Over the last 50 days, Indian stock markets have been hitting new lifetime highs almost every alternate day and there is palpable excitement among the investing community. Not just India, but the stock markets across the globe have been hitting 52-week highs or life time highs. While it is surely a time to rejoice and celebrate, it is also the time for the ritualistic contra thinking, some of which is useful and some of which is only for the sake of satisfying one’s intellectual curiosity. I...

In one of the recent social gatherings with friends, the discussion drifted to a familiar territory – is this the right time to enter the stock markets? In the past, the standard response to this question would have been “Nobody can time the market again & again and it is far easier to have a systematic approach towards investing, where you invest small amounts at regular intervals”. But this time, did not give the standard response, partly because many recipients of this response have hinted to...

A year ago, the global markets were clearly in a state of liquidity driven euphoria (stocks, tech,cryptos, start-ups). Had someone told us then that in the next 12 months the US stock markets would fall 30%, crude oil would rise to $100, the start-up & crypto world would be badly bruised, and that Europe’s mindless ESG drive would be punctured – we would have gladly agreed with them. But had the same person told me that in midst of the above chaos, India would not only remain an island of ca...

"All good things must come to an end, so that better things can happen" For long term investors like us, falling markets are time for mixed emotions. The fear of mark down in portfolio values is interspersed with hope of buying long-awaited stocks at attractive prices. But this time, the emotions are tilting more towards relief that falling markets will bring sanity back to the world of business & investing. Relief that focus is changing from “growth at any cost” to “growth with profits”; that ...

Memo 33 – Heads, I win; Tails, I don’t lose much! The above title pretty much summarises the investor experience in stock markets over past 18 months. Markets continue to celebrate even the smallest of positive developments like revenge travel, re-opening of cinemas or the rise in valuation of start-up unicorns. Business media, Twitter & Instagram are full of positive interpretation even around the not-so-positive developments like: • Rising inflation (is good because far...