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…
The investor’s tool kit – a cool head, adequate liquidity and a strong urge to buy good stocks. Data is increasingly a critical market driver. These days, we get data from all over and our markets respond to local and global data. The Indian data still doesn’t look good. Manufacturing…
Quick edit: A sub $90 pricing for crude oil. Just what the deficit warriors ordered. The trajectory of India’s economic recovery is set to change. The turnaround moment in India’s economic battles could be just now. If oil prices stay soft, we could definitely see inflation thaw, deficits narrow, business…
“The challenge in life is knowing what’s next.”– Walter Schloss. Quick edit: Calibration is not a word often associated with equity investing. Yet, calibration remains the essential tool in every serious investor’s toolkit. Knowing what to buy is one thing. Many investors know their winning ideas quite well. Yet, they…
“What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well.” Invest speak: The commodity super cycle played itself out over the past decade putting the user businesses under severe stress. Margins of commodity user industries experienced a sustained squeeze as businesses struggled under the load of rising interest…