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My Stock Portfolio

Ever since I posted my article on Midcap recommendations, I have been getting emails from a few readers asking for stock recommendations, mutual fund ideas, SIP investments etc. As it is practically impossible to answer all queries by email, I thought of making it simpler by publicly posting my stock portfolio in this post (which I hope to keep updating at least once in a quarter)

Note: Before attempting to invest in any of these stocks, I strongly urge you to read through the rest of this post – especially the Disclaimer section.

My Equity Portfolio

* Last updated on 5-December-2018

1. Long Term Basket (5+ Years)

* Last actions:
Added more ONGC, Entered M&M
Booked profit on Asian Paints, Aurobindo Pharma, Bajan Finaince, HCL Technologies, HUL
Exited Kotak Gold ETF completely

Stock Name Investment Horizon Status
Lupin Ltd Long Term LOSS
Mahindra & Mahindra Long Term PROFIT
NMDC Long Term PROFIT
ONGC Long Term LOSS

2. Medium Term Basket (6 Months to 5 Years)

(# Some of these stocks may be moved to Long Term basket later)
* Last action:
Entered HPCL and Karnataka Bank

Stock Name Investment Horizon Status
HPCL Long Term LOSS
IDFC Medium Term LOSS
IDFC Bank Medium Term PROFIT
Karnataka Bank Medium Term PROFIT
Subex Ltd Medium Term LOSS

3. Short Term – Swing Trade Basket (Few Days to Weeks)

* Last action:
Booked Profit on ITC, Entered DHFL, NTPC, Vakrangee

Stock Name Investment Horizon Status
DHFL Short Term LOSS
NTPC Short Term LOSS
Vakrangee Short Term LOSS

My Investor profile

I am retired Software professional who took an early retirement from the IT industry to pursue a few simpler interests in life. I have been an investor in the equity market for many years but stopped the same just about an year before my retirement due to change in risk profile. However, seeing the new majority government in action at the center (and my own need to build wealth post retirement), I decided to get back to the stock market again to ride the bull run. I intent to build a portfolio of 5-10 stocks in the coming weeks with special focus on mid caps with good valuation that I intent to keep from 6 months up to 5 years. At the same time, I plan to allocate a bigger chunk towards well known large caps and blue-chip companies with very long term view (5-25 years). There’s also some swing trade or short term positions that I hold from time to time.

By the way, direct equities form only about 20% of my overall portfolio due to my investment risk profile. I also do trading in equities once in a while but that’s more for fun. I am 99% an investor (and less of a trader) with medium to long term goals. I am also invested heavily in mutual funds (~30%) and that’s what is giving me real good returns from long term point of view. Having said that, I must say that I have the knack of picking the right stocks at the right time but since I exited them too early, I ended up having limited profits from stocks as compared to my funds. I plan to rectify this with my new approach of having buy-and-forget large/mid caps stocks in one basket, medium term picks in another and swing trade/short term picks in yet another as shown in the three tables here.

Disclaimer

The stocks listed here are actually part of my portfolio and it doesn’t necessarily mean a recommendation to your investment goals. Further, here in this forum, I will NOT be discussing why I bought certain stocks, when I bought/sold, target price etc. All financial details, disclosures, news and research reports of the stocks mentioned here are available on portals like Bombay Stock Exchange or Moneycontrol.com. Hence, you are requested to do your own research and adjudge the suitability of the stocks mentioned here for your kind of investments.

The long term portfolio mentioned here may not be of interest to many people who are in the look out of quick bucks from the stock market. However, some of the stocks mentioned in the short to medium term portfolio (second table) may interest some of you.

Further, I am not a qualified Financial Adviser or portfolio manager to help you with your investment needs. Any loss or gain that may be resulted from investing in the stocks mentioned here may not be attributed to me.

Good luck in your equity investments!

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Are you selling your stocks at the wrong time?

First of all, let me take disclaimer that I am not an expert in the equity markets nor a qualified personal finance professional to advise anyone. However, since I have been doing online share trading for almost 12 years now, I thought of sharing my experiences on how I could have made more profits by exiting stocks at the right time (By the way, I never made huge profits but fortunately I am not at loss)

Stock selling strategies and tips

Most people are good at making the right calls when it comes to picking the right stocks at the right time. However, more often than not, after they sell they will be shocked to see that the shares that they sold are moving up faster. This is because they never had a proper exit plan for that particular stock. The following are some tips for you to help you sell your stocks at the right time.

Have a target price when you buy

When you buy a particular stock or share, you should have a target exit price in mind already. This has to be arrived on the basis of the valuation of the stock, prevailing sector conditions, momentum etc. Even if you are investing for five days or five years, this is very important and more over you have to record that planned exit price.

Your first analysis is almost always the best

When you set a target price while buying, that exit price is probably based on thorough analysis and hence the best exit price. You should not keep changing that figure unless the valuation of the stock or the sector it belongs to dramatically changes. If that is the case, you have to re-rate the stock after further analysis and keep an additional exit point and make it a point to sell at this price. If there is no change in prevailing conditions around the stock or the company, it is always advised to sell at the original exit price.

Never sell a stock that is peaking day by day

If a stock is flying on a momentum and hitting 52-week highs day after day, then you may get a better price. Keep putting higher stop losses and change your sell price (above original exit price) to get maximum profits. As a thumb rule, never sell a momentum stock that has just hit the 52 week high.

Sell ASAP if the company falters

If there is negative news on your invested company, it is a call for immediate sell at whatever loss or profit. You have to always keep track of the stock news of your favorite companies via online stock news alerts and not through news papers. By the time you read your financial news papers, you are already very late.

Sell early to balance you portfolio

Another situation where you might exit a stock prematurely is to balance your overall finance portfolio or equity portfolio alone. In the first case, you have decided to keep say 30% in equities and due to several recent transactions if that proportion has gone way up, you may want to de-risk your portfolio by selling a few stocks. Similarly, within your equity portfolio, if a particular sector is over represented you may want to adjust it via further selling of some existing entities.

Sell early for any tax benefits

At times, especially towards the end of the financial or taxation year, you see that your capital gains may be offset via booking loss on certain non-performing or turtle stocks. This is sometimes good to reduce your taxes – based on the existing rules of course – as well as to give further and better buying opportunities in the next financial year.

…and finally…

Never listen to analysts on TV

These are the bunch of foxes who basically wants to play with the sentiments of investors and keep changing their stand from time to time. If necessary, you may have a paid financial adviser, who is interested in making money for you because he gets paid by you but never take those analysts’ free advice. But as I mentioned in one of the tips above, keep track of all news related to your stock and be smarter.

By the way, the tips mentioned here are applicable for those who are investing in stocks and not trading.

Happy investing!

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Investment strategy in a volatile market

Indian bourses have been setting new and new index highs every other week amidst heavy volatile trading. There are many arguments in favour of the Indian growth story. Some believe that what we are seeing here is a fundamental move where as some others swear that India is a special case compared to other emerging markets and we will keep going up. Some wisemen and analysts even predict targets for the ‘Sensitive Index‘ for not just 2008 but for 2010 and 2020 as well. The weakening dollar combined with the huge market capitalization gains have made Mukesh Ambani the richest person on earth in less than two months time. However, it may be a matter of couple of months before 9 out of 10 retail investors loose out in the market after being exposed to the high-risk game in the volatile market. Having seen and experienced three huge market falls in my investment life, I would like to advise the inexperienced retail investors to be very cautious at this point of time.

Good, bad and ugly…

There are a couple of things that are going really good in India recently. The first and foremost thing is the consistent economic growth rate of 8% and above that the country has been achieving of late. The other good thing (which resulted in the first one) is that there are couple of wise men sitting on top
who are driving the Indian economic story – P, Chidambaram and Y.B. Reddy being the prominent ones supported by other organizational leaders of SEBI etc. Strengthening rupee, low inflation rates, increase in foreign exchange reserve, turned-around PSUs, focus on futuristic infrastructure planning etc are some of the positive results of good overall leadership. The current Indian finance ministry, Reserve Bank of India and SEBI are almost always prompt in rolling out policies for positive growth and also to curb abnormalities like credit or sub-prime issues and indirect FII inflows.

However, there are couple of other things that are not really in favour of a stable economy – the first being the fact that we are having a very unpredictable political alliance at the center that can fall anytime. Many of the economical reforms, tie-ups with developed countries and global capital institutions etc are often thwarted by one or the ally. Secondly, the inability to manage (appreciate/depreciate rupee!) the rupee value at an optimum level against the US dollar has badly affected the export houses and industries like Software, textile and jewelry. Third biggest factor is that the huge FII money that is coming as foreign exchange is not really used for any long term planning. Due to the high volatility, this kind of money is not being used for developmental activities.

Some myths associated to the volatility

India is a special case and the bull run has to continue: Wrong! I personally believe that the fair value for the sensex should be around 13000-14000 at the moment as compared to the PE multiples of other stable emerging markets. The market has been fueled by the FII inflows and it can reduce anytime and India is
not really a special case.

Sensex is so high that I cannot enter now!: Wrong! Sensex is only an indicator of a small set of 30 stocks. At any point of time there are enough value stocks available in the market that you can buy.

PE valuations don’t apply any longer: Stupidity! If a few stocks are shot up because of momentum, it doesn’t mean that we are in a special situation and we can forget the valuations. If Educomp and RNRL are currently being traded at 400 or 500 times forward earnings, they are dangerously risky trading bets and not
any good for investment. Another example: Majority of IT stocks used to trade at 30 to 40 PE multiples for almost ten years now. This does not mean that, going forward Infosys is still fairly valued and be a multibagger!

Momentum trading is better than value buying in a volatile market: Wrong! Value buying is always the best mechanism to invest. Momentum trading may not be there for ever and can wipe out your money at any time.

It’s better to keep booking profits regularly to reduce risk: Wrong! If you have done your homework about your investment portfolio (See long term portfolio below) you don’t need to do this. In fact, booking profits at regular intervals will badly affect your returns. However, it is also a good option if you maintain your investment portfolio and trading portfolio altogether separated. For fun and high risk gambling you could use the trading path while the investment portfolio is probably for your retirement life.

I should book profit on my mutual funds now: No, unless you are in urgent need of money. Mutual funds are long term instruments for wealth accumulation and an ideal way to enter them is via Systematic Investment Plans (SIPs). It is not investor’s job to time the market for MF investment but your fund manager will take care of that part. So never trade a mutual fund.

A few investment tips

If you are in doubt whether you should enter the market now or not, opt for the SIP route of investment via mutual funds. Ideally SIPs should be for subscribed
for a longer investment period of say greater than two years.

Never buy your stocks in bulk: The self managed SIP route can be taken for buying even stocks. ie. You buy larger quantities when the prices go down and smaller quantities when you feel that the prices are a big high. In other words, build your portfolio over a number of months and years and not overnight. Please note that this rule is applicable only to fundamentally strong long term portfolio stocks.

Avoid playing momentum stocks. 8 out of 10 traders make losses on such trading opportunities.

If you want to play volatility then opt for some of the best exchange traded index funds. One great example for the same is Benchmark Nifty Exchange Traded
Scheme. This is a fund that invests in NIFTY stocks and is pretty much reliable in terms of low tracking error.

Don’t buy a stock due to market or analyst pressure or rumours. Do your homework before entering each and every counter.

Avoid having more than 25 or 30 percent weightage on mid and small cap stocks in your long term portfolio.

Identify sectors that have long term value and those sectors and companies that are often affected by government policies, weather, margin pressure etc. For example, textile stocks and software companies are affected big time by the rising rupee and hence they may not yield the same kind of returns as in the past. Another sector which should be almost always avoided is the airlines which are always under margin pressure.

Periodically (every three months or so) inspect your long term portfolio for any fundamental changes or external parameter influence.

Try to diversify your investment across at least four to five sectors and six to ten different stocks. Never put your bulk investment into one or two stocks alone.

Try to diversify in terms of investment instruments. One should have a good mix of Post Office deposits, equities, mutual funds, fixed/term deposits, gold and real estate in their long term portfolio. For long term, gold may be an excellent investment. Again Benchmark’s gold exchange traded fund (ETF) and DSP Merril Lynch’s World Goldfund are excellent picks for low risk investments.

My long term portfolio picks (In the order of portfolio weightage and large cap to small cap order)

L&T
Grasim
BHEL
Punj Lloyd
Reliance Communications
Crompton Greaves
Tata Steel
Bajaj Auto
ACC
SBI
NTPC
HCL Technologies
Voltas
Britannia Industries
Cipla
Kesoram Industries
Bharati Shipyard
EIH Ltd
Apollo Hospitals
NIIT Technologies
Glaxo Smithkline Consumer
Ballarpur Industries
Orient Paper
City Union Bank
Hanung Toys

Note: Some of the above stocks are already fairly valued while some others should be entered during the next correction.

Disclaimer: As a retail investor I may or may not have vested interest in some of the scrips mentioned here. Readers are advised to do their homework and exercise discretion before attempting any investment.