Herd mentality!

 The feelings of the crowd rather than being sum total of their feelings, nobody would subscribe to individually – as a bull / bear market develops, a lot of people are active part of it. And their feelings – bullish & extra risk taking in a bull market ; vice versa in a bear market- are so because they are part of a crowd & if they were not part of this crowd, then it is possible that their feelings would have been completely different. It is the herd mentality that makes people in a crowd have feelings that they might not have if they are not part of the crowd. In 1990’s the idea of all changing impact of I.T. leading to the dot. Com bubble etc..

If bear market is the best time to buy stocks/ other assets, then why don’t people buy during bear markets ?

In A Bear Market Its Easier For A Person To Admit That He Has Committed A Murder Or Has Stolen Something Than To Agree That He Owns Shares of a co.. Why so? Because the shares prices have been falling at a very fast pace for many months at a stretch, the gullible common investors who had bought foolishly at or near the top level of the indices –Sensex at 21300 in Dec2007,& at 6200 in Dec1999-have lost huge sums of money as it is common for the indices to fall 60% from their top- Sensex falls to 9000by Feb2009 & to 2900in Jan 2003. There is huge amount of negative publicity regarding owning shares. Yours truly also, when I started with speculation in 1999, lost all my meager savings. It was then that I decided that I will make huge sum of money . I looked for the people who hagd been the best in making money from equity markets. This led me to Warren Buffett, later Peter Lynch, Philip Fisher . By following the investment philosophy of these living legends, since 2000 my fund has been generating 30% compounded return p.a.. What that means is that Rs. 1 lakh invested under guidance of Vitastaa Investments & C. in year 2000 is worth about Rs. 10.6 lakhs by year end 2009.

p.s. I am wriring this blog after some time as the months of April, May,July, August, October, November January & February are the busiest for me as I have to update the financial performance of about 2000 cos. I keep track of.

Vision & its importance in invsting for a fortune!

Try to develop the vision to see where the sales & profits of the co. will be in future. I made huge sum of money by buying Hindustan Zinc at Rs. 14 / share in 2003 and the scrip went to a high of Rs, 1000 in 2007. You will see this happening again & again in the equity markets. In 2003, the N.D.A. govt. disinvested in . Sterlite ind. Bought the stake at Rs42/ share. The market price of was Rs.14-18 range. Every one could see that the shares of Hindustan Zinc were selling at a huge discount to the price at which a substantial stake of the co. was sold. I too saw that. And I bought about 5000 share at the price of Rs14. What also helped me in making this decision was that I had worked in Udaipur, Rajasthan. I had visited the plant of Hindustan Zinc . I had seen their mines. This helped in my buying the shares of Hindustan Zinc. That the global zinc prices were at a low was the added kicker. If the prices have been low for sometime of a commodity, then it usually means that the prices have hit a bottom & are headed northwards in future . Why other so called analysts, investors were not buying at this stage? The global economy was just recovering from the bursting of the i.t. bubble. There was fear all around. But an investor who did his home work of fundamental analysis on Hindustan Zinc, should have bought the shares of this co.. This is where the quality of an investor- firmness of character comes in. One has to have faith & conviction on one's investment decisions even though at that time nobody seems to see things that way or worse laugh at or ridicule your investment decisions.

Mr. Market and its importance.

Mr. Market and its importance.
 How to avoid being influenced by the fluctuations in share prices? As the father of value investing Benjamin Grahm rightly said, to avoid being mesmerized by the daily fluctuations in stock prices, imgine that there is one Mr. Market- representing the stock market- who daily comes up with quotes for the shares you own & other co. share prices too. Some times his quotes seem reasonable –around the time when equity markets are trading at reasonable valuations of P/E of 12-15- but at other times they are downright silly- in bear and bull markets. It is upto the investor how he profits from these quotations say by buying company shares cheap in bear markets and selling them high in bull markets.

greek tragedy & chinese real estate bubble!

Tremors in Greece ( on going global movie starring Greece as a troubled, high debt country, supported by Portugual , Spain & rest of european union) &
Bubble in Chinese real estate! – forth coming global premier.

Is it curtains for Indian economy because of on going global greek tragedty?Does the economic woe of Greece affect the decision to purchase a car or a house by an Indian? No it does not. What it, at its worst will impact is the sentiment of the people around the globe in a negative manner for a short time & in India for even a shorter period. Why so? This is elaborated below.
If anecdotes are to are to believed, the Chinese real estate market is in a bubble stage. If true- it seems to be so- then there will be an inevitable collapse of this bubble. That will be bad for the global economy. And for India also. But for India, to a limited extent only. Why so ? Because Indian economy is domestic demand driven. The collapse of real estate market bubble in China will lead to a falling demand for commodities across the globe & hence a fall in their prices. This will benefit Indian economy and Indian cos. also –except commodity producing cos.. This is what happened after the recession of 2008 in U.S.A.. there was all around collapse of commodity prices – crude oil fell from$ 145/ barrel to $45/ barrel levels & so on. After a decline in growth, Indian economy is back to its relatively high growth.
There is another silver lining- U.S. economy is officially out of recession & returning to positive growth.

Joke of the day!

Govt. should take up contracts for making explosives etc. used by the terrorists. this way, none of them will work when they are used- just like most govt. products & services!

DON’T RAISE THE INTEREST RATES!

DON’T RAISE THE INTEREST RATES!
With crores of indians living in abject poverty, what India needs is double digit growth. As Mr. K.V.Kamath, former M.D., I.C.ICIC, bank rightly & famously said that India needs to have single digit interest rates for double digit growth. The R.B.I. governor has to choose between moderate interest rates, high growth , moderate to moderately high inflation & high interest rates, low growth, moderate inflation. Common sense seems to indicate to me & to u all also that the former option is the better one. Let us hope & pray that the R.B.I. governor & present govt. also has it. ( which I personally doubt). So my guess is that we should be prepared for increasing interest rates in India in coming months.

INEVITABLE SUPER CYCLE OF HIGH CRUDE OIL PRICES.

Just about a decade back, crude oil price in 2000 was at a bottom of $10/ barrel. And in the seventies crude oil prices were in range of $3/ barrel. Then as we all know that was the meteoric rise of crude oil price to a high of $175 /barrel in 2008- a whooping increase of 17.5 times in just eight years – the previous high of crude oil being $33/ barrel in the 1990’s. The high of 2008 was an increase of 5.3 times over the high touched in 1990’s. By now you must get the drift. In 2008, with crude oil at a high of $175 / barrel, every body was expecting the price to go to $ 300/ barrel & more. But I made the correct prediction in my blog - www.rupeekul.blogspot.com- that crude oil is headed for a massive correction- read the blog dated 6june,2008- ‘crude prices at record highs’.
In India, retail prices of petrol, diesel etc. are heavily susidized by the govt.. At import parity , with present crude prices at $78/ barrel- the retail price of petrol will be approximately Rs 70/litre.
By conservative estimates, one can easily say that in the next cycle of increase crude oil prices, they might increase say 3-4 time their previous high of $175/ barrel. The next record high of crude might be in range of $525-700 /barrel. Hard to imagine, isn’t it? But then the crude oil price was just $10/barrel just as recently as 2000.Hence in future we are headed for super high inflation. Be prepared for it.