When the proverbial panwala & rickshawala start sharing stock tips, one can judge that the markets are in full bloom. My first such tip came from an “Uber” wala in June 2023 and I said to myself that the markets may witness some correction in coming months.

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...

Memo 32 - Investing through interesting times! A complete victory over Covid seems at least a few months away, but that has not stopped the stock markets from making new highs yet again. The 2 nd wave made little dent on the markets even though it had much deeper impact on lives & livelihood of large number of Indians. The divergence seems even stronger when we see that unemployment rate in India is stubbornly high but most start-ups are facing unprecedented attrition as well as wage infl...

Memo 31 – Market View: Pessimism, Scepticism, Optimism and Euphoria! The roller coaster of 2020 is resolutely behind us – Covid concerns are fading, life is bouncing back towards normalcy, our favourite restaurants & our household help are back in action, government &central banks are providing unconditional support to the economy and, stock markets are at least 20% higher than pre-Covid levels! One may be seduced to think that it’s surely a party time for investors. Well, life is n...

The Corona scare has not only disrupted normal life, but has resulted in a sharp downfall in stocks across the world. Indian stock markets and other world markets too have declined upto 30% in last few weeks. This has been the sharpest fall in such a short time frame - partly because of the uncertain nature of the beast that we are dealing with (Corona) and partly because of the large algorithmic trades from the developed countries. Based on our individual personalities, some people will see th...

“You can either have good news or good price, but you can rarely get both” There is lot of bad news around the stock markets & the economy. However, this can itself create some good news – that you can go out and get a large discount on practically anything – stocks, bonds, homes, offices, cars, bikes, clothes, etc. Economic slowdown - Fifteen months and still counting It’s been fifteen long months since the economic slowdown started and it has only intensified across sectors – electricity, r...