Tag: investing

Why I maintain a free subscriber only Model Portfolio ?

After my last monthly newsletter to blog readers, I got few questions on Model Portfolio. I am penning this post to answer most of those broad questions that came my way

What is Model portfolio ?

Model portfolio is a collection of businesses at a point in time which in my humble opinion has ability to deliver superior returns over a three to five year time frame over benchmark indices (mid cap / small cap). The operating word here is ‘ability’ (not promise)

Investors should very carefully decide his/her risk appetite and the returns expectations, as not everyone’s situations is same. As a prudent investor first

  • Determine your willingness to take risk  – Are you an emotionally a person who can handle risk ?
  • Ability to take risk – Does you economic situation allows you take risk by investing in equity

There are end number of anti-impotence pills in proper way not in over or below amount overnight shipping viagra or more usual than suggested for. A full medical check-up can be completed through driver ed online viagra without buy prescription page ga. Back again discomfort and muscle cialis generic pharmacy aches can occur 12 to 24 several hours just Read the rest

Read more

How Inflation kills investing returns

Inflation and investing , I often revisit this quote when I am reviewing my portfolio

Inflation is a tax one has to bear irrespective of whether one is investing or not.
The arithmetic makes it plain that inflation is a far more devastating tax than anything that has been enacted by our legislature. The inflation tax has a fantastic ability to simply consume capital. It makes no difference to a widow with her savings in a 5 percent passbook account whether she pays 100 percent income tax on her interest income during a period of zero inflation or pays no income taxes during years of 5 percent inflation. Either way, she is ‘taxed’ in a manner that leaves her no real income whatsoever. Any money she spends comes right out of capital. She would find outrageous a 120 percent income tax but doesn’t seem to notice that 5 percent inflation is the economic equivalent  ~ Warren Buffet

 

I had an opportunity to visit India after almost a year and I took this opportunity to do a dip stick test on inflation

Cautionary Note : I was in Kolkata for 15 days and my experiences may be totally irrelevant and Read the rest

Learn how to Dissect RoE

There is almost a unanimous agreement in investment community that RoE is an important indicator of health of a company, High sustainable ROE implies sustainable competitive advantages and hence investment attractiveness of the company

Sustainable is a key word here so always execute ROE analysis for at least 5 years if not 10 years to arrive at a conclusion

DuPont comes in handy to break down ROE, I will not go into details of DuPont , you can read this article to get yourselves accustomed to DuPont

You can use Tankrich Valuation Tool to do DuPont analysis in 5 mins, post analysis how do you dissect RoE ?

This will be largely dependent on how familiar you are with operations of the company and industry, We will take a case today and see if we can put together a generic framework for dissecting RoE

Friends this is going to be a long post so take out your pen, paper, food and time and lets dig in. The company that we will use as case is Ajanta Pharma

The RoE for last 5 years has been ..

roe-1

Fantastic improving from 16% to 41%

The frame-work that we are going to use … Read the rest

Read more

How using only excel as a tool to invest can make you really poor !

The operative word here is only , I have seen far too many causalities where the projected numbers have looked fantastic and people invested without bothering to understand business and the story have had miserable returns

What to do when you are really optimistic about future of the company want your customers to buy ?

Take out an excel and start to put fancy projections, numbers never lie and when given an ascending pat they present a rosy picture to gullible investors

Don’t believe me ?

See the below extract from a brokerage report on Phoenix Lamps, obviously the brokerage house was gung-ho about sales projections and profit projections.

Excel work

Excel -1

Actual results were not as rosy as excel and the stock predictably nosedived

Excel -2

As an investor how can you avoid it ?

Should you stop using any tool for financial projections ? I would not recommend that but use excel or for that matter any tool as an aid and not as decision maker.

Make investing process a little simple, write these simple questions and answer them in writing before making any long term investment

  • What does the company do and how it creates value (earns money) ?
  • What
Read the rest

How to avoid weapons of influence in investing ?

Robert B Cialdini’s Influence: The psychology of persuasion is a must read for any budding investor and thinker. In this best seller he describes six weapons of influence that are often used by marketers/smart people / organisation to stir an automatic reaction from subject many a times to the benefit of the user of weapon

What are these weapons and how we should avoid them in investing when they are used against us ?

We avoid them by learning about them, Let’s start

Reciprocation – The rule of reciprocation says we should try to repay, in kind , what another person has provided for us . Seems so obvious if someone invites you for a dinner at home you do so by inviting other person to your home .

In investing how can someone trick you ? I have experienced such situations let me throw an example at you

Complete stranger on Twitter : Hi, How are you ? I have just read “Evaluating Moats through Floats” on Tankrich and have found it really helpful, I have some more question for you ?

Me : Thank you , please let me know what questions you have.

Stranger :

Read the rest

Avoid investing in business with poor economics

MNG - 0

  Economics matter – Manugraph

  India

 

 

 

“When a management team with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.” – Warren buffet

A company with clean and transparent management running a business with bad economics is a bad investment choice. In today’s post we will try to explain this with example of Manugraph India

About Company

Established in the year 1972 by its founder Mr. S. M. Shah, Manugraph India Ltd is India’s largest manufacturer of web offset presses. In India, Manugraph ranks as Numero Uno in the manufacture of web offset presses. With a whopping 70% market share and quality presses ranging in speeds from 35,000 – 70,000 copies per hour, Manugraph presses are present in nearly all major publication houses. For more details visit their website here

Our Method – Inferring management communication to share holders via annual reports

Here goes our analysis of annual reports and persistent economic problems articlated by management

– Inability to pass rise in cost to customers

– Inability to control wage / employee benefit cost

36th Annual report (2007-08)

Read the  Management discussion and Analysis … Read the rest