Archives for 2014

Results: The Safal Niveshak Value Investing Contest 2014

First, I wish you a very happy Holi!

May you have the most blessed Holi festival than you ever had. May it be full of fun and love. May you be as colourful as the festival itself or even more.

And may you use the least amount of water while playing and washing off your colours. 🙂

Now, after a tremendous response to the first edition of Safal Niveshak’s Value Investing Contest, I feel happy to announce the winners of the same.

I received 23 entries in total and found it extremely tough to rank them in terms of quality and simplicity of analysis.

Thus, I have chosen two winners for each of the first three positions.

While my choice of winners does not devalue the quality of analyses sent by others, it’s just that I had to pick the best very few, and here they are –

1st Prize

Ankit K – Balkrishna Industries
JK – V-Mart Retail

2nd Prize

Sudhanshu Jain – Munjal Auto
Venkat Sivagnanam – Gabriel India

3rd Prize

Maheswar Reddy – Tree House Education
Nishanth Muralidhar – Swaraj Engines

Here are the prizes winners have won –

1st Prize – Books of choice, worth Rs 2,500/- each
2nd Prize – Books of choice, worth Rs 1,500/- each
3rd Prize – Books of choice, worth Rs 1,000/- each

Congratulations to all the winners, and thanks to all who participated!

I will publish the reports of winners on the website very soon.

A Fundoo Professor Called Sanjay Bakshi

In my preparation for the upcoming interview of Prof. Sanjay Bakshi (this Sunday), I was reading through a few of his past articles and lectures, when a thought struck my mind.

A lot of Safal Niveshak tribesmen still do not know much about Prof. Bakshi and his vast investment insights, except for his interview that I carried in 2012.

As such, I have created a special page on the website dedicated to Prof (after due permission from him), who is one of the best minds in India in the fields of Value Investing and Behavioral Finance.

This page is a collection of my best picks from among his vast writings that are available on his blog as well.

Start by reading about Prof. Bakshi’s life story. Then read through some of his best posts (as per me) I have listed on the page.

I’m sure you will benefit a lot from them in your efforts of becoming a sensible, long-term investor.

Reading Prof. Bakshi has been an important step in my work-in-progress of becoming what Charlie Munger calls a ‘learning machine’. I’m sure it won’t be any different for you.

P.S. This page has been created after due permission from Prof. Bakshi.

Any Monkey Can Beat the Market! Really?

Any monkey can beat the market! That’s exactly how a headline of an article I recently came across reads.

This article was published in the Wall Street Journal in late 2012 (a tribesman recently shared it with me) and stated that if you give a monkey enough darts to throw at stock pages, they’ll beat the market. This was based on a research that simulated results of 100 monkeys throwing darts at the stock pages in a newspaper. The average monkey outperformed the US stock market index by an average of 1.7% per year since 1964.

Now, that would have bought them a lot of bananas!

In fact, as early as 1973, Burton Malkiel, a professor at Princeton University had claimed in his book, A Random Walk Down Wall Street, that “A blindfolded monkey throwing darts at a newspaper’s financial pages could select a portfolio that would do just as well as one carefully selected by experts.”

Now, given that the monkeys have not just earned as much as the US stock market index, but have handsomely outperformed it, there’s something worth pondering about for those who are trying to work hard to pick their own stocks.

Why care to analyze businesses and estimate intrinsic values when you can hire a monkey (or I will send one to you for a fee 🙂 ) to pick your stocks?

You must care, dear tribesman!

10 Big Ideas from Warren Buffett’s 2014 Letter

Warren Buffett has been the highlight of two of my last three posts –

On an extended holiday, as I read more of the legend, I am happy to share more of him with you as well. 🙂

Buffett’s latest annual letter to shareholders is out (click here to read), and here are ten important ideas I have pulled out for you from the same –

Warren Buffett’s Age-Old Secret on How to Get Rich

Have you ever wondered why we are willing to hold on to our real estate investments for years even as we trade in and out of stocks?

So, we may buy and/or sell just 1-2 properties in our lifetimes, but the count of stocks we move in and move out of runs into 100s.

Of course the size of the investment plus ability to liquidate (buy and sell) is one factor. But the most important factor that is at work here is – Stocks provide you minute-to-minute valuations for your holdings, whereas you don’t see quotations for your real estate holdings so frequently.

When it comes to stocks, Ben Graham’s mentally-ill fellow Mr. Market comes to you daily and quotes a random price that causes you to behave irrationally.

“Don’t just sit there, do something!” he shouts at you daily, and you gladly take his advice and buy stocks when he quotes a high price and sell when he quotes a lower price.

Announcing: The Safal Niveshak Value Investing Contest 2014

Here’s your chance to showcase your analysis skills to the Safal Niveshak tribe, and in the process win a prize if your entry gets chosen amongst the best.

Contest Rules

Write a 2,000 word (max.) report on one Indian company of your choice. It may be a great, or good, or a gruesome business.
Deadline for report submission by email to me is 10th March 2014.
Your chosen company can be from any industry.
The stock must have a market capitalization of more than Rs 100 crore.
The idea must be well researched (by you). Your analysis must cover these areas:
- Company history and business
- Competition
- Financial strength
- Management quality (have they been good or bad allocators of capital)
- Risks (what can go wrong)
- Valuation (challenge the market’s current valuation – whether the stock is overvalued, undervalued, or fairly valued – instead of calculating your own)
The report would be exclusive to Safal Niveshak. But you can post an abstract at other places and link to the full report on Safal Niveshak.

Evaluation & Rewards
I will evaluate each submitted entry ONLY on the quality and simplicity of analysis, though good presentation and proper language is more than welcome (would save me editing time!)

There are three prizes to be won –

1st Prize – Books of choice, worth Rs 5,000/-
2nd Prize – Books of choice, worth Rs 3,000/-
3rd Prize – Books of choice, worth Rs 2,000/-

All submitted entries would be published on Safal Niveshak (the author can remain anonymous if he/she wants).

This contest is now open. Remember, the deadline is 10th March 2014.

Announcing: The Safal Niveshak Education Scholarship

Charlie Munger, in a speech at USC Law School commencement in May 2007, said –

I constantly see people rise in life who are not the smartest, sometimes not even the most diligent, but they are learning machines. They go to bed every night a little wiser than they were when they got up and boy does that help, particularly when you have a long run ahead of you.

I have personally known a few such people who, by the sheer dint of their hard work and diligence, and despite various challenges they faced at each step of their way, have achieved great heights.

Sadly, I have also known a few who got stuck on the way.

One big reason that has kept most of these latter people from realizing their dreams has been the lack of sufficient money to provide for their education.

How I Multiplied My Income 2.5x, Savings 5x, and Happiness 20x (After Quitting My Job)

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. ~ Mark Twain

On 1st January 2011, when most people around me were making resolutions to lose weight and eat better, I was making up my mind to do something else.

I finally did it on 4th January. I told my boss – “I quit!”

Quitting my job was a tough decision to come by, as I was surrounded by mixed views from all around, including from within me.

“You’re sure you want to quit your job?” asked my concerned father.

“How could you quit when we have spent so many years training you?” asked my boss, forgetting that I had also spent so many years serving the company.

“Hey, please don’t quit!” said my colleagues.

“Yes, you can do it!” said my wife.

“Yes, Papa will be at home to play with me at all times!” exclaimed my seven year old daughter.

Now, here is how my mind was playing tricks with me.

Value Investing, the Sanjay Bakshi Way 2.0

After much delay due to issues in fixing a mutually convenient date, my interview of Prof. Sanjay Bakshi is going to happen soon.

Just to give a background, Prof. Bakshi is one of the best minds in India in the fields of Value Investing and Behavioral Finance.

He teaches MBA students (at MDI Gurgaon) two popular courses: “Behavioral Finance & Business Valuation” and “Financial Shenanigans & Governance”. He is also a Managing Partner at ValueQuest Capital LLP — a value investing specialist in moats investing.

Intrinsic Value: A Big Deal?

Here is an email I received from a tribesman yesterday…

I agree that evaluating and buying great businesses at the correct price (i.e. prices below the intrinsic value) is of utmost importance.

However, while I think I am getting better in evaluating the growth of businesses, their durable moats and creating my own check list of investing, my biggest challenge is in calculating the range of the “intrinsic value”.

I am still not able to calculate the risk associated with the stock and that is prohibiting me from confidently buying a stock which I believe is a value buy.

May I request you to please share any pointers, books, frameworks which can help me estimate the risk and/or this intrinsic value?

I believe this – calculating intrinsic value – is one big issue most investors face, and thus I thought of replying to this email via a post.

Well, the concept of intrinsic value is indeed tricky.