Investing

Reputation is difficult to build but easy to lose. How we hope people in the investment industry respect this for a fact. Sadly, most don’t!

“We’ve given you so much information on our business. Now what can you do for us?” I was stumped to hear this from the CFO of a “reputed” mid-size Indian IT services company when I went to meet him sometime in 2009. I had received several such requests from lower rank managers of other companies in the past, but to expect this from a CFO was like too much!

This harmless-sounding question – “What can you do for us” – means a lot when you are stock market analyst who is preparing to write a report on a company. When a top manager asks an analyst as to what he can do for the former’s company, he is indirectly nudging the latter to write a positive report (a ‘Buy’ recommendation) on the stock. Yeah, that’s true!
[Read more…] about Ethical Analyst: Conflict of Interest

When a CEO combines his ego and willingness to put precious capital on the line to grow his company bigger, faster, it can create disaster for investors.

All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” ~ Blaise Pascal

You must have heard the fairy tale where a spoiled princess reluctantly befriends a toad, who magically transforms into a handsome prince triggered by the princess kissing it.

Well, those were the older times. Today’s capitalistic society has been witness to a large number of spoiled princesses trying the same trick on a large number of toads, only to realize that the tale of them turning into princes they had heard of was just that…a fairy tale.

If you are confused why I am writing about the tale of the toad and princess, let me get straight to the point now.

If there’s one quick way a lot of companies and their CEOs have destroyed a lot of shareholders’ wealth in the past, it is through mergers and acquisitions (M&A).

So in the world of M&A, the spoiled princess is the company that is looking to acquire another company, and the toad is that other company that’s waiting to be acquired.

Now, despite 50 years of evidence demonstrating that most acquisitions don’t create value for the acquiring company’s shareholders, corporate managers continue to make more deals, and bigger deals, every year.
[Read more…] about Corporate Governance: How Companies Screw Investors

Consider this financial statement of a company…

If I were a promoter of this company and asked you to invest your money in it – and you did not know me personally – would you invest?

Okay, to sweeten the deal, I lower my asking price by 10%, would you invest now?

I share with you my optimistic view on the company’s future, and how you are going to earn great returns in the future. But would you still budge?

“Okay, what are you going to do with my money?” you ask me.

[Read more…] about But the Future is Bright!

The key to bringing lasting change in your life is by way of great habits. And the best way to build great habits is by starting small and building up.

I hope you would agree with me that life isn’t all about stock market investing or for that matter just about money. Making money is only a means to a greater end i.e., living a happy life.

It’s true that for many people stock market investing is a passion and they don’t do it just for money. However, it circles back to the logic that the activity of investing in stock market makes them happy. So investing is just a tool to achieve something more important – personal happiness.

The age old wisdom suggests that happiness is brought about by the right balance of financial, mental, physical and spiritual health. What financial abundance does is that it gives you an option to stop worrying about money all the time and focus your energy towards other happiness factors.

But you don’t have to wait till you are financially free to start your work on other areas of life. You can start today. Let’s pick up one area, say health and see how you can bring a change in this part of your life.

Everybody knows that to be more healthy and fit, you need to exercise and eat well. It is a common knowledge and part of everybody’s new year resolution. Problem is that these resolutions are short lived and motivation to carry on the new activity dies down rapidly after few days.
[Read more…] about Life 2.0: Habits of Life

I have been holidaying for the past two weeks now, and have thus been almost away from thinking about the stock market or accessing any financial media.

In fact, I am currently in one holy city in India, where not many people have an inkling of what the stock market is all about, forget knowing or reading any of financial media. Life is thus good and simple here, largely because people are away from the noise of a big city and its constantly attention-seeking media!

Even I do not have much access to such media here, except when I turn on my laptop. This has given me a lot of time to think about the role of financial media in the life of investors.

I have always maintained that consuming financial media is often dangerous for investors, because almost none of it is good.

But if you are a consumer (most of us are), here are ten secrets I have to share with you on what financial media can do to your mind and behaviour over the long run, and why you must avoid most of it.

[Read more…] about 10 Secrets You Must Know about Financial Media

Honesty and ethical practices are of utmost importance in any business, and especially in the investment business that remains clouded under mistrust. What’s wrong and what must be righted is what we discuss here.

The richest one percent of this country owns half our country’s wealth, five trillion dollars. One third of that comes from hard work, two thirds comes from inheritance, interest on interest accumulating to widows and idiot sons and what I do, stock and real estate speculation. It’s bullshit. You got ninety percent of the American public out there with little or no net worth. I create nothing. I own. We make the rules, pal. The news, war, peace, famine, upheaval, the price per paper clip. We pick that rabbit out of the hat while everybody sits out there wondering how the hell we did it. Now you’re not naive enough to think we’re living in a democracy, are you buddy? It’s the free market. And you’re a part of it. You’ve got that killer instinct. Stick around pal, I’ve still got a lot to teach you.

[Read more…] about EthicalAnalyst: Ethics in Investment Business

We discuss the quality of language used by companies in their annual reports and other investor communication, and suggest why this may be a result and indicator of governance or mis-governance.

In August 1998, the US stock market regulator, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released a book called A Plain English Handbook.

Now, you may wonder, “What business does a stock market regulator has to focus on plain English?”

The SEC released this handbook to show corporate managers, especially CEOs, how they could use well-established techniques for writing in plain English to create clearer and more informative disclosure documents like annual reports, while meeting all legal requirements.

The preface of the handbook was written by none other than Warren Buffett – the man who writes the world’s best shareholders letters – and this is what he wrote –

For more than forty years, I’ve studied the documents that public companies file. Too often, I’ve been unable to decipher just what is being said or, worse yet, had to conclude that nothing was being said.

There are several possible explanations as to why I and others sometimes stumble over an accounting note or indenture description. Maybe we simply don’t have the technical knowledge to grasp what the writer wishes to convey. Or perhaps the writer doesn’t understand what he or she is talking about.
[Read more…] about Corporate Governance: When Words Speak Loud