Category Uncategorized

November 23, 2018

4 Min read

1 comment

I wrote the following note to subscribers, in context of a specific position. I have made edits and additions to the original note for this post.

I have a different set of expectations from this position. The management of the company is quite conservative (rightfully so) and as a result has always grown at a measured pace without taking on too much debt. As a result, the profit growth has never been too high, but at the same time the company has always been profitable even in the worst of the times.

Due to this cautious approach, we cannot expect this position to be a multi-bagger any time soon.

Although a lot of subscriber still look at individual positions, I prefer to zoom out and look at the aggregate portfolio level. We are not in multi-bagger business where me and kedar will run around touting our wins on social media.

Our focus is to achieve above average returns at the portfolio level with lower risk over the long run, to achieve our financial goals.

Mania of the multi-baggers

The last three years have been all about multi-baggers.

The Media is usually fixated on multi-baggers and short term price changes as that grabs attention (which is their sole focus). Unfortunately, a lot of investment advisories and so called gurus are the in same boat. It is not too difficult to see the reason – you need to make big claims to grab attention and clients.

Touting a low risk, steady compounder which doubles every four years is not going to win too many fans and subscribers/investors. As a result, the focus of the industry is to talk about high returns and multi-baggers in the portfolio, ignoring the risk completely.

On this count, I will not blame the media and financial industry alone for selling dreams to the general public. A vast majority of investors (if you can call them that) are searching for shortcuts to become rich quickly. Media and a lot of professionals are merely satisfying that demand.

One cannot run a business on high principles alone.

Missing the forest for the trees

In selling, what is being demanded, the financial industry ends up ignoring several other key factors which drive returns over the long run.

The key point in investing is how well are you doing at the portfolio level and if the return is commensurate with the risk. The individual wins and losses are a driving factor but not the only criteria. Overall risk driven by position size and diversification plays an equally important role. I find these aspects of investing missing in most discussions.

If you agree with the above point, then you should also consider the lower risk, moderate return ideas. In the past, I have not allocated as much as I should have to these kind of ideas as they do not have the dazzle and fireworks. However, I have slowly changed my thought process on it.

A part of the portfolio should be allocated to such low key, solid performers which act as a ballast to the portfolio and deliver decent returns over the long run (with much lower stress). This is now becoming apparent where some of the past multi-baggers have left investors holding the bag.

Confusing the means (multi-bagger picks) with the end (achieving financial goals via equity investing) had led to investors achieving neither.

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Stocks discussed in this post are for educational purpose only and not recommendations to buy or sell. Please contact a certified investment adviser for your investment decisions. Please read disclaimer towards the end of blog.

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Dont worry, there will be pain

October 6, 2018

2 Min read

A comment made to subscribers when adding to the portfolio:

I am not calling out the bottom of the market or anything of the sort by making the above transactions. As I have repeated often in the past, no one other than liars and self-delusional people can predict what the market will do in the short term.

The best approach always is to look at each individual company closely and evaluate how it will do in the next 3-5 years including under stressful macro conditions.

As we add to the model portfolio, a few positions will not work out – that is a given. The key is to ensure that we do well on an aggregate basis and the returns are above average over time. This approach has worked for me over the last 20 years and I think is still the best approach to follow.

Although we are analyzing as rationally as possible and making a tough decision to start adding to the portfolio, it will be painful to watch the portfolio drop almost on a daily basis. After all these years in the stock market, it is equally painful for me. The key is to focus on the long-term prospects of the companies and their intrinsic value and not react to emotions which will lead you to the wrong decisions.

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Evaluating management: Bayesian reasoning and fallacy of obviousness

August 1, 2018

4 Min read

When I invest in companies, I don’t vouch for or give a character certificate to management. I look at the past and current behavior and then try to arrive at a judgement. In majority of the cases, past behavior is a good indicator, but we do get surprises from time to time.

If new developments make me change my view, I will not try to defend my past decision which was made on a different set of facts. The key is to rationality is to evaluate new facts appropriately and move on from there. As John Maynard Keynes said a long time ago – when facts change, I change my mind. What do you do sir?

Let’s move to the point of how to evaluate management quality in light of poor behavior? For starter, there is no formulae which will give the answer. The best analogy to judge management quality comes from the court system in passing verdict on defendants. A defendant is assumed innocent till proven guilty.

I personally try to look at management with a neutral view when I start analyzing a company. They are neither good nor bad. This is a very important point. I have seen majority of investors start with a presumption of a good or bad management and then collect evidence to prove it. It is very easy to make an assumption and gather enough evidence to prove your point.

The fallacy of obviousness

See this wonderful article which makes the same point. I would highly recommend reading this article. Some excerpts –

So, given the problem of too much evidence – again, think of all the things that are evident in the gorilla clip – humans try to hone in on what might be relevant for answering particular questions. We attend to what might be meaningful and useful

However, computers and algorithms – even the most sophisticated ones – cannot address the fallacy of obviousness. Put differently, they can never know what might be relevant. Some of the early proponents of AI recognised this limitation (for example, the computer scientists John McCarthy and Patrick Hayes in their 1969 paper, which discusses ‘representation’ and the frame problem).

In short, as Albert Einstein put it in 1926: ‘Whether you can observe a thing or not depends on the theory which you use. It is the theory which decides what can be observed.’ The same applies whether we are talking about chest-thumping gorillas or efforts to probe the very nature of reality

Equal priors

The key is to start without an assumption (50-50 probability for both scenarios or equal priors) and look at the meaningful (and not trivial) evidence to come to a conclusion. Once you have done that, your conclusion should not be set in stone, but treated as a hypothesis which can change based on new evidence.

If the management continues to behave well, your confidence is increased. If you start seeing negative behavior, your confidence goes down and at some point (which cannot be mathematically defined), you may lose faith in the management and exit the position.

The above approach is fancifully also called Bayesian reasoning.

One should think probabilistically when evaluating management and not consider these issues as black or white. That’s the essence of Bayesian reasoning.

The central point of this approach is to look at new evidence in light of your prior conclusion and change it in proportion to the evidence. In some case, the new episode may be a small one and will cause you to reduce your level of confidence a bit. In other cases, either the episode or series of episodes will be so awful, that you will be forced to change your mind completely.

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Cash and portfolio rotation

July 21, 2018

2 Min read

This short note went out to subscribers recently

You may have noticed that we have been churning the portfolio – selling down old positions and replacing them with new ones, but have not utilized the cash. This has been on purpose as I want to dispassionately look at all our positions and exit those where I feel that the overall risk reward equation could improve by replacing it with something else.

In some cases, the expected returns of the new position may still be the same, but the company has more avenues of growth and has shown consistent performance in the past. In effect the risk profile is lower for the new company. So, the rotation is not always to improve the returns, but often to reduce the risk of the overall portfolio too.

I have harped on the aspect of risk since last year and we were early on it. This will always be the case. No one can predict when the market will turn. Those who claim to do so, are lying and delusional. The best mindset to adopt is to focus on the performance of your companies and ignore all the chatter in the market.

We now have over 30% cash in the portfolio which is slightly higher than the start of the year. I continue to look for new ideas and that is my focus for now. As a result, I have even delayed the half yearly note, which can wait for now.

As the market continues to fall, several good quality companies have started to become attractive and we will deploy our cash when I am comfortable with these companies. I have no idea when the current downturn will end – though I am sure it will eventually.

In the meantime, we could suffer quotational losses on our portfolio (based on the market price), which should not disturb us if the companies we hold continue to perform well. The stock price will eventually follow the earnings.

As I have said in the past, one needs patience to invest sensibly in the stock market. Add a lot courage and a sense of long term optimism to it now.
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Stocks discussed in this post are for educational purpose only and not recommendations to buy or sell. Please contact a certified investment adviser for your investment decisions. Please read disclaimer towards the end of blog.

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An underappreciated edge

May 27, 2018

6 Min read

I wrote the following note recently to our subscribers. Hope you find it useful too.
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I wrote extensively on risk in the last year’s annual update (read here) and highlighted the fact that cash levels in the model portfolio were at an all-time high. (around 30%).

The reason for pulling back in, the latter part of 2017, was due to the frenzy and crazy valuations in the market. I was no longer comfortable with the risk reward situation and decided to stick to our process even if it meant that we had to forego easy returns.

I think we delivered fairly good results for CY 2017, even though we lagged the market in the second half of the year. More importantly, we dialed down the risk as much as we could.

Not easy to be disciplined

It was not an easy decision. It is painful to watch companies you are researching go up by 50% in a span of few weeks, even before you get a chance to finish your analysis. However, I have felt that a key edge for individual investors is their ability to be patient.

I can assure that it is not easy to sit and do nothing. I am an Engineer and MBA by education and have worked in a corporate job for a long time. As you all know, being patient and doing nothing is not acceptable in these roles. The more you do, the more you are rewarded.

Investing is not the same. More action in terms of buying or selling, especially for our style of investing does not improve returns. On the contrary, as I have often found out, may even result in worse outcomes. The work on research and analysis of current and new position continues behind the scene, but the act of pulling the trigger must be done thoughtfully.

Ignoring noise

We don’t have to react to every bit of news which gets published – oil prices up, interest rates up, some news about the manager’s nephew’s aunt etc. The point extends to the quarterly results too. I have been analyzing the results which have been good for a few of our positions. Overall, if the long-term trajectory of a company is intact, I do not want to read too much into it and take a short-sighted decision.

Most of you are aware of the above attitude and it is not new to you. However, it makes sense for me to emphasize this repeatedly to all of you. In this age of instantaneous news and social media, everyone thinks that reacting to news all the time is the key to making above average returns.

I am increasingly of the view, that in the current environment of hyper speed and automated systems, investors like us will do better by taking an opposite view – slow down, think deeply about a few companies and focus on the long-term trends. We will win as we simply have much lesser competition in this space.

Several of our current positions exemplify this mindset. We have held them for years and will continue to do so as long as they continue to perform and are not overly expensive.

Not blind to risk

The above does not mean that I am blind to risk and will be patient for the sake of it. If something goes wrong at a company level, I want to take time and think deeply about it and then take a decisive action.

However, my bias is usually do nothing as I have learnt from experience that most activity in the portfolio does not add much to the returns, only makes us feel that we are doing ‘something’. Although some of you may not share this sentiment and have numbers to back up a more active form of investing, I can only say that one has to invest based on their own temperament.

You will have to be comfortable with our slow and plodding style of investing.

A structural advantage

Mutual fund managers and other professional investors cannot afford to lag the market for long due to career risk. If you think otherwise, then you under-appreciate the pressure on someone who may not be able to provide for his or her family if they lose their job due to under-performance. A rare few can manage that pressure, but don’t count it.

There is a structural advantage if the Investment advisor (we should mention Investment Adviser) does not have a career risk when he or she makes good long-term decisions, even if that causes the portfolio to lag in the short term. This advantage (for the clients) is further enhanced when the manager invests a majority of his net worth in the same manner as the client.

Me and Kedar have setup the partnership in such a way that we do not face any such career risk. This edge has allowed us to be patient and not worry about the optics of our actions. I have often ignored emails from some of you, wanting to do ‘something’, if I don’t think it makes sense in the long run.

In addition to that a large part of our networth is invested in the same fashion as the model portfolio. This does not guarantee that each of our decision will be right, but our incentives are aligned with yours. We eat our own cooking.

We have also made it a point to ensure that subscribers who join us, are aware of our approach and buy into it. We will not deviate from it even if some of you write to me and start getting impatient (wanting to pull the trigger).

In the pipeline

Our cash levels are around 30% of the portfolio and I continue to look at new ideas. I don’t want to rush into it. We will add to the existing positions or to new ones if the price is right and I feel comfortable with the company’s prospects.

If all of us plan to invest for next 10-20 years, a few months will not make all that difference. We are in this for the long haul.

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Get Ready

March 31, 2018

6 Min read

I wrote the following to my subscribers recently. Hope you find it useful too.

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I am sure some of you got sick of my repeated discussion of risk management last year. In a bull market, the last thing you want to discuss about is risk. If a small cap stock, especially an IPO goes up by 3X in 3 months inspite of having an operating history of just a few years, forgoing such an opportunity to reduce portfolio risk appeared foolish.

This is always the case in bull markets. However, the same people who ignore risk in the stock market, do not behave in a similar fashion in other parts of their life. Have you ever heard someone with auto insurance, regret collecting the assured amount, inspite of paying the premium?

The price of focusing on risk and managing the downside during bull market is paid in the form of forgone returns. One should think of these ‘lost’ returns as an insurance premium you pay for the bear markets.

Let me explain how

Volatility at play

Let’s look at two managers who end up generating the same returns over a 5-year period.

Manager A (cautious and nervous)

Year 1 : +20%

Year 2 : +20%

Year 3 : -5%

Year 4 : +23%

Year 5 : +20%

This manager has delivered a CAGR of 15% with low returns in up markets and a lower drop during the bear market.

Manager B (bold and confident)

Year 1 : +50%

Year 2 : +50%

Year 3 : -50%

Year 4 : +40%

Year 5 : +30%

This manager has also delivered a CAGR of around 15% and beats the market by a big margin during up markets, but also get wacked during the downturn.

The reason manager B does well during bull markets, but get hurt during the downturns is often due to a high level of concentration in the portfolio. It is close to impossible to have a highly diversified portfolio of 30+ stocks and deliver a big outperformance.

The price of a concentrated portfolio (and high returns),is the much higher volatility of returns.

The guts to hold

Now, some of you may argue that as the eventual returns are the same, the path to it does not matter. To answer that question, you have to ask yourself – will you hold on if your entire portfolio dropped by 50% (and not one stock) and what if it’s the first year of your investment? More importantly, will you stay with a manager who performed this way?

I can state with a high level of certainty, that almost 99% of investors will dump the manager B and exit if the entire portfolio dropped by 50% or more. It is tough enough to hold based on your own conviction. To trust a person, you do not know personally, with this kind of volatility is close to impossible.

The net result of the above two styles is that manager A will end up delivering a CAGR of 15% for investors whereas those with manager B would end up with a CAGR of around 6% (assume they exit in year 3 and put all that money in FDs).

The above discussion is a mathematical and behavioral reason for my following comment – ‘No point getting rich, if you had a terrifying experience reaching that point’. The reality is that most folks will throw in the towel in middle of the journey and never get rich by the magic of compounding.

Time to get ready

We started raising the cash levels in the middle of last year as valuations went crazy. Our model portfolio trailed the midcap and small cap indices in the second half of the year

That was the insurance premium we paid to sleep better this year.

Since the start of the year, the two indices are down by 10-15% whereas we are down by much lower. I hope you are holding on and not planning to throw in the towel. I am amused to see a lot of commentators and investors talk of this drop as some major event. It clearly shows they have not followed the market history.

The Indian stock markets, especially the small and mid-cap indices have dropped by this level every few years. The real bear market in this segment is when the index drops by 25%+ and the scary one is if it drops 40%+. Will that happen in 2018? – I don’t know and have never tried to predict.

What I do know is that on average the companies we hold are doing well and as prices have dropped, the market is presenting an opportunity. By my last count, atleast 6 companies in the model portfolio are below the buy price and can be bought upto the allocations in the model portfolio.

Will the market continue to drop and more stocks drop below our buy price? Will the stocks already on the buy list continue to drop due to which you could have quotational losses (and not real losses) in your portfolio?

To both the questions – my answer is – I don’t know and it’s quite possible. I personally, don’t worry too much about these drops if the company is expected to do well in the long term.

I have said it in the past and will repeat here again – I can supply the analysis, but you need to come with the courage, cash and patience. If you have all the three in place, time to get ready and start purchasing slowly for your portfolio.

End note: By the way, Manager A has more career risk and will end up with lesser assets than manager B who can tout his returns during bull markets. However, investors in manager A come out ahead than those with manager B, as some of the investors in the latter case just drop out and never make the stated returns.

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The staircase chart

February 27, 2018

4 Min read

2 comments

There is a chart pattern which can either cause dread or euphoria in the hearts of investors.

There may be no formal name for it from technical analysts, so let me call it the stair case chart.This is either a stock hitting the upper or lower circuit continuously for days at end. The pattern looks like a staircase in a particular direction. More than the pattern, the investor psychology during this period is instructive

We had several stocks on the ascending staircase last year. Whenever such an event occurred, it was fascinating to read the comments of investors on social media. Everyone was patting each other on the back, congratulating the management and generally puffed up about their brilliance. The more intellectual types threw terms like moat, great management and large opportunity size to sound rational.

Of course, a rising price tends to obscure all risks and this occurred often in 2017.

The current year has been the reverse. We are now seeing the dreaded descending staircase chart pattern for a lot of companies. In these cases, the stock price is locked in the lower circuit and a lot of investors who want to get out of the stock, are not able to do so.

It is again fascinating to watch a different set of investors (it’s never the same) now talking of the dishonest management, bear conspiracy and the lack of liquidity.

It is tempting to make fun of others in either of the two scenarios, but I would caution you from doing so. It is not difficult to find yourself in one of these camps in the future. On the contrary, if you invest long enough, one of these patterns will hit you.

I track and study such events to understand the psychology and see what I can learn from it. This is my short summary

– Do not mistake correlation for causation. People invent reasons for quality or lack of it based on the price action. The time to evaluate quality is before the price action starts and not after it. Once the trend begins, it is not easy to avoid the emotional contagion

– You will never know everything there is to know about a company and its management. There are always unknowns and it’s important to stay humble – that is acknowledge your ignorance. Once you do that, you will respect risk and size your positions accordingly.

– Always have an estimate of fair value in mind. When the market goes crazy on the upside, reduce the position size to manage the risk of over concentration.

Have a downside plan in place. If you invest long enough, one of your position will eventually hit a wall. Know what you will do in advance as it is not possible to react rationally at that time.

– If you have bought into a speculative position, acknowledge that you are riding a tiger. As long you are in control, you are fine. If the table turns, be ready to be eaten (figuratively speaking). Position size and risk management is critical in such cases, so that you live to see another day (in terms of investing)

– Finally keep an open mind. This is of course easier said than done. The most common reaction for almost everyone is to attack someone who is arguing against your view point. In my case, whenever I read an opposing view, I take a deep breath and do nothing at that time, other than make a note of it. This allows me to calm down.

I usually come back to the argument after a few days and try to dig into the points being made against the thesis. In my case, I will note down these points and try to separate facts from opinion. Facts can be easily validated and disposed off. If there are opinions, then the best option is to analyze the reasoning and look for evidence to support it. Even if you don’t find the evidence right away, be on a look out. If you do see the evidence supporting the counter argument, then you know the other person is right.

Investing is all about betting on the future of a company and the best of us will be wrong from time to time. The key is to be on the lookout, acknowledge your mistake as soon as possible and fix it. The ones who make lesser mistakes on average do better than others over time.

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Annual letter to subscribers: On risk, Bitcoin and thinking long term

January 26, 2018

15 Min read

The following note was published recently to my subscribers. Any reference to performance or individual companies has been removed to ensure compliance with SEBI regulations.

I hope you find the note useful

What drove the performance

We exited 5 positions and replaced them with four new positions during the year.

It’s a unique year that none of our portfolio positions dropped in value. It is however not surprising considering that various indices were up 40-50% during the year, with almost 100+ stocks increasing by 100% or more. If we just compare the numbers, our performance is nothing to get excited about.

If you just threw darts at the small cap index, you could have done quite well. If, however, you were ready to throw caution to the winds and were open to go down the quality curve, then the gains were even higher. I am not crying sour grapes here. Let me explain why –

At any point of time, I am looking at several companies and track them over time. If I find an idea interesting, I usually create a small starter position to understand the sector and company better.

A lot of such starter positions are up anywhere between 60 to 400% during the year. So, when I say that, if you were adventurous and ready to take on risk, the returns were higher, it is not an academic point. I have seen the same happen in my personal portfolio.

You may ask – why did I not do it in the model portfolio? To that point, let me state something which I have repeated in the past.

The model portfolio mimics our (Kedar and mine) personal portfolios (except for a few small positions) and that of my family and friends. I will never ever take excessive risk just to look good and gain some boasting points.

A year of misses

This was a very frustrating year too. A few new ideas passed through the initial filter and ended up on the tracking list.

Several of the companies on this list seem to be decent bets for the long run, subject to execution by the management. I prefer to start with a small position and increase the size as the management executes as per the plan. If, however the management slips or the business conditions change for the worse, we will exit the position.

In several of these trail positions, the stock price rose rapidly, in anticipation of the improvement. It’s quite possible that the market is able to foresee the improvement much before I can. In that case, we may end up starting the position late with a lower upside, but with much lesser risk.

We need to be patient in all such cases as you never know when opportunity would knock again.

Change in approach: fail fast and small

There has been a subtle change in my approach in the last 1-2 years which I think should be shared with all of you. I have become more open to trials (starting with small positions) and then killing these ideas quickly if they don’t work out.

It is one thing to maintain a buy list, but emotionally very different to actually commit money (even a small amount) to an idea. Once you do that, you are financially and intellectually (and even emotionally) vested into the position. In such cases, it is important to constantly stress test the idea and exit if the thesis does not pan out.

A failure on a small 1-2% position will not hurt our portfolio over the long run. If, however some of these positions work, we can scale into them and make them much larger. This is the mental model used by venture capital firms and it makes sense to adopt a similar framework (even if the type of companies we target is different) for our portfolio.

What truly drives the long-term returns

I have shared the changes in the intrinsic value of the portfolio with the price changes in the past and would like to reiterate the following points again

a. Businesses and their intrinsic value tends to be less volatile than stock prices

b. Over the long term, stocks prices tend to follow intrinsic value. However, in the short term (1 year or less), these two numbers don’t have to move in lock step.

c. If the underlying business is increasing in value, it makes sense to have patience as the returns will eventually follow. As an example, if we had gotten frustrated after the measly returns of the last two years and exited in 2016, then we would have missed the gains of 2017

2017 has been a year when the portfolio price has again caught up and run ahead of the value. As a result, we can expect lower performance for the next few years till we can get the fair value up via a combination of new ideas and increase in value of the current holdings.

In the long run, this back and forth will continue, and I don’t plan to play the game of timing to squeeze a few extra points of performance. We will focus on increasing the intrinsic value of the portfolio as much as possible and let the market give us gains as per its own schedule.

Measuring the risk

I had written about risk management in the last letter, which is reproduced below again

I am not trying to make the highest possible returns in the shortest period of time, but above average returns over time with the lowest possible risk, with risk management taking a higher precedence. Risk Adjusted returns are more important than absolute returns.

This focus on “Risk” has led us to cap our top positions at 5-7% at the time of purchase, keep sectoral bets capped at 20% and maintain a cash level of 12-15% over the lifetime of the model portfolio. A more aggressive stance in the form of more concentrated positions or lower cash would have raised our returns (5% per annum by my rough guess), but increased the risk too. I have no regrets of foregoing these returns. I will always prioritize risk over returns and if it means slightly lower returns, so be it.

If we continue to earn above average returns in the future, the magic of compounding with risk management will allow us to reach our destination. I want the journey to be pleasant and would like to sleep well at night. There is no point in dying rich if you have a terrifying time reaching that point.

I have discussed about risk in a subjective manner in the past, without using any ratios or measures. One quantitative measure is drawdown of the portfolio over various time periods.

On an annual basis, we can see that we have lost less than the market during downturns.

However, we do not have enough data points to make this evaluation statistically significant.

In order to have more data points, I have computed the monthly returns of the portfolio and compared it with the large cap index. For the data purists, a monthly period may not be the right duration or they may quibble about using a different index for reference. My response to that – it is better to be roughly right and directionally correct, instead of trying to get it right to the third decimal point.

For the duration of the model portfolio, the average monthly loss for the index has been around -3% (when the index has dropped during the month). In those periods, our portfolio dropped less than the index 63% of the times and our average drop during these ‘bear’ market months has been around -1.1%

The above statistic is quite noisy as I think monthly returns are usually meaningless, but over a long period this statistic can give an indication of the level of risk in the portfolio. In other words, we have had lower drawdowns. We cannot avoid bear markets, but if we lose lesser than the market, we should do quite well in the long run

I am more focused on reducing the risk, than doing better than the market. I have always felt and continue to feel, that the long-term momentum of the Indian economy and the stock market is such that we will do well over time as long as we can reduce the downside risk and avoid doing something stupid.

In case you are curious on how we have done during bull periods (when monthly returns are positive), the model portfolio has returned 5.3% versus the 4% by the index during the same period.

As you can see, that although we have done better than the market on average during the bull markets, our outperformance against the index has been higher during bear markets.

If you are really hoping to do well with me, hope for a bear market now.

Cash is not a macro call

We currently hold around 28% of the portfolio in cash which may appear to be some sort of a macro call. However, let me assure you, it is nothing of that sort. I have never bothered with economics forecasts around GDP, interest rates or any global or geopolitical situations.

My analysis is always bottoms up with a focus on company level factors.

The reason for the high levels of cash is that the price of several of our ideas have far exceeded my estimate of fair value due to which I feel that the long-term returns are likely to be lower compared to the risk of holding those positions. As a result, I have reduced the position size.

At the same time, the speed with which I can find and understand new ideas has been far slower than the rate at which the market has recognized and re-priced them. This is something I cannot fix unless I can buy some extra IQ points to speed up the pace.

The question I am constantly asking

As the markets have risen, I am constantly asking the following question for each position : Will I continue to hold this position if the stock price drops by 50%? If not, why am I holding it now?

The time for risk management is now, when there is euphoria all around and not when everyone is heading for the exits.

If anyone of you, cannot bear a 20-30% drop in your portfolio, it would make sense to do a mental exercise now – how much should I invest in equities so that even if the equity portfolio dropped by 30%, I will not lose sleep. No one can answer this question, but yourself and the time to do it would be now.

Why do I constantly harp on risk? Is it because I foresee some market crash?

The emphatic answer for that is no! We are not in the business of forecasting which can be left to media personalities. For me and Kedar, Risk is personal and we want to look at it as an integral part of investing. Our monies and that of our families are invested in the same fashion as the model portfolio. We are not managers who will only benefit from the upside, but have no risk on the downside.

We will have quotational losses from time to time, but do not want to be in a situation where our greed or envy of some else’s performance leads to a permanent loss of capital for us, our families and you.

Bitcoin and popcorn

I have been asked by a few subscribers on what I think about Bitcoin. I have a rough idea of the technology that under pins cryptocurrencies – ‘Blockchain’ and think the technology has a lot of potential in reducing transactional costs, improve asset tracking, develop decentralized networks and several other use cases which we cannot imagine as of today.

That said, I do not have a view of Bitcoin as I do not understand it well. There are several other things I don’t understand well enough to be able to make money such as Short–term trading, technical analysis, Bio tech, Mongolian companies and so on. However, that does not disturb me as there is enough for me to do within the scope of what I do understand.

If we can invest conservatively and earn an above average return in Indian equities, the end result is likely to be very good. Why should we then get all worked up if something is doing well for others and they are becoming rich as a result?

There will always be someone doing better than us in all sorts of stuff. Someone could be running a restaurant or a tech startup which is doing very well. Does that mean we should follow them as a short cut to riches?

I continue to study the technology out of curiosity and watch the drama on the sidelines. I also have some popcorn (unbuttered to avoid cholesterol issues) on the side to enjoy the show.

The Indian bitcoins

When I look at companies which are priced at lofty multiples, I try to break it down to the first principle of investing – The value of an asset is the sum of its discounted cash flow over its lifetime.

A company with a high multiple, is not necessarily expensive if the company can grow its free cash flow for a long period of time. This means the market ‘assumes’ that such a company has a sustainable competitive advantage and a large opportunity space. Please note use of the word ‘assume’. The market is not some “All knowing” entity which can see the future. It is just the aggregation of the combined wisdom (or madness) of its participants.

The market on average and over time gets the valuations right, but not always.

As I look at several companies in the small cap and midcap space now, I am left wondering if investors really understand the implications behind the valuations. A company selling at a PE of 50 will need to deliver a growth of 25% for 10 years to justify the price. In order to make any returns for an investor buying at this price, the actual growth will have to be much higher and longer.

How many companies are able to deliver such growth rates for so long? Let’s look at some numbers from the past

In the last 10 years, we had around 233 companies in the sub 3000 cr market cap space, deliver a growth of 25% or higher. That’s around 6.2 % of the small/ mid cap universe. As the market cap/ size increases, the percentage of companies which can deliver this kind of performance only shrinks.

How many companies in the above space currently sport a PE of 50 higher? around 22% or roughly 675. So, 3 out of 4 companies in this group of ‘favored’ high PE companies are going to disappoint investors in the coming years in terms of growth

In other words, if you could buy all these ‘favored’ companies (greater than a PE of 50), you have a more than a 50% chance that you will lose money. Why would you take such a bet?

All investors in aggregate are taking this bet assuming individually, that their ‘chosen’ companies will not be the ones to disappoint. Of course, every individual thinks he or she is smarter, more handsome or than the crowd (also called illusory superiority).

The odds are against everyone being right. So, it makes sense to be cautious and do your homework well enough. Some of these companies could turn out to be the bitcoins of our market: assets with promise but without cash flow. In such cases, the end result is likely to be unpleasant.

A long-term partnership

I repeat this every time in the portfolio review and will do so again

– I do not have timing skills and cannot prevent short term quotation losses in the market
– My approach is to analyze and hold a company for the long term (2-3 years). As a result, my goal is to earn above average returns in the long run and try to avoid losses during the same period
– In spite of my best efforts, I will make stupid decisions and lose money from time to time. The pain felt will be equal or more as I invest my own money in exactly the same fashion

Me and kedar look at our association with you as a long-term partnership. As a result, whenever someone joins us, we are very explicit in letting the person know that they cannot expect quick wins or a stock tip a week or something on those lines.

We want your association with us to span years, if not decades. In our view, financial management is something which lasts a lifetime and hence, as your advisor, we want you all to focus on the long term. We try to instill this focus via multiple actions from our side such as

– Avoiding a short-term focus on performance such as daily, weekly or monthly scorecards

– Buy companies and hold them for the long term as long their prospects remain above average

– Focus on risk and reducing the downside

A lot of subscribers have stayed with us for the long term and hopefully benefited from that. We will continue to maintain this approach irrespective of the latest trends in the market. If that costs us business, so be it. I would rather have some of you disappointed with the short-term result (and consequently leave), than lose money due to chasing the latest trends in the market and then leave (while cursing us).

If you are interested in our advisory services, please email us on enquiry@rccapitalmanagement.com

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The Indian bitcoins