I just couldn’t resist myself. I wrote in jan that the rebound would start on 22 april 2009 and then ‘predicted’ in feb that the bear market would end.

Wow! I got nailed it. I got two predictions right (ok, one is a little bit off, but give me a break). I am certified guru, soothsayer, the big kahuna and should be on CNBC !!. I should charge money for this 🙂

For those of you who reading this for the first time or are new to the blog – I am joking. I do not believe that anyone can predict the markets and it is a complete waste of time. If you guess enough times using all kinds of mumbo jumbo, you will get it right 50% of the times.

An investment strategy based on 50% success rate will get you nowhere.

A few more interesting points
I have noticed a few more interesting thought processes on other blogs and discussion boards.

– I like the company, but the next 3-6 months are likely to be bad and so I will wait till the performance turns
– I will wait till the election results are clear and then buy when the market crashes
– The export market is bad, US is doomed and I want to wait till everything recovers

So what is being said that one should buy when everything is bright and sunny (or at least everyone thinks so!). So the best time to buy was Late 2007 to Jan 2008. Everyone was optimistic about the world then. Now we all know how that turned out!

Maybe the above works if your investment horizon ranges from a few days to a few months.

However if you are investing for the long term, i personally think the smartest thing to do is to analyse companies in depth and buy them when there are selling at a good discount to instrinsic value.

In my previous post, I referred to a situation where I started buying maruti suzuki at 500 and when the price started going up, I hesitated and am still waiting to build a full position.

Although any price between 500-600 would have been good, I still ended up getting fixated with the price of 500 and lost a good opportunity. This bias is called as ‘anchoring’. An individual under the influence of this bias gets stuck or anchored to specific value (in this case a specific price) and does not take a rational decision.

So how should one avoid it ? My antidote to this problem is generally to focus on the intrinsic value and have a range of discounts (40-60%) from intrinsic value at which to do the buying. So if we say that maruti suzuki has an intrinsic value of around 1000-1100 , then any price between 450-600 is a good buying point. So, why didn’t I do it ? hmmm still thinking of a good excuse !.

Another mistake I have done in the past is to wait for the price to hit the 50% mark (50% below intrinsic value) and then start buying. The smarter thing to do, would be to buy in a price range.

A sell
I had anaylsed GSK consumer products a year back and had built a small position in it. However as the price never fell below 50% of my own estimate of intrinsic value, I never built more than a token position. The price crossed my estimates of intrinsic value recently and as a result I have closed my position at a decent gain.

The above idea is another example of anchoring where I got anchored to an exact 50% discount to intrinsic value. Finally, my own convicition about the stock has not been high and hence I could never convince myself to build a full position

Being featured
My blog was recently featured as one of the must read 15 blogs in india. A little publicity never hurts 🙂

In addition, my articles are now being published on some other sites, which you can see on the side bar under affiliations and a few more.

The affiliation with other sites is non financial. I have been aproached by various sites in the past to syndicate or publish my article and if I find the site to be decent, I have agreed to it.

However I have the following understanding with these and any future websites which may want to publish my posts
– I do not and will not write exclusively for anyone
– I will not promote any site on my blog. I will provide a link if required and the readers are free to navigate to the site and use it if they find it good.
– My articles should be published without editing and with due contribution to me
– Complete freedom on what I write.

So you may find articles from this blog being published at other sites too. However I do not have a business relationship with any of these sites. If that were to happen, I will be open and candid in letting everyone know.

I often get a comment or email, which goes along the following lines – I have been analyzing this company and the company seems undervalued to me. Should I wait for a lower price before I start my buying?

My usual response to this question is – Do you want to delay an informed decision based on an uninformed guess?

Lets think through this dilemma further. Lets assume you have been analyzing a company for some time and feel that the company is easily worth 100, but selling at 50. Now the company is a great buy, but due to the sentiments of pundits, your friends and your milkman, you ‘feel’ that the stock could go lower. As a result you are thinking of holding on a bit longer so that you can buy the stock at 40.

Now this is a very tempting thought. Who doesn’t want to buy a stock at the cheapest possible price? I can bet a lot of us have engaged in this mental gymnastic (I definitely have!).

The only problem with this approach is that it is a waste of time and energy and muddles up the decision making process.

Is it possible to predict stock prices?
The key underlying assumption behind the above thought process is that somehow we know the direction of the stock price. Let assume for a moment that is true. If that is the case, then why bother buying the stock? Go ahead and buy calls or puts on the stock and you will be rich.

It is quite possible that in extreme markets such as seen in the last quarter, the market is on a sustained downward trend and you strongly believe it will continue to do so. However this kind of sustained movement happens only a few times and market can turn around abruptly (There were no sirens in the first week of march when the market started turning and has jumped 50% from the lows).

If however you still have a very strong reason to believe that the stock price will keep dropping, is it not smarter to buy in small lots and average your cost down, rather than wait for the absolute bottom.

Combine technical analysis?
A lot of chartist and technical analyst claim to know the short-term direction and I have heard of people wanting to combine the two approaches. I personally don’t subscribe to it.

It is not due to the fact that technical analysis or charting does not work (I don’t have the skill or knowledge to evaluate that), but due to the fact that for a long term investor like me a 10 or 20% difference in the purchase price will not make as much difference to my end result as being accurate on the analysis of the stock.

If my thesis is right, I will make good returns and a 10-20% price difference will not make a huge difference. However if I am wrong on my analysis, a 10% discount will not save me. As a result, I would rather focus on analyzing the company in depth rather than try to time the stock precisely.

Am I perfect?
Now all this talk could give this false impression that I never get swayed by price and never try to time the stock. Far from it!! I have been guilty of trying to average down my cost several times and have missed the boat in that process.

As I have noted in the past, I typically build a 50-60% position in the beginning and then keep buying till I hit 100% of my position size. This works well in a falling market, but leaves me with a smaller position if the stock turns around quickly. I faced this with maruti suzuki recently. I started buying at around 500 levels and was able to build a 70% position. However the stock turned around suddenly and I remained ‘anchored’ to the 500 level and did not build a complete position. Luckily I did not repeat this mistake in the case of CRISIL.

So what should we do?
Simplify the process. I personally avoid looking a charts, tea leaves, pundit speak and blogger recommendations before making a final decision. I would try to seek out the facts, analyze the company in detail, and if I am confident that I am getting a bargain, I will go ahead and buy the stock. How does it matter if the stock gets 20% cheaper if my analysis is correct and the company is doing fine?

How about trading?
The above thought process does not hold true for trading. If you are chasing 10-20% returns over the short term then you may want to get the absolute bottom on a stock. Of course if your basic analysis is wrong then an unsuccessful trade can always become a long-term investment 🙂

Final question: How many of us are still waiting for our favourite stock to hit the feb-march lows before we go ahead and start buying?

About
Gujarat gas is a gas distribution company with a distribution network in south gujarat in cities such as surat, vapi, ankleshwar etc.

Gujarat gas supplies natural gas to Industrial, commerical and domestic customer in the above areas and has been expanding into CNG distribution in the same cities.

I have written on gujarat gas earlier here and uploaded a detailed analysis here

Performance 2008
The company reported a topline growth of around 7% and bottom line growth of around 5% inspite of volume de-growth due to supply shortage of gas.

The profitability numbers such as net profit margin has been maintained at 11.9%, ROE at 20%+ and the company continues to hold almost 360 Crs of cash on its books.

Q109 performance
The company had drop of around 20% in profit due to serious shortages of Gas again. It seems GAIL (their main supplier) has not been supplying as per earlier contract due to certain ‘Force majeure event’ (unforseen event). Due to the drop in volumes supplied, the company had a drop in topline and bottom line.

The company is now working to contract additional sources of gas to meet the expanding demand.

Attractive business model
As I have noted earlier on my blog, Gujarat gas has a very attractive business model. The company on account of its distribution network has a kind of monopoly in the areas it operates (Not a true monopoly as other companies can come in, but are not likely to). As a result the company, within the constraints of its contracts, can pass cost increases to its customers.

In addition, gujarat gas has free cash flow which greater than the net profits. This is due to the fact that the company can charge a deposit from a customer and gets to retain this money as long as it keeps the customer. In a growing business, this is an additional source of cash (interest free loan) which the company can use to expand the business.

In addition the company has a negative working capital position which continues to expand with the growth in the buisness. Companies like Lakshmi machine works (LMW) are able to generate cash from customer deposits and FMCG companies like levers etc have operated with negative working capital. Gujarat gas has a unique business model where is it able to generate additional cash flows from these two sources in addition to its own profit stream.

As a result of the above cash flow, the company can fund its own growth based on the money received from customers and suppliers

Looking forward
Gas is a supply constrained commodity and compares well with alternative sources of fuel. With the new gas finds coming online, gujarat gas should benefit and should be able to meet the demand of its customers.

In addition the company is expanding into new areas such dahej, hojiwala etc. These new markets and the growth in the existing markets should drive the topline and bottom line of the company.

Management
I have been following the company since 2003 and have found the management to be shareholder friendly. The management compensation seems to be fair. Although Gujarat gas is a subsidiary of BG (british gas), I have not seen any attempts till date on part of BG to cheat the minority shareholders (although one can never be 100% sure).

The management has executed extremely well in the last few years. They have transitioned well from a controlled gas pricing model (GAIL was the supplier and the price was below market rate) to an open market pricing model. In addition, the company has also been able to reduce the impact of the loss of transmission income and expand into new areas such as CNG distribution.

The management has been a good allocator of capital in the past as it invested in the business at high rates of seturn and been able to expand the business while maintaining the profitability levels.
Disclosure : I hold the stock.