Companies that take on too much leverage, stretch their market capitalization, and sell a perennially rosy picture to investors actually believe that they can pull off the impossible. These companies pull out all the stops to perpetuate position and propagate their ‘story’ in the stock market. They tirelessly campaign hoping…
The results season has begun very well in January, 2013. Outperformance of expectations is absolutely necessary to bring confidence back. The fact that all three IT majors and ITC beat the street estimates bodes well for sentiment. This essentially means that the markets will be better placed to handle negativity. The sentiment will slowly…
Infosys proved why it has been a bellwether stock for close to two decades. It silenced its aggressive critics with a characteristic outperformance. One knew all along that critics of the company were going over the top and unduly panning it for slippages which were usually low single digit drops…
Quick edit: Presumption is dangerous when we try to predict the markets. When everyone presumes the same thing, the actual outcome often turns out to be the contrary. Most analysts believe the markets will rise to new highs in the first half of 2013. One finds very few contrarians on…
Predictions have a simple way of deceiving. They take longer than we think to actualize. A recurrent lesson that we learnt making predictions was that we almost always ended being early. An early prediction isn’t wrong. It simply takes more time and patience to make a prediction work. Our market prediction…
At the beginning of 2012, we were of the view that equities were very attractively priced. The bad news was mostly factored in. The good news wasn’t. This was a classic buy signal and we said so. The markets have performed very decently throughout 2012. Sadly, domestic investors refused to…
The markets always pray for a prophet to guide them. ‘If only we had this seminal mind that takes us through everything!’ is the most basic hope of lay investors. This explains the rationale of having market gurus. Never mind, there is no market prophet. We still have a Buffett…
The government got its act together on FDI in retail, PSU Disinvestment, land bill and Spectrum price corrections within just a fortnight. That it could pull together so much in quick fire mode is a sign of things to come. Reforms are now a dire necessity. Everybody who matters politically…
Whenever the Indian markets rallied, the fundamentals always played second fiddle to Reliance -the index bellwether. ‘There can be no rally without Reliance’; even the walls of Dalal street had this belief plastered all over. As Reliance rose and fell, our market hit bull highs and bear troughs for…
December often sets the tone for the next year’s market trend. The early birds move ahead of the market to capture vantage positions. Last December saw the markets bottom out. Throughout 2012, FII’s have taken full advantage of the absence of the domestic retail investor from equities. They have been…
Delisting was the most preferred choice among companies where the promoters held above 76% stake. When a decision had to be made to either delist or lower the promoter stake below 76%, most companies leaned towards delisting. The merits of having a public listing seemed to be inadequate to deter…
Diwali was a quiet affair on Dalal street. Unusually, the markets fell on the mahurat trade. Investors seem more unsure than ever about which was the sentiment will swing. The usual gyaan from the market wizards did little to investor confidence. So, why are investors fighting shy of equities? Are…