Notes on value investing

This is the annual report season.  Among the ones on my tracker, TVS Srichakra is possibly one of the most reticent companies. Hardly any analyst reports, no CEO interviews, no flashy investor PPTs - pretty hard to figure out whats going on.  No fancy investors (a.k.a Dolly Khanna, Porinju, Anil K Goel, R. Jhunjhunwala et al). As per ValueResearchOnline, only L&T Mutual Fund holds the stock. Broadly, the market is disinterested in this stock. The stock price is at a multi-year low !  What a Value Investor seeks to figure out is - how deep is the Value-Price mismatch? So what's happening to this stock which was a 20-bagger in just 3 years (2014-2017)? Some hints and questions from the charts. This kind of prep helps you understand the Annual Report better and look for answers.  One of the ways to find a multibagger (or deteriorating situation) is to read some of these early signs. At a ROCE & ROE of close to 30% (that is a seriously big R...

Slow Dance by David L. Weatherford Have you ever watched kids On a merry-go-round? Or listened to the rain Slapping the ground? Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight? Or gazed at the sun fading into the night? You better slow down. Don’t dance so fast. Time is short. The music won’t last. Do you run through each day On the fly? When you ask: How are you? Do you hear the reply? When the day is done, Do you lie in your bed With the next hundred chores Running through your head? You better slow down. Don’t dance so fast. Time is short. The music won’t last. Ever told your child, We’ll do it  tomorrow ? And in your haste, Not see his sorrow? Ever lost touch, Let a friendship die Cause you never had time To call and say, “Hi?” You better slow down. Don’t dance so fast. Time is short. The music won’t last. When you run so fast to get somewhere, You miss half the fun of getting there. When you worry and hurry through your day, It’s like an unop...

Why this article? In the random event that some youngster at the beginning of his/her career reads this, I want it to be of some use for him/her. Its also a personal reflection on how I have evolved in my approach to equities in the last one decade. It isn't meant to evaluate my performance or say that my approach is right. But rather to record how each person evolves a unique investing style over time. There are lot of nuances of stock picking - have tried to highlight the key changes in my approach rather than my entire approach. (I tried to jot that down here some months earlier - http://anandhariharan.blogspot.in/2017/10/my-stock-picking-method.html) In the beginning I started out as an equity investor after a casual hallway chat at EY in 2007 thereabouts with a fellow Senior Consultant who at that time used to work in financial services risk advisory. I knew nothing about finance those days though on paper I had a PGDM from what is ranked as one of India's top 10 b-s...