Archives for 2012

Bharti Airtel: What Am I Doing with the Stock?

First a disclosure – I own Bharti Airtel in my portfolio, as I’d disclosed via a post in March.

I had bought the stock in October 2009, at an average price of Rs 301. Given the fall the stock has seen over the past few months, which has been compounded by continuous weak results from the company, my investment is down almost 13%.

So what’s my next course of action with respect to the stock?

Value Investing, the Sanjay Bakshi Way – Part 3

Here’s the third and penultimate part of my interview of Prof. Sanjay Bakshi. You can read the first two parts here – Part 1 | Part 2

Safal Niveshak: How can a small investor build up a “positive loop” that you talk about to increase his circle of competence, given the time, education or background constraints? How did you do this when you started out as a small investor yourself?

Prof. Bakshi: Buffett talks a lot about the idea of “circle of competence”. But what do we mean by the term?

I like to define it in a creative manner. Most of my students are engineers and have little or no accounting background. One way to think about circle of competence for them is to only specialise in engineering stocks. And students who are specialising in marketing may develop their circle of competence in FMCG stocks.

Creativity in defining your “circle of competence”
That’s the conventional way of thinking about circle of competence. There are other ways. For example, you may specialise in micro-caps. Some of my students are doing exactly that. They have no interest whatsoever in large cap stocks.

Safal Niveshak StockTalk #9: BHEL

Welcome to the ninth issue of Safal Niveshak StockTalk. (Download PDF Report)

After covering Opto Circuits last time, this time I’ve researched on BHEL, India’s largest manufacturer of power generation equipments. Before we dive deeper into BHEL, here is a brief overview of the sections of this report.

About BHEL
Safal Niveshak’s 20-Point Checklist
Intrinsic Value Assumptions
Risk Statement (New Section)
Financial & Market Snapshot
“Should I Buy BHEL?” Checklist
Final Evaluation Checklist (New Section)

Value Investing, the Sanjay Bakshi Way – Part 2

First the bad news! The post below is still not the complete interview with Prof. Bakshi, as his answers, to my late realization, were more extensive than I think I’d heard (might be due to me having lost in the aura of meeting him). 🙂

So you will still have to wait for at least two more parts to get the complete transcript of the interview.

Now for the good news! The next 4,000 words are going to bring you great enlightenment in investing and human behaviour.

As I type, and type, and type the interview, I am getting newer ideas with each paragraph. And I hope the same for you as you read, and read, and read what’s written below.

So over to my second question of the interview with Prof. Sanjay Bakshi, and his answer to the same.

Value Investing, the Sanjay Bakshi Way – Part 1

I recently had the privilege of meeting one of the highly regarded professors in the field of value investing and behavioral finance, Prof. Sanjay Bakshi in New Delhi.

Safal Niveshak meets Prof. Sanjay Bakshi

Prof. Bakshi teaches MBA students (at MDI Gurgaon) two popular courses: “Behavioral Finance & Business Valuation” and “Financial Shenanigans & Governance”.

He is also the CEO of Tactica Capital Management, a boutique firm engaged in deep value investing.

It was like a dream come true for me, having met a guru who has been a great teacher in my investing pursuits over the past few years. So it was obvious for me to wait for Prof. Bakshi’s arrival with butterflies in my stomach.

My Life Purpose (and Money Isn’t Part of It!)

Image Source: LabSaints

In the daily grind of your life, amidst the rat race that you might be running day in and day out to earn more and more money, what if I tell you that money – financial wealth you are trying to accumulate – might not be your life’s purpose…your reason for being?

“What s***t are you talking about, Vishal?” a friend asked me when I made the above statement to him a few days back?

“Life is all about living happily, and you need a lot of money to do that!” he remarked with an expression as if I’d told him something blasphemous.

“Of course, you need money to live a happy life.” I clarified. “Whatever any spiritual guru says, I believe that money is a necessary evil…and thus important.

“But then money is not what I’m living for!” I added.

Investor, Are You a Warrior or Worrier?

Here is a nice little story I read recently.

One day, a timid young swordsman sought the counsel of an older, battled-hardened warrior.

“Sir, the men say that, of all the King’s warriors, you are the most courageous.”

The old warrior, who was busy sharpening his sword and who spoke only when necessary, didn’t lift his head or utter a single word. He was not impressed by flattery, so he continued to sharpen his blade; the blade that had seen him through many battles.

Listening and sharpening. Listening and sharpening.

Before long, the young warrior felt uneasy…and fearful.

Winners of the Safal Niveshak 1st Anniversary Contest

A few announcements to make before I get to the Contest winners…

Safal Niveshak is now 1,000+ tribesmen strong. 🙂 Thank you so much for your support!
I’ve opened registrations for the Art of Investing Workshop in Pune on 18th August, Saturday. If you are in Pune, and have six hours to spend with me on that Saturday, you can click here to register for the Workshop.
The Mumbai Workshop on 21st was awesome in terms of interaction and deep discussions on value investing (one tribesman, Kiran, actually travelled 36 hours to attend the Workshop!). Delhi, we’ll meet this Saturday.

Participants from Art of Investing Workshop in Mumbai

Now for the winners of the Safal Niveshak 1st Anniversary Contest.

8 Things I Wish I’d Known Before Starting as an Investor

I have been a stock market investor for the past nine years now, and have seen a respectable performance overall.

Why respectable? Because my investments have helped me at several key phases of my life, most important being the purchase of a house property and then repayment of the entire loan on the same within 5 years (though with some support from the family).

Then, apart from a solid support from my wife, I must thank my investments to have given me the necessary “guts” to quit my job and begin on this journey of independence, where all I work for is my passion – to help individual investors like you become independent and sensible in managing your own money.

So even after doing a respectable job as an investor, what could be the things that I still rue I’d learned before starting out nine years back?

Warren Buffett’s ‘Secret Holy Grail’ to Successful Investing

We discussed the importance of reading annual reports in the past two posts.

We also briefly discussed the importance of reading financial statements that convey the language of business.

Now here is a small quiz for you – What is that one thing you look for in a company’s financial statements?

Is it to know how much a company is leveraged? Is it to know how profitable the company is? Or is it something else?