“Small is beautiful”. Or so most people believe after seeing how smaller and midsize stocks have delivered over the past year. Past performance always produces biases that one needs to understand closely. Scarcity and demand are a deadly combine. If the two combine with a grave sense of urgency, the…
30000 for the sensex is an intoxicating number. It would make one feel heady if we think of where we stood 18 months ago. But, this is no time to soak in the moment. This is a time to think of our investment response to the situation. Should we simply…
How we invest during volatility decides how much we return during euphoria. Investors love the idea of thinking big. Everybody dreams of making that one investment that takes their wealth into the stratosphere. That big idea is an elusive one for most investors. So, your investing should be structured to…
Remember “musical chairs”, the game played in your childhood. Investing in bull markets is very similar. It is only when the music stops that we will know who is holding seat and who is standing. Till then, investors buy and sell stocks merrily without an iota of fear. Many even…
How should we approach investing in 2015? First, we should look beyond 2015. 2015 will only see the groundwork being laid for future growth. Our confidence in the return of growth in the economy will grow in 2015. But, the speed of change will not meet market expectations. So the…
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…