros and cons of Graham formula.

4. Real life example of valuing stocks from Indian stock market using graham formula.

Here, we are taking the case study of HERO MOTOCORP (NSE: HEROMOTOCO) to find its true intrinsic value using the Graham formula. For Hero Motocorp,

5. Closing thoughts.

Investing for Beginners

3 Simple Tricks to Stock Research in India for Beginners.

3 Simple Tricks to Stock Research in India

1. Money control- Index composition.

2. Mutual Funds Portfolio:

3. Screener:

Investing in Bad News: Is it Worth Being Contrarian?

1. What is bad news investing?

2. Can Bad News investing go wrong? If so, how?

3. Cockroach theory, Murphy’s law, and probabilistic thinking

4. A thinking model for investing during bad news

5. Conclusion

Investing for Beginners

**V* = EPS x (8.5 + 2g)**