AuthorRohit Chauhan

Ignoring the oncoming train

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I shared the following note with subscribers on how the current trends in solar/wind power and battery technology are likely to cause disruption in the energy markets. The impact of this disruption is already being felt in the capital goods sector, which is an early proxy of the long term trends in an industry. Any management planning to invest with a 20 year horizon will carefully analyze the long trends before committing capital for this duration..

I have kept out the name of the company we hold, for obvious reasons, but the conclusions are valid for any company in the energy sector value chain. In addition, I think these technologies are likely to have a huge impact in the transportation, oil & gas, coal, power storage and other industries too

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I highlighted the following risk in 2016 for our holding.

Solar energy – I wrote extensively about it in the previous year’s update and the solar energy market continues to develop as expected. It is critical to track this sector as solar is a substitute for other forms of energy (such as coal or Oil) and hence its adoption will have some impact on the demand for the products of the company.

The company continues to focus on process co-gen, waste to energy (including biomass based power generation) and the IPP sector. As I wrote in the previous update, the first two sectors continue to do well as they serve as a complementary power generation system. The IPP segment however is under threat as solar can easily displace this at a lower cost and the company’s performance seems to bear this out.

I have been tracking the renewable and battery/ storage space for the last few years. Let me share some data points before discussing the implications

The graph below shows the price trends for the next 5 years. Please keep in mind that the drops in the recent years have been much higher than predicted and there is no reason why the current rate of 15% annual price drop will not continue


This is a comparative cost across countries


As you can see, India has the lowest costs due to lower soft costs (aka labor costs).

The recent solar auctions in India and several parts of the world are now hitting the 1.3-1.5 Re/KWH levels already and this is expected to drop further. In comparison, the cheapest fossil fuel generated power – Coal, is priced at around 3 Rs/KWH and rising due to transport and other costs

At this point, a lot of naysayers, point out the lack of storage and intermittency of solar and wind power. Let’s look at another data point – Cost of lithium ion storage. This has now hit 200 dollars/ Kwh and continues to drop by around 15% per annum. At the current rate, the cost ofs batteries will drop below 100$/ KWH in 3 years. Why is 100$/KWH important?

This is the point at which solar + Large scale storage start becoming cost competitive with base load or Coal based power. Again, keep in mind that these trends will not stop in 2020, but will keep continuing beyond that due to economies of scale and new research (in other forms of batteries such flow batteries, Lithium air etc)

Is this all hypothetical?
We may assume that all this is theory and the energy markets are yet to be disrupted. That is not true and we already have a few early signs of disruption

a. Gas based Peaker plants (which take care of sudden spike in demand for electricity) are not being built as it is cheaper to use battery storage to take care of such spikes

b. Companies like GE and Siemens have seen a large drop in demand for gas turbines and announced  re-structuring of their power business.


c. What natural gas did to coal, will be repeated again

In 2012-14, we had a new technology called fracking reach scale in the US. This technology had been in development for almost a decade and hit an inflection point in 2014. The resulting glut in natural gas led to a sharp drop in the price as can be seen in the chart below.

The result of this drop was that, natural gas suddenly became cheaper (and cleaner) than coal and caused a switch in fuel for power generation. This can be seen in the picture below. This in turn led to a drop in the demand and price of coal, leading to large scale bankruptcies in the coal sector in the US

Keep in mind that fracking only works if you already have deposits of gas/ oil in place, but were uneconomical earlier. There is no such limitation for solar or wind energy.

Please ignore the S curve
Lets go back to the first principles in economics – People respond to incentives. Companies, individuals and governments are not going to switch to solar or wind energy because they have suddenly realized that these are green technologies, but the because these technologies are now becoming cheaper than the alternatives (fossil fuel).

We still have a lot of naysayers including some of the think tanks, who keep suggesting that these disruptions are atleast 15-20 years away. If you look at the numbers, for some reason their predictions assume that the price drop in these technologies will change from the current 15%+ to around 3-5% due to which the uptake of these technologies will proceed in a linear fashion.

You can believe these predictions if you are ready to ignore the S-curve model of adoption, which states that these kind of non-linear technologies follow an exponential adoption rate till they hit saturation. 

Look at the example of cell phones, internet, Computers and so on which show the adoption rates are only speeding up, not slowing down !

We cannot predict precisely when the inflection will occur. However, it is not difficult to see the disruption ahead. At the current valuations, the market is not discounting the threat of disruption for companies in the capital goods sector, oil & Gas, automotive, power and coal sector.

We can wait till the threat becomes obvious and then exit our positions. I am however not inclined to wait till the last minute before jumping off the track, even though I can dimly see the train coming towards us.    

Over optimizing the portfolio

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I have often been asked by subscribers – what fixed income option would I recommend for the cash they hold?

My response is that I usually hold my cash in short term FDs or at the most in short term debt funds with high rating and from a well-known fund house.

The main criteria I use in selecting a fund are
           Fund should have a high AUM (> 1000 Crs) for liquidity purpose
           Should be from one of the well know fund house, preferably backed by a bank
           Should have a low expense ratio (as far as possible)
           Should have a 3-5 year operating history or more

You may have noticed that I have made no reference to returns. This is by design as I am looking at high safety of capital and liquidity in this case. The entire point of holding cash or equivalents is that it should be secure and can be accessed at times of market stress without any loss.
Some of you may be unhappy that these options provide ‘only’ 4-5% returns which are quite meager.
Do the math
Let’s do some math. I usually hold somewhere between 10-20% cash in my portfolio. In a crazy bull market such as now, it may go upto 30% level, but on average it hovers around the 15% mark. Let’s assume I get very creative and aggressive with the cash holding and can earn around 10% returns on it. Keep in mind, that the level of risk rises exponentially in case of fixed income instruments. A vehicle giving 10% when the risk free rate is 6%, is not 60% more risky, but carries several orders of magnitude higher risk.
Let’s say, that I still decide to move forward and invest all the cash in such a vehicle. So in effect I have made 4% extra on the 15% cash holding which translates to an extra 0.6% return on the overall portfolio. This additional 0.6% would translate to roughly 7% additional return over a 10 year period.
Is it really worth the risk? Does one really need the extra 0.5- 1% return when rest of the funds are already invested in equities?
There is no free lunch
One of the reasons for holding cash and equivalents is to lower the risk of the portfolio, especially when it is high in the equity market. If you are attempting to get higher returns via fixed income instruments, then you are just changing the label of the investment, but not the level of risk in the portfolio as a whole.
A fixed income label does not change the nature of risk. It is the characteristics of the instrument and its past behavior which defines the same. The worst aspect of investing is to take on higher risks unknowingly and then get shocked when it comes back to bite you.
Please always keep in mind – there are no free lunches in the market. There are absolutely no ‘assured’ high return fixed income options (the term itself would be an oxymoron). If someone tries to sell you one, please run away from the person as fast as you can.
It is not a race
I will never tell anyone of you what to do as you need to make your own decisions. However, let me share what I have been doing for the last 10+ years – I have my funds in safe and relatively secure FDs earning pathetically low rates of returns. This allows me to sleep soundly and have one less thing to worry about. If the equity portion of my portfolio does well, then I don’t need the extra 0.5%. If it does badly, the 0.5% will not save me.

In the end, investing is not a 100 meter dash where the winner gets a gold medal and the fourth place goes home dejected. As a long as I can make a decent return (being 18 %+) over the long run, I would rather exchange a few extra points for much lower risk. The journey would be far more pleasant and I will still reach my financial destination (maybe a year later).

Ps: This does not refer to any investment options such as real estate from a diversification point of view. This is mainly about the desire to optimize the cash portion of the portfolio.

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Stocks discussed in this post are for educational purpose only and not recommendations to buy or sell. Please contact a certified investment adviser for your investment decisions. Please read disclaimer towards the end of blog.

Discounting hope

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It is widely understood that stock prices are forward looking – they discount the future expectations of cash flow of a company. In bear markets, these expectations are lowered as markets extrapolate recent trends (and assume a recession forever). On the flip side, the reverse happens during bull markets, when investors extrapolate the recent good results into the future and assume that there will be no hiccups along the way.

Finally, we have markets like now, where investors have gone ahead and extrapolated ‘hope’ and discounted that too.
The idea funnel

I maintain a 50+ list of stocks which I track on a regular basis and have created starter positions in a few companies which appear promising. The process i follow is to create a small position (usually 0.5% to 1% of my personal portfolio) and then track the company for a few quarters/ years.

In atleast 50% of the cases or more, I realize over time, that I am not too excited about the prospects of the company and exit the stock immediately. In a few cases, however the company and its stock may still hold promise. In such cases, I start raising the position size in the portfolios I manage.
The above approach allows me to run experiments with lots of ideas and controlled risk.
Discounting infinity and beyond

I am now noticing that some of the positions I hold on a trial basis have started running up based on hope.

Let me take one example to illustrate – Repro India.
Repro India is a printing business with operations in India and Africa. The company performs print jobs for publishers for all kinds of printed materials like books, reports etc. The company has had a chequered past with uneven performance. 
The company was growing till 2012-14 with rising sales in India and Africa. The return on capital of this business was mediocre as the printing business involves high fixed assets, high and sticky receivables with average operating margins in the range of 15-18%.
The export business in Africa went into a nose dive in 2014 due to the drop in oil prices. The company was not able to collects its receivables as these African countries faced currency issues and hence incurred losses. Since then the company has been slowly recovering the receivables and nursing the business back to health. In addition the domestic business continues to be competitive and sub-optimal due to the lack of any competitive advantage
I would normally avoid such a company unless there are some prospects of improvement or change in the future. One such possibility exists for the company. This is the new BOD – books on demand business of the company.
The BOD business is similar to an aggregation model followed by companies such as uber or Airbnb. In the case of repro, the company has a tie up with Ingram (another US based aggregator) and other publishers in India to digitize their titles and carry them on its platform. These titles are then made available through ecommerce sellers such as Amazon or flipkart. When a user like you and me finds this title and purchases it, Repro prints the copy and delivers it you.
The business model is depicted in the picture below (From the company’s annual report).
The above business model ensures that there is no inventory or receivables for Repro or the publisher. The payment is received upfront and the product is delivered at a later date. This is a win-win business model for all the value chain participants as it eliminates the need for working capital. As a result, this business model is able to earn a high return on capital with the same or lower margins than regular publishing
Illustration from the company’s annual report

Repro is doing around 40-50 Crs of sales in the BOD segment and growing at around 70-80% per annum. The company has loaded around 1.4 Mn titles on its platform and plans to load another 10 Mn+ titles in the future. This business is at breakeven now. The BOD business has a lot of promise and it’s quite possible that the company will do well. 
However, success in the business is not guaranteed. The company needs to scale its operations and could face competition from other print companies in the future (as the entry barriers are not too high).
The market of course does not care about the uncertainty. There are times, when markets refuse to discount good performance in the present and then there are time like now, when the market is ready to discount the ‘hope’ of good performance in the future. The stock sells at around 100 times the current earnings. As the legacy printing business continues to be mediocre with poor economics, it is likely that the high valuations are mainly due to the exciting prospects of the BOD business
I had created a small position a couple of months back and have been tracking the company. The stock price has risen by around 50%, 60% since then even though the company is just above breakeven on a consolidated level.
I am optimistic about the prospects, but the execution needs to be tracked. I am not willing to pay for hope and so I am a passive observer for now.

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Stocks discussed in this post are for educational purpose only and not recommendations to buy or sell. Please contact a certified investment adviser for your investment decisions. Please read disclaimer towards the end of blog.

The logic of patience

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Investors hear a constant refrain – be patient, think long term, blah blah blah. Is it similar to the sermons we hear about eating well and exercising more?

Let me share some thoughts on why patience is a critical to earning above average returns. I will try to approach it based on logic and not because the gurus of investing have been preaching it

Let’s walk through a series of logical arguments

1.     The stock market is usually efficient and generally prices most companies correctly based on their near term prospects. So if a company is growing at 30% per annum, earning 25% return on capital and has great long term growth prospects, then the market will value it accordingly.

2.     One can do better than the market only if you have a view about the performance of a company, which differs materially on the upside. If the company performs as the market expects, there will be no impact to the stock price. Only if the company performs better than market expectations, will the stock price will adjust upwards in response to the positive surprise. This is something most investor miss. They are looking for high quality companies with good management. The trick is find those where the market has yet to recognize the quality or improvement in performance (and price it into the stock)

3.     If you combine point 1 and point 2, it follows that some of the ways to do better than the market is if

  • You are able to identify the turning point in a cyclical industry, before the market. As it not usually not possible to time this perfectly, the best option is to be a bit early when there are some green shoots visible and then increase the position as the recovery gathers strength
  • The profits of the company are suppressed due to some short term issues in the industry (weather, demonetization etc.) which will be resolved soon. In such cases, one has to create a position when the outlook is still horrible and hold on to it till the external factors change for the better
  • Some One-off event such as a demerger causes one of the constituents to be mispriced
  • The profit of the company is suppressed as management is investing in the business which is hurting the reported numbers. As the market is still fixated on the reported numbers, one can create a position at an attractive price. However one has to wait for the investment phase to complete and the true profitability surface

If you look at all the above cases, one needs to ignore the near term prospects which are being overly discounted by the market, and focus on the long term. As a result, in such cases you will not see a validation of your thesis as soon as you create a position.

In my experience, one needs to look out at least 2-3 years and make a purchase accordingly. One then has to wait patiently and keep checking if the company continues to deliver as per your expectations

The impact of competition

For those of us who started investing in the late 90s and even around mid-2000, the level of competition in the market was much lower. One could find companies earning 30% return on capital, growing at 15%+ CAGR and selling at 5 times earnings (Marico was one such company). All one had to do was to dig around a bit and put in the money.

The mutual fund industry was nascent at that time and there were very few individual investors. I still recall getting blank stares when I spoke about value investing.

This has changed completely in the last 10 years. We now have an army of smart investors (professional and part-time) who scour the market looking for opportunities. In such as climate, I can bet that you will not find any obvious mispricing which can filtered on a screen.

In such a case, one has to dig deeper and put in more time and effort in understanding the business and its management. Once you get a better understanding than most other investors , you have to buy the stock and wait till the market, hopefully comes around to your point of view.

It would be foolish to assume that the change of opinion will happen as soon as you are done with your purchase. Some of the near term factors which drive the pricing, need to change before the market accepts your view point.

When is patience a liability?

Patience is of course tied with your style of investing and time horizon. If you are a day trader or momentum investor, then time is not on your side. If you time horizon is days, weeks or month then thinking of a multi-year period makes no sense.

The trouble starts when one does not know what kind of an investor you are? A lot of people think they are long term value investors (as somehow that is fashionable these days), but act like day traders – selling and buying over weeks. If you do not get your time horizon and investment approach consistent with each other, then you are in trouble as your will quickly tire of holding the stock and sell just before the inflection

Getting an edge

I had earlier written above three kinds of edge in stock market investing. The information edge is now more or less gone with tools for quantitative analysis and wide dissemination of information by management (look at the number of conference calls hosted by companies!). One has to rely on analytical and behavioral edge to make above average returns.

I personally think that analytical edge too is over rated as it is not possible to consistently have a superior insight with all your positions. Assuming that you are smarter than the rest of the market at all times, is pure hubris. The only sustainable edge left for an investor is the behavioral one and being patient in an age of distraction and immediate gratification is at the core of this edge.

Being patient is therefore not a moral imperative or something you need to do for the good of humanity, but is a logical necessity to do well in the market in the long run as a value investor.
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Stocks discussed in this post are for educational purpose only and not recommendations to buy or sell. Please contact a certified investment adviser for your investment decisions. Please read disclaimer towards the end of blog.

How to lose money consistently

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Guaranteed approach to losing money –  Look at the last 3-5 year returns and extrapolate mindlessly. Invest when past returns are highest and sell after the market corrects

Starting amount: Rs 100000

1.     Invest infrastructure mutual funds in 2008 (after the boom) based on hard selling by mutual funds
2.     Sell in 2009 with a 40% loss on average
3.     Recuperate from shock for 2 years
4.     Invest in gold mutual fund in 2011/12 after seeing 5 years of boom
5.     Lose 10% of principal in next 3-4 years
6.     Now, invest in mid and small cap funds, after 3 years of boom.

The investor has already managed to lose 50% of principal by now. The above tale may be an exaggeration, but you can check mutual funds with the above kind of performance, with most being launched towards the tail end of the boom. Someone is surely buying these funds at the top of a cycle !

It may not be the same investor in each case, but I can assure there are definitely a few who manage to achieve this ‘feat’ over a lifetime as they never get over their greed and refuse to learn from their losses (it is always someone else’s fault)

If you think, I am mocking such people – that is not the case. I did the same thing when I started out, but the only difference is I swallowed my pride, accepted my mistake and have tried to learn from it.

An oversized ego is always dangerous to the wallet

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Stocks discussed in this post are for educational purpose only and not recommendations to buy or sell. Please contact a certified investment adviser for your investment decisions. Please read disclaimer towards the end of blog.

No pizza today

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I wrote the following note to my subscribers in response to two questions which are frequently asked by new prospects

a.     Please share your past performance
b.     How many stocks can I buy if I join your advisory today

The note below, seeks to answer the second question

Pizza versus investment advice
If you walk into a store or restaurant, you are handed the item or service as soon as you make the payment. Any delay or refusal to offer the said service is considered a breach of faith or fraud.

The above standard mode of exchange breaks down when we come to investment advice. The job of an investment advisor is to ensure that his or her clients make decisions which helps them in the long run (in achieving their financial goals). This can mean that the most sensible course of action often is do nothing and wait for the right opportunity to invest.

This is however not understood by the vast majority of investors who behave like a customer in a restaurant. A typical investor likes to be handed a menu card of stocks and would like to buy as many as possible even before the ink has dried on the cheque (metaphorically speaking). This expectation works if you order a pizza, but not when you are investing for the long run (5+ years).

The investment industry panders to this behavior and even encourages it. As much as one would like to blame the industry (and they have much to blame), the investor community is equally responsible for it. Stock markets are seen as a place to pat your ego (for recent high returns), indulge your gambling instinct or just entertain yourself.

In all my years, I have found very few who look at the stock market for what it really is – A place to invest your capital for the long term to earn returns above the rate of inflation and thus achieve your long term financial goals.

If you are in for the long haul, it makes sense to invest your hard earned money in the right company at the right price (price being very important). Often this happens, when everyone is running for the exit.

Walking the talk
It is easy to talk, but not easy to do the same thing unless your own money is on the line. My own funds, that of my partner kedar and our families is invested in the same fashion. Nothing focusses you on the risk, when your own money is on the line.

I get turned off when I read about fund managers and analysts who recommend a stock, but do not have skin in the game. It clearly means that they do not believe in what they say.

I made a conscious decision several years back that I will eat my own cooking and as a result, any loss in the portfolio is borne equally by me. In addition to this point, both me and kedar have made it a point to under-promise and hopefully deliver more. As result, inspite of a 100%+ rise in 2014, we decided to go low key as I knew that future results could be subdued for a period of time. I did not want to attract subscribers based on recent performance and disappoint them when I failed to meet their un-realistic expectations.

We continue to follow the same approach today. We will get excited when the market drops and go into hibernation when the market gets euphoric. The hibernation is limited only to activity and not to the effort of finding new ideas. We continue to build the pipeline, but the pizza will be served only when the time is right.

The Hangover from bull markets

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A lot of people are celebrating these days and patting themselves on the back. We have a parade of investors touting their returns and claiming that 100% CAGR is for chumps. Multi-bagger could soon be a new name for kids 🙂

A bull market feels good and should be the best of times, right? How can one argue with that?

It feels great when your stocks are going up, making you richer by the day. You feel smart, on top of the world and in some moments can even see that retirement on the horizon when you stop working and live on the beach

By my own estimates, I have lived through around 4 major and a couple more minor bull runs. It felt great during those periods as I  felt vindicated for sticking it out during the drops when everyone was rushing to the exits. It is only in hindsight, I have realized that bull market are dangerous in their own way and I was lucky to have survived the full cycle.

Let me explain

A confluence of factors

A typical bull market usually coincides with decent economic numbers when most companies are doing quite well. As a result, most participants become over optimistic and bid up the stocks of these companies. We thus have a confluence of factors – companies performing better than usual and being valued at higher multiples of peak earnings.

In addition to these factors, there are several psychological factors which come into play at this time. Let’s go over some of them

           Social proof: At such times, you see people around you getting rich and more reckless the person, higher the returns. It is not easy on the psyche to watch your friends get rich , whereas you sit around doing nothing.
           Scarcity: During bear markets, waiting helps. As the numbers are bad or getting worse, stock price for most companies stay stagnant at best. As a result, if you like to dig deep into a company, you have all the time in the world. No such luck during bull market. Any company with a half decent results gets bid up. As a result, you can either forgo an opportunity or buy the stock with lesser due diligence
           Confirmation bias: A bull market gives a positive signal and makes you feel that you are doing something right. As a result, there is a tendency to ignore risks and not look for disconfirming evidence
           Authority bias: If you switch on a channel, every other talking head and self-proclaimed guru on  TV is painting the vision of a glorious future where all of us would be rich. This makes you feel as the only idiot who does not get it

In effect there are multiple psychological and other factors, which conspire to get your guard down and ignore the risks

A bad hangover

I can recall the emotional roller coaster in the previous cycle, with the only difference that these cycles used to run over a period of 3-5 years. The years 2001-2003 (which is ancient for most investors) was a grinding and slow bear market.

It was the exact opposite of what we see now. I can remember buying companies selling for 5 times earnings, growing at 15-20% per annum and still going down in price. If you think these were low quality stocks, then that was not the case. I am talking of companies like Marico and pidilite which are the darlings of the quality school of investing now.

A new investor like me just could not understand why the market was behaving in this fashion.

The market started turning in 2003 and from there it took off for the next 5 years. A lot of my personal holdings went up multiple times (no one used the term multi-baggers as often then) and it was great to feel vindicated/ smart.

The problem with feeling smart was that is that you also feel invincible. The net impact of all these emotions is that I made a few picks, which were marginal at best.  These sub-par picks came back to bite me during the next downturn when they performed far worse than the overall markets.

A fight against instincts

The natural instinct for any investor is do the opposite of what should rationally be done.  When the markets are dropping due to poor fundamentals and bad sentiments, the tendency of most investors is to withdraw into a shell and wait for the sky to clear up.

This is usually the wrong action. Unless you believe that the world is going to end (in which case, stocks should not be your worry), it makes sense to buy attractively priced companies as markets usually have a tendency to extrapolate the recent trends into the future.

The same tendency is also visible during bull markets which leads investors to buy at the wrong price. The right action at such times would be to sell or do nothing, if the company is not overpriced. I personally think that one should go one step beyond – use this period to clean up your portfolio. If you hold some companies, which you are not as confident about, sell them down and increase the cash holding. A bull market is a good time to  swallow the bitter pill when the overall portfolio is doing well.

It is never easy

I wrote this a year back after the market dropped by 15% and this still holds true, except the circumstances have changed to a bull market.  Instead of courage to manage the fear, one needs the same courage to manage greed and euphoria.

It requires an equal amount of effort (or even more) to watch everyone around you make easy money, while you stick to your principles and refuse to take part in the madness.

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Stocks discussed in this post are for educational purpose only and not recommendations to buy or sell. Please contact a certified investment adviser for your investment decisions. Please read disclaimer towards the end of blog.

Letting go of easy money

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I recently received an email and following is my reply


Hello Rohit,
Trust you are doing good.

I have a generic query regarding one of the stocks that has created a lot of buzz recently. Not sure, if you answer such Qs 🙂

Avenue Supermarkets (DMart) – This stock got listed at twice the IPO issue price. And, it is crossing new boundaries every week. There’s lot of positivity about this stock  (like next Infosys etc) and founder Mr Damani (value investor) in market and news.

Its very difficult to resist the temptation to grab this opportunity but not sure if this is the right time. So should we consider this opportunity or just ignore it as temporary heat in the air.

Kindly advise if possible.

hi XXXX
let me share a couple of points on this 🙂
– i never invest in IPO (see here and here )
– i never chase hot trends in the stock markets
– i never buy momentum stocks, especially ones selling at high valuations
– i have never invested in retail companies as this is a very tough business.

i may be wrong here and this could be an exception to all my rules. maybe this stock will keep rising and people will make money. however i am fine with it …i dont need to make money in all opportunities.

so my short answer is – i have no plans of considering or putting a single paise in such opportunities and am fine if others make money. as far as temptation is concerned ..i cant help you there 🙂

i hope i have shared my views clearly …you have to make your own decision. dont hold me responsible if the stock doubles 🙂 …i am fine with letting go of such opportunities

regards
rohit 
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Stocks discussed in this post are for educational purpose only and not recommendations to buy or sell. Please contact a certified investment adviser for your investment decisions. Please read disclaimer towards the end of blog.

Mental capital

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This is a term I like to use to represent the time, and mental energy devoted to each position in my portfolio. I would also add mental stress to the equation.

I have realized that in a lot of cases the percentage of mental capital allocated to each position does not match with the allocation of financial capital. On the contrary, some of my top position have needed the least amount of mental energy on an ongoing basis and caused the least amount of stress. This has been mainly due to the quality of the business and management.

On the other hand, some of the smaller positions in my portfolio have resulted in a much higher allocation of mental capital and that could be also the reason why I never raised the size of these positions.

Not a mathematical exercise

Unlike the amount of financial capital, one cannot calculate the percentage of mental capital allocated to a position. However there are several pointers one can use to see if a particular company is taking a dis-proportionate amount of your mental energy
           You are regularly surprised by the quarterly results
           The management makes your stomach churn and causes you to worry about the safety of your capital
           The industry is undergoing a substantial amount of change and you have no means of evaluating the economics of the business even for the short to medium term
           You keep coming up with new reasons to hold on to your position, even after your original thesis has been invalidated. The word ‘hope’ keeps coming up in your thinking
           You ‘worry’ about the position for any of the above or other reasons

The killer combination

If the financial and mental capital allocated to a position is too high, then we have a deadly combination. This is kind of an extreme situation can make you act irrationally and in the end be injurious to both your financial and mental health, if the position turns against you.

I have realized over time, unlike financial capital which can compound, mental capital is limited and does not increase much beyond a limit.  It is important to use it smartly both for your financial and mental health and finally for your quality of life.

A certain level of mental capital has to be invested when investing directly in stocks (instead of an index or mutual fund), but in some cases the level can go much beyond the amount of financial capital allocated to it. In such cases, I have usually found that selling down or completely exiting the position has freed up my mind to look for new ideas and devote more time to other stocks in the portfolio.

The tail (portfolio) should never wag the dog (your life).

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Stocks discussed in this post are for educational purpose only and not recommendations to buy or sell. Please contact a certified investment adviser for your investment decisions. Please read disclaimer towards the end of blog.

On outperformance

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Some excerpts from my annual review to subscribers. Hope you will find it useful

Sources of outperformance

Superior performance versus the indices can usually be broken down into three buckets

a. Informational edge – An investor can outperform the market by having access to superior information such ground level data, ongoing inputs from management etc.

b. Analytical edge – This edge comes from having the same information, but analyzing it in a superior fashion via multiple mental models

c. Behavioral edge – This edge comes from being rational and long term oriented.

I personally think our edge can come mainly from the behavioral and analytical factors. The Indian markets had some level of informational edge, but this edge is slowly reducing with wider availability of information and increasing levels of transparency.

We aim to have an analytical edge by digging deeper and thinking more thoroughly about each idea. However in the end, it also depends on my own IQ levels and mental wiring, which is unlikely to change despite my efforts.

The final edge – behavioral is the most sustainable and at the same the toughest one to maintain. This involves being rational about our decisions and maintaining a long term orientation. If you look at the annual turnover of mutual funds and other investors, most of them are short term oriented with a time horizon of less than one year. In such a world of short term incentives, an ability to be patient and have a long term view can be a source of advantage.

How does patience help?
Take a look at the 5 years history one of our oldest positions – Cera sanitaryware.

The company has performed quite well in terms of profits in the last 5 years and grew its net profit by 30% in FY 15 and 23% in FY16. Compare this with the stock price – The stock dropped from a peak of around 2500 in early 2015 to a low of 1500 in the span of one year, even though sales and profit continued to grow at a healthy pace.

These swings are usually due to short term momentum traders who want to move from company to company to catch the incremental 10%. I am glad that we have such investors in the stock market as it gives us an opportunity to buy from time to time when the price drops below our estimate of fair value.

We will continue to get such kind of opportunities in the future. The key is to be patient and act when an opportunity is presented.

Skin in the game
It is not easy to remain focused on the long term. In my case, I do not feel any pressure to negate this advantage and let me share why.

The reason for holding onto this approach is that this is something which has worked for me over 20 years and for others over a much longer period. If one can identify good quality companies at a reasonable price, then the returns over the long term will track the performance of the business (more on it later in the note). The value approach works over time, even if it does not work all the time

In addition to the above, my own net worth and that of my close friends and family is invested in the same fashion. I will not take the risk of blowing up to show short term results. Nothing focuses your mind, when your own net worth and that of friends and family is invested in the same fashion.

Let’s try to understand the math behind my expectations of the long term returns. This is a repeat for some of you, but is worth reading again.

The math behind the returns

At the time of starting the model portfolio, I stated 3-5% outperformance as a goal and this translated to around 18-21% returns over time. How did I come up with this number and more importantly does it still hold true?

Let’s look at the math and the logic behind it. The outperformance goal ties very closely with my portfolio approach and construction. We typically have around 15-18 stocks in the portfolio, bought at 60-70% discount to intrinsic value on average. Most of the companies we hold have an ROE of around 20-25% and are growing around 18-20% annually. These numbers may vary, but on average they will cluster around the above figures over time.

Let’s explore a specific example based on these numbers. Let’s say a company valued at 100, growing at around 20% is purchased for 70. Let’s assume I am right in my analysis and the stock converges to fair value in year 3. If this happy situation comes to pass, the stock will deliver around 34% per annum return.

Now in year 3, we could sell the stock and buy a new one again and make similar returns. This may occur from time to time in individual cases, but is not feasible at the portfolio level unless the market is in the dumps and stocks are selling at cheap prices. It is unlikely that our positions would be in a bull market and selling at full price, when other stocks are available at a discount.

In such a case,  if the quality of the company is high and we continue to hold on to it, it will deliver a return of around 20% per annum in the future (assuming the stock continues to sell at fair value going forward). If you add 2 % dividend to this 20% annual increase in fair value, the stock could deliver around 22% for the foreseeable future.

The portfolio view
The math, explained for a single stock, works at the portfolio level quite well. As per my rough estimates, the model portfolio has grown at around 22% per annum in intrinsic value. It was selling at around 27% of intrinsic value when we started and is at a 20% discount now. You have to keep in mind that there are just estimates on my part and I cannot provide any mathematical proof for it. However I have found that these two variables have worked quite well in understanding the performance of the portfolio over the long run – discount to intrinsic value and growth of the value itself.

As the intrinsic value has grown over years and the gap closed, we have enjoyed a tailwind and hence the returns have been a bit higher than that of the intrinsic value. The returns are often lumpy as can be seen from the performance.

Where will these returns take us?

If you talk to some investors, they would scoff at 20% returns. Let look at this table for a moment

I am sure a lot of you have seen the above table. It shows how much 1 lac will become if you allow it to compound at a certain rate of return for 10, 20 and 30 years.

There is something different in the table, from what you would have normally seen. The rate of return numbers seem to be random – 7%, 13% etc., but they are not. Let’s look at what they signify

7 % – This is normally the rate of return one would get from a fixed deposit in the bank
13% – This is the average rate of return from real estate over long periods of time. I would get eye rolls when I quoted this number in the past. The recent and ongoing experience is changing that now.
16% – this is roughly the kind of return you can get from the stock market index over long periods of time
20% – This the level of returns we ‘hope’ to achieve in the long run (3+ years or more)

There are a few key implications of the above table

–        A small edge over average returns adds up to a lot over time
–        The key to creating wealth in the long run is not just super high returns, but to sustain above average returns over a long period of time. It is of no help if you compound at 30% for 20 years and then lose 80% of your capital in the 21styear. The key is to manage the risk too.

If we achieve our stated goal over the long term, the end result will be quite good. There are two risks to this happy end – avoid blowing up (which I am focused on) and early retirement (mine), which you have to hope does not happen either involuntarily (I get hit by a bus) or voluntarily (I head off to the beach).

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Stocks discussed in this post are for educational purpose only and not recommendations to buy or sell. Please contact a certified investment adviser for your investment decisions. Please read disclaimer towards the end of blog

 

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