I am have been mulling a few things over the last few weeks. Thought of sharing it with all of you. I may probably do this again in the future on other topics
Cut and run
In the last few months, we have seen stocks nose dive when the market learnt that, management was doing something unethical or working against the shareholders. The examples are quite well known and need not repeated.
The reaction is swift and brutal. I have learnt this painful lesson personally in the past, on a few investments. In the first case – SSI tech, which occurred in early 2001, I kept holding the stock waiting for some miracle to happen. In the end, I lost around 90% of my investment in 2 years. The same occurred with Zylog in 2012-13, but as this was a tiny speculative position, the loss was very small.
We have been lucky to have avoided such a situation till date. However, it does not mean I am exempt from it. Inspite of my best efforts, I may end up trusting a management who could turn out to be a fraud.
To be clear, I don’t think we have any such position where I think the management is cheating us.
I want to make it clear that if such a situation were to occur and it becomes apparent that the management is either fudging the accounts or cheating the minority shareholders, i will not hesitate to exit even if it means a financial loss and me looking like a dumb fool.
I have learnt that exiting such a position and salvaging whatever you can is always the best option. Case in point: I sold zylog for a 30% loss at around 30-35/ share. It now sells for 0.8 (yes that’s not a typo)
Pick and choose
I am aware that some of you use the model portfolio as a starting point and pick and choose some positions out of it. I have no problems with it personally and you are free to make your decisions.
That said, I am would not do that if I were in your place. The reason has nothing to do with my ego or that I am some awesome investor whose every word is gospel.
The true reason is actually the opposite. Even the best of investors do not get more than 70% of their picks right (in our case its around 60-65%). This means that around 1 in 3 picks are wrong and will lose money.
When you pick and choose from the model portfolio, you are making an implicit bet that you have the skills to know which one of my three picks, will fail. I cannot judge that for anyone – that is for you to answer for yourself.
My own process acknowledges the above failure rate and hence most of the new positions start small and at a lower priority in the model portfolio. As the company/ management performs, I raise the position size (often after a long time). If on the other hand, I make a mistake, I simply take the loss and move on.
The key point in this process is that my focus is on the portfolio, which should do well and not on individual positions alone. Doing a pick & choose means, that you are ignoring the portfolio approach (or handling it yourself)
