I have been sharing my thoughts via Safal Niveshak for almost 1.5 years now.
I have strived to cover a very diverse set of ideas around investing, personal finance, and experiments I am conducting in my own life.
Whenever I sit down to write, I usually choose a topic based on…
- What I think you would like to learn
- What I think would be useful for you to learn
- My own experiences that I think you will find useful
So whatever I write on Safal Niveshak is for you. And I want it to be useful to you.
Now here’s what I’m asking.
Post topics of interest to you in the Comments section below – topics related to investing, stock market, and financial life…which you want me to cover on Safal Niveshak.
Based on the requests I receive, I’ll line up the topics I think are particularly interesting and important and will benefit a wide audience, and write on them over the next few days and weeks.
I look forward to hear from you.
Note: I have opened registrations for Safal Niveshak’s Art of Investing Workshop in Mumbai and New Delhi. Click here to register to attend the Workshop in any of these cities. Few seats remain, so please hurry!
Hi Vishal,
I would like to learn about how to increase our circle of competence? Since, we will never get a chance to work in various industries, is there a way to learn about those industries and use it wisely in investing. Thanks in advance.
Vikas
Thanks for the suggestion, Vikas! I have been thinking about this aspect for some time now and have an idea, which I will share soon. Regards.
Please write about How can retail investors stay away from “not-so-open” Frauds in Indian stock market eg. Glodyne , Zyliog Destruction of complete shareholder value
Hello Vishal,
I am a die hard fan of Quants and have embarked upon a few papers on fundamental quants. Am attaching a tweedy paper for your read, (in case u have not already read it).
What I would like to know from you is – can we work upon a simple quantitative analysis (like screeners) to throw us some great investment ideas. These studies suggest some really extraordinary returns delivered by simply sticking to these approaches, rather than applying too much mind on the company selection and fundamentals.
The important thing is I as an individual am not capable of indepth fundamental research, but capable of diversification to minimise the risk of getting into wrong stocks. After all, even based on fundamentals, u would diversify into some ideas.
I would like to see you write about Howard Marks memos (especially second level thinking), how/why is he so spot on about market predictions at the extremes etc.
a) More than financial analysis, business analysis really helps in picking good stocks. Not just going through balance sheets and P&L statements. Understanding the business is what I am talking about. Investing in stocks is actually buying a piece of good business, isn’t it? I would like to have inputs on how to do a business analysis. I am close to clueless on this.
b) You may share your experiences on where and why you went wrong on some stocks (like what you did for opto circuits). You can even call this section “Blackboard” as we are actually learning lessons and not losing anything.
c) Have a section on how to teach finance for children ? As a parent, you would definitely be doing that and I am interested in that too.
d) Quotes from Legends & interpretations – You can share a quote from a legend (WB, CM or Chetan Parikh and likes) and follow up with your interpretations. Most of the times, these quotes are as good as we are. The interpretations can be given using your own experience or an experience of an investor you met or heard.
Hope this would be interesting.
Dear vishal,
you can share investment mistakes made by you or others in more details. also, you can talk about good annual reports of Indian companies. lastly, talk about good books to read
regards
Manish
Could you please write about how to calculate the intrinsic value of the trade and what should be the range of that value to decide whether to buy or sell the trade?
Thanks,
Amol Chikhalkar
Thanks Vishal for this post asking to align your further writing to help readers better.
Few things that comes to my mind:
1. Living minimalistic life: how to handle social pressure
2. Some very good book reviews: book like code name god etc. as I understand you are an avid reader so others can benefit from it. Particularly books which relates to modern life, science, finance, values kind of combinations.
3. Some good but ignored sides of tax planning: like creating good stock pool and benefitting from it by topping up at relatively lower level and removing that top up with reasonable margin, even if it happens in few days/weeks/ months but getting FIFO benefit in taxing for that stock pool. Creating HUF.
4. Some good finance/investing/life quotes and a small discussion on that relating with individual and current situation.
5. Collecting some of the learnings from readers and bringing back this content to all your readers with your very own style. But as it will be true experience, same will have lots of appeal.
6. Few things of helping to grow our kids with the more so the challenge of their exposure to out side world/ our different priorities/ we ignoring what we can do and so on…
Rgds,
uday
Hi,
I do not know whether u hv covered biases.
That can b a wonderful subject.
Pl write abt Fear, Greed, Emotions also.
JM
Hi Vishal –
Based on your past articles, we now understand the basics of financial reports and what it contains.
I would be interested in seeing examples of how to apply that learning in deciding whether a given
company is worth the investment.
Just to make my question clear, I am looking for some articles on companies in the following format where
prof. sanjay bhakshi has analyzed for VST:
https://fundooprofessor.wordpress.com/2011/04/24/vantage_point/
I think such articles drill the theory firmly into the head!
thanks vishal!
pradeep.
I have got hooked to value investing less than 4 months back and I am now getting obsessed about it thanks to people like you. It will be good for you to talk anecdotal evidence about may be a couple of opportunities about value buys which turned out to be value traps later on (and vice versa) and why you think they turned out to be that way (eg., governance, industry changes etc..
For example, I lost a lot of money in Suzlon from about two years ago thinking that the company with its strong market leadership position in what is a consolidated industry would bounce back. But, I had underestimated the destructive influence of debt and interest coverage. So, now I have learnt to put internal strength above extrinisics – viz., I won’t touch a company even if it is a market leader if its balance sheet is weak.
May be stuff like that will help suckers like me learn a little more !
Hello Vishal,
Another request. I want to know your views on
1. Technical Analysis – how good / bad is it. There is a lot of talks about wonderful chart patterns and moving averages etc… Initial thought sounds excellent
2. Mean Reversion Strategies – I read a statement of Prof Bakshi, which is originally from Buffet, that stock returns are mean reverting, stock prices are not. Stock returns revert to the their mean, the magnet being return in equity. Can we build a model around this theme, say investing in stocks which have fallen significantly from their historical ROE’s. Also, this is one such e.g., Do you know of any other forms of mean reversion.
Please analyse some stocks/ companies from starting to the point where we decide weather its worthy buying/ selling/ tracking/ forgetting whatever may be i.e. complete stock selection process.
Hello sir,
Can you please write a post completely dedicated towards analyzing Pharma companies.I like it as a sector to invest but have not been able to differentiate among the good ones.What are the parameters that we need to look for in this sector before investing.
I would like to know about gold as long term investment mainly as world over , countries increase their debt including india and take decision /implement policies based on votes . Would be better than other classes of investments
Dear Sir,
First of all wanted to Thank you for taking such a great initiative. Love to read your posts and emails. Recently I have subscribed to your lessons. They have been very informative and always have a good moral.
I am a beginner in stock market. And I like to read balance sheets of companies and looking at the Financial ratios. But I have found out that the financial ratios which provide information differ from sector to sector . Was wondering if you can do a write up on which financial ratios to look at for a company pertaining to a specified sector.
Thanks & Regards,
Chintan R. Visharia
Hi Vishal,
One thing we all would immensely benefit from – Special Situations Investing.
You are the right person to teach us this very important and overlooked area where people can expand their circle of competence.
Regards,
Avadhut
You could start a good discussion on stock,company and industry analysis.
One way could be that you first name a stock(without posting your analysis on it) which looks reasonably good to you prima-facie.You would ask for our comments on it first.Some people may show biasness,some may post really good analysis of it.
Then collecting all our study and clearing all our doubts, bias and myths,you could write a concluding post highlighting the overall view of the business.
In this way,we could have a healthy discussion on investing in general and everyone would benefit.
Hi Vishal
I would like to know your view on the following
I have seen value investors in India follow two approaches – The first I would call the classic buffett style – buying only great businesses at a fair valuations and watch it compound over a period of time. These guys will wait wait and wait until the value of their identified businesses make sense….. The second i call the modified approach where two things change – 1. At a price (low enough) good businesses in bad industries may make sense, eg. aviation, commodities etc and 2. offload your portfolio in euphoric times knowing very well the fall one sees in bear markets forgoing the long term benefits of compounding……
What is your stand on this debate?
A series on investments to stay away from:
Identifying bad investments, the financial jugglery a typical company uses to fool investors, case studies on cos that had all the signals of impeding failure, etc
As Charles Munger, who says, “All I want to know is where I’m going to die so I’ll never go there” 🙂
Intrinsic Value – Different methods of calculating it.
It would be great if you could write something on simplifying the process of analysing growth stocks. Since current models are totally dependent on assumptions and estimates, it would be nice to learn how to make saner assumptions, when evaluating growth stocks.
After several years I realized that investing in stocks is not only about Numbers it is also about acquiring ‘Worldly Wisdom’ from multiple disciplines and applying them. If you can cover some of these concepts it will be super useful.
Regards,
Jana
Hello Vishal,
Generally, when we read about great investors, the focus is mostly on their successes. We seldom get to read about their biggest mistakes. I personally think some reflection on big investing mistakes can be very useful for lay investors like us. In some other post, I read that you have about 8 years experience working for an independent equity research firm. It would be interesting if you could share some of your biggest mistakes, if any, (I’m sure they must have been very few in number :)) and the lessons that you learnt. This is an earnest request. Will be very glad if you can honestly share your track record. But there is no hard and fast. I can understand if you don’t. Not many people are comfortable publicly sharing a list of their mistakes.
Hi Vishal,
Want to learn investing on bonds and factors which influence the yield of bonds.
Thanks & Regards
Rathis
Hi Vishal,
Apparently, It is quite different while evaluating Bank stocks. I understand, the evaluation of Banks (compared to a product company like Tata Steel) the financial ratios/numbers to look for are different. There is no point seeing Operating Cash flow, debt to equity ratio for Bank Stocks since it is part of their business. Also the Banks release ‘Non Performing stocks’ numbers time to time which is tough to anticipate upfront, but it does affect shareholder value. Only thing to look for in Bank shares is perhaps the EPS and net profit after tax.
Example:
(1) ICICI Bank and HDFC bank are great banks and have good EPS numbers YoY. They are growing too. But, when you look at a 5 year horizon, it appears that the fluctuation of ICICI bank is not controlled fluctuation as HDFC.
(2) If one were to compare Andhra Bank and Indian Overseas Bank, The IOB EPS is varying and so if we take a 5 year horizon, the fluctuation is understandable. But Andhra Bank has rising EPS YoY. Why is it fluctuating as well.
In short how do you evaluate and know which one to pick, Vishal ? Can you please share your thoughts.
Regards,
Shyam
Sorry. Please read as – * “Non Performing Assets” (not ‘non performing stocks’). Also, fluctuation in examples: I mean- fluctuations to share prices of these banks over 5 year period. Thanks!
Shyam for bank stocks you have to look for ratios like Loan to Deposit, Financial Leverage, Borrowings to Networth.
Shyam, check this out
craytheon.com/financials/financial_performance_key_ratios_margin_chart_trend.php?company=HDFCBank
Hi Krish,
Thank you for the link. The data in this link is very abstract. Kindly allow me to reword – In some of the ‘Stock Talks’, Safal Niveshak has shown us the 20-point check-list to see if a particular company is doing good and the fair price which possibly an investor can think to buy(or not to buy at all). My request to Vishal was:
“For a Bank Stock (any bank) how do you go through this 20 point check list and also arrive at a fair value”
(Why I request – There are many points in the check list where the FCF is used. In case of Banks, it may be difficult. While computing the DCF valuation, the FCF may not give a fair picture. So one example of ‘stock talk’ picking on any Bank will be helpful.)
Thanks again for looking into this request, Krish
Regards,
Shyam
The truth is you cannot measure bank stocks with a 20 point check list, probably the reason why Vishal has not done a stock talk on bank stocks.
A bank can look good on paper but if it has assets like derivatives and CDS on its balance sheet which by now everyone has understood are so hard to value. Are you going to trust the value given by the bank in its annual report for those derivatives.
Do you know which companies has the bank lent money, if its companies like KFA and DCHL you should avoid investing in that bank.
This is the reason why you focus more on ratios like Loan to Deposit, Financial Leverage, Borrowings to Networth for banks and not FCF.
Dear Vishal
Here are a few topics that that would interest a wider audience:
1. How to inculcate the savings habit in children/ propensity of the current Gen to think of only today rather than prepare for the morrow..
2. How to diversify across asset classes -Equity/ Commodities/ Real Estate to minimize risk.
3. Comparative Analysis of dominant companies in the industry: ex: Exide Vs Amaraja, Marico Vs Emami,
Havells vs Bajaj Electricals, Hero Moto Vs Bajaj Auto, M & M Fin Vs Bajaj Finance, etc
4. How to build a steady income for risk averse investors through Debt and Equity Mutual Funds.
Dear Vishal Ji
I am new reader of ur blog and i want to invest money I just wanna ask that is it possible 2 invest in stock market with having 1000 rs. I am a student and i want to invest my pocket money…..if not in stock market then plz tell me where i can invest ??
Hi Vishal,
I am still going through your classroom sessions, in meanwhile I have always been puzzled by stocks trading at very high PEs. One expample is gillete, which as such is does not seem to have any compititor , but how can such high PE be justified. Does high PE of such stocks does not matter and we need to look for reasons why it is being assigned such high premium?
Amber
have you ever thought of making a pool of like minded investor and go for a leveraged buyout of some indian company available cheaply on the stock market..
Hi
Sir as pabarai guy said he studied all the wrong things big investors made and he avoided them.Please if you can you can look at mistakes of all big investor stock wise and see what was the fault.You can also cover stocks which have fallen and how we can in future avoid those companies.Hope you got my point.
Hi Vishal,
I immensely enjoyed learning Balance Sheet Analysis Part I, would like you to finish the assets side too at the earliest and cover analysis of Income statement and Cash Flow Statement too.
Regards
Hi Vishal,
Wow! I look at the comments above and wonder if your question was waiting impatiently to be asked for a long time now.. And here’s the question that has been the subject of several debates with my wife: Real Estate and Gold- How might these figure in our savings discipline? We already have a flat of our own in Chennai but as the years have gone by, we have craved for a better lifestyle. While I read that investing in real estate is quite the double edged sword , my wife feels it is the most profitable investment with the least risk since there is a tangible underlying asset. Gold, I read, is quite unproductive and even your gurus think, the less saved in gold the better. Somehow, this doesn’t seem to play out in the Indian context.
Penny for your thoughts?
Which companies are listed in India that would meet Warren Buffet’s criteria – both qualitatively and quantitatively
can you clarify what is Warren Buffet’s criteria?
Vishal, your website is interesting. How to decide the value due to “good will” of a company. In that way, one can decide whether the premium paid over the book value is justified or not…
Hello,
Would you be able to tell us your view of index funds / index ETFs in India. Do you feel it is getting / will get difficult to beat the NIFTY? Are more managed funds able to beat the indexes (NIFTY or SENSEX)?The most liquid index ETFs seem to be the Benchmark (Goldman Sachs) NIFTY and JUNIOR BEES. Do you feel these are good equity investment vehicles to invest in every month for the long term. Do you think a PE based investment into these two ETFs is a good idea (e.g. buy at 24).
Thank you.
Hemant
Vishal,
It would be value addition if you can add topics on asset allocation including real estate, central monetary policies impact, value investing- how to identify company with moats in India, and also book reviews, successful investment by global value investors on post facto basis. And last but not least, on developing emotional intelligence, as personally I have lost more money owing to this factor in my 25 years investing experience. ‘When to sell’ would also be a good topic.
Thanks
There are a large number of “investors” who like to play the stock market “game” – I will not use the word “satta” that’s too disparaging.
There are also a good number of genuine INVESTORS I am sure like myself who would like to put away their savings in 2 Low Cost Equity Funds + 2 Low cost Fixed Income Funds and get on with their lives, spend time with their families and hobbies and spend as little time as possible on “playing” with their investments.
I have found one guide out there called Moneylife.in
Are there any others ?
Would you write more about liquid funds (Liquidbees and all)?