2014 was a blockbuster year for equity investing. It played out like a film script. 2014 was born out of pessimism. Markets outgrew skepticism as elections drew near. A clear mandate triggered market euphoria. Stock aversion seen in 2013 turned into stock affliction in 2014. Both mind states are terrible,…
The big picture of the economy doesn’t change every weekend. Unlike the cinemas which keep shifting the big picture every week, the economy changes to a slow progression. That makes the excitement quotient very low when we study an economy in slow change. All we need to focus upon is…
Fear returns exactly when nobody expects. Bad IIP numbers, widening deficits and a weaker rupee are seen as provocative symptoms. Doom saying can’t get more absurd than this. Falling oil prices and new multi year lows in crude is the greatest news for the Indian economy. Falling inflation is another…
Investing is the intersection of economics and psychology. –Seth Klarman The complete absence of fear is the perfect setting for the advent of fear. When markets believe it is going one way up, volatility tends to dip. The lack of two way fluctuations make the markets appear infallible. This is…
Are macroeconomic trends and stock markets really connected? Many people think not. The stock market deceives many with the impression that it is not really connected to the real economy. One can’t be more wrong believing that the markets don’t work on economic logic. Markets are closely tuned to economic…
Mergers and acquisitions are the buzzwords all around us. Businesses seeking rapid growth in a recovering economy clearly prefer to grow inorganically. If they don’t acquire swiftly, the valuations of businesses will be much higher once the economy recovers. It makes eminent sense to buy now than to pay top…
Iwiz: When euphoria is near, it is the time to fear. Quick edit: Good times bring their own subset of problems. For investors attuned to buying stocks cheap, this market is not a go-to place. Value is no more apparent. Where value is cheap, there are policy gaps that aren’t…
“The individual investor should act consistently as an investor and not as a speculator.” – Ben Graham We always believe it is our investment knowledge that delivers results for us. We overly emphasize on our ability to analyze, sort and select. We think too much of analysis and too little…
“Things always become obvious after the fact – Taleb.” Short-sightedness stops us from looking far enough. Often, we miss the big picture because we were checking on the pixel strength. When we need to gaze far and understand the distant future, we need to put what we see around us…
“What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well.” Investors mostly believe that wealth is created through better performance of financial instruments. Therefore, when instruments fail to deliver, investors take the easy way of blaming the instrument. Faulting the manager is another common response. Investors mostly overlook…
Bargain hunting is a constant pursuit. Thats the only way it works. Managing expectations is an art. Mastery over this art determines who lead the world for the rest to follow. Icons are always past masters at managing expectations. The key factor in managing expectations is how we set them…