Archives for July 2012

Value Investing, the Sanjay Bakshi Way – Part 1

I recently had the privilege of meeting one of the highly regarded professors in the field of value investing and behavioral finance, Prof. Sanjay Bakshi in New Delhi.

Safal Niveshak meets Prof. Sanjay Bakshi

Prof. Bakshi teaches MBA students (at MDI Gurgaon) two popular courses: “Behavioral Finance & Business Valuation” and “Financial Shenanigans & Governance”.

He is also the CEO of Tactica Capital Management, a boutique firm engaged in deep value investing.

It was like a dream come true for me, having met a guru who has been a great teacher in my investing pursuits over the past few years. So it was obvious for me to wait for Prof. Bakshi’s arrival with butterflies in my stomach.

My Life Purpose (and Money Isn’t Part of It!)

Image Source: LabSaints

In the daily grind of your life, amidst the rat race that you might be running day in and day out to earn more and more money, what if I tell you that money – financial wealth you are trying to accumulate – might not be your life’s purpose…your reason for being?

“What s***t are you talking about, Vishal?” a friend asked me when I made the above statement to him a few days back?

“Life is all about living happily, and you need a lot of money to do that!” he remarked with an expression as if I’d told him something blasphemous.

“Of course, you need money to live a happy life.” I clarified. “Whatever any spiritual guru says, I believe that money is a necessary evil…and thus important.

“But then money is not what I’m living for!” I added.

Winners of the Safal Niveshak 1st Anniversary Contest

A few announcements to make before I get to the Contest winners…

Safal Niveshak is now 1,000+ tribesmen strong. 🙂 Thank you so much for your support!
I’ve opened registrations for the Art of Investing Workshop in Pune on 18th August, Saturday. If you are in Pune, and have six hours to spend with me on that Saturday, you can click here to register for the Workshop.
The Mumbai Workshop on 21st was awesome in terms of interaction and deep discussions on value investing (one tribesman, Kiran, actually travelled 36 hours to attend the Workshop!). Delhi, we’ll meet this Saturday.

Participants from Art of Investing Workshop in Mumbai

Now for the winners of the Safal Niveshak 1st Anniversary Contest.

8 Things I Wish I’d Known Before Starting as an Investor

I have been a stock market investor for the past nine years now, and have seen a respectable performance overall.

Why respectable? Because my investments have helped me at several key phases of my life, most important being the purchase of a house property and then repayment of the entire loan on the same within 5 years (though with some support from the family).

Then, apart from a solid support from my wife, I must thank my investments to have given me the necessary “guts” to quit my job and begin on this journey of independence, where all I work for is my passion – to help individual investors like you become independent and sensible in managing your own money.

So even after doing a respectable job as an investor, what could be the things that I still rue I’d learned before starting out nine years back?

Warren Buffett’s ‘Secret Holy Grail’ to Successful Investing

We discussed the importance of reading annual reports in the past two posts.

We also briefly discussed the importance of reading financial statements that convey the language of business.

Now here is a small quiz for you – What is that one thing you look for in a company’s financial statements?

Is it to know how much a company is leveraged? Is it to know how profitable the company is? Or is it something else?

How to “Read” an Annual Report in 5 Minutes

“How can this be possible?” you must be wondering.

Indeed there’s a way – and you can get a lot of hints from this on whether to junk the annual report, or to explore it deeper.

Well, let me have this video do the talking.

In this video, I also talk about 8 warning signs you must watch out for while glancing through an annual report.
[Read more…] about How to “Read” an Annual Report in 5 Minutes

Simplest Trick to Outsmart 99% of All Investors

If you have been an investor for long, you must have heard about Jim Rogers.

Rogers is a leading global investor and commodities guru, and has an amazing track record over the past few decades.

When someone once asked Rogers what was the best advice he ever got, he said it was the one he received from an old man in an airplane.

Happy Birthday Safal Niveshak!

First Birth Anniversary “And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” ~ Abraham Lincoln

It gives me great pleasure to share with you, dear Safal Niveshak tribe member, that today marks the completion of the first year of Safal Niveshak (my third child :-))…an initiative of empowering you to become independent, sensible, and successful in your financial life.

It was on 9th July 2011 that I stepped into the unknown, fearful of what destiny might bring for Safal Niveshak.

Today, as I pushed the “publish” button for the 276th time, I looked back at a wonderful journey filled with excitement, immense learning, new relationships, and creation of lifelong friendships.

An Honest Letter from Your Friendly Stock Market Analyst

Your Friendly Stock Market Analyst Dear Small & Irrelevant Investor,

You must be surprised to receive this letter from me – the ever-so-busy Stock Market Analyst working for your friendly, neighbourhood broker.

But you see I have been enjoying some free time these days because the markets are weak and people are not buying stocks, and thus not reading much of my recommendations.

So here I am, sparing some of my precious time writing to you. I am heart-broken reading all the maliciousness that is being spread these days about me, and my graceful profession.

I’ve even heard that there is this guy called Vishal Khandelwal who’s running this funny, charitable, new website called Safal Niveshak (sounds similar to “Suffer Niveshak”! Ha-Ha-Ha!) and is trying to throw a lot of s**t on my work…but I’ll handle that later in this letter.

I Regret…

Here is what a Safal Niveshak tribesman, Sanjeev Bhatia, wrote in the latest Facebook Jam last Saturday (sorry Sanjeev, but it’s your turn to claim the fame ;-))…

I have a particular Behavioral Problem. You recently wrote somewhere that pain of seeing your picks down 15% is more intense than pleasure of seeing your picks go up 15%. But in my case, it seems to be different. I am now seeing BHEL going up to 232 level, did not buy at 200 because my buy price was 180. Opto Circuit, my buy price was 140, it bounced back from 147 to 155…and with market going up and in strong upward momentum, it does not seem likely to come down soon although you can’t say that with certainty in this market. How to let go off this “being left out” syndrome?

What Sanjeev thought, and as I understood from his question, was that he was suffering from a “unique” behavioral problem – something like the “Alice in Wonderland Syndrome”, which is a neurological disorder that can effect a person’s perception.

But then, as I mentioned in the jam, and experienced investors would vouch for this, is that Sanjeev suffers from nothing more than a “common cold”, like most of us investors.

[Read more…] about I Regret…