Archives for September 2020

Beware of Stockbrokers

First things first. I have two friends who are stockbrokers. Both are kind and hard-working people. Both take good care of their families. Most important, both would happily hide me when required.

In short, they are good people whom I love being friends with and love talking to…

…except Monday to Friday, 9.15 AM to 3.30 PM IST.

Reason? They are stockbrokers and their minds run haywire during these stock trading hours. Like all other stockbrokers, they have just one priority during this period – to make a good income for themselves and their employers. And like all other stockbrokers, their real job during these hours is not to make money ‘for’ their clients, including friends, but to make money ‘from’ them.

Value Investing Contest 2020

Here’s your chance to showcase your devil’s advocate skills to the Safal Niveshak tribe, help others understand what can permanently lose them their capital, and in the process win a prize if your entry gets chosen amongst the best.

Contest Rules

Write a max. 1200 words SELL or AVOID report on a listed Indian company of your choice (BUY reports or those longer than 1200 words won’t be accepted)
You must submit ONLY one report
Deadline for report submission is 5th October 2020
Email your report in a Word file to vishal[at]safalniveshak[dot]com with the subject line as – “Value Investing Contest 2020 – Company Name – Your Name”
The stock must have a market capitalization of more than Rs 1,000 crore
The idea must be well researched (by you). Your analysis must cover these areas:
- Company’s business
- All your reasons why one must avoid the stock, or sell if one owns it

The report would be exclusive to Safal Niveshak. You must not have published it on some other site. But once the report is published on Safal Niveshak, you may 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 depth 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 (delivery in India only) –

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

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 for submission is 5th October 2020.

The Fault, Dear Investor, is Not in Your Investments, But in You

Consider these statistics.

The average commercial aircraft flies at an altitude of thirty-five thousand feet.
The average passenger in a commercial aircraft flies at an altitude of twenty thousand feet.

A 2000-Year-Old Technique for Weathering Life’s Storms

In ancient Greece and Rome, many prominent thinkers subscribed to a philosophy called Stoicism. As part of this philosophy, they practiced a thought exercise called premeditatio malorum, which means premeditation of evils.

It simply means taking a moment to think through everything that could go wrong with a particular plan. It means visualizing a bad future.

The idea behind premeditatio malorum is that by contemplating calamity, we rob future hardships of their bite and appreciate what we have now. In other words, anticipating adversity is likely to diminish its power on us when it actually strikes.