Random Investment Thoughts

So this was early 2018 when I stumbled upon Tata Motors and made my first purchase at 430 a piece. This was long before I knew how to value any company and I was happy just owning a bunch of shares in a company I knew existed. Over the next one year, the stock fell and fell a lot more and I did what all retailers do, averaging. By early 2019, I ended up owning a large quantity ( for my size) at 230, and the stock never seem to rise above 200. This is when I began to commit myself fully into investing, after giving up on civils and learnt to read balance sheet, etc, as I was preparing to write CFA level 1.

I realised something which was my biggest strength all through the days it was down 40% from my price- TataMotor’s annual sale is higher than all Indian listed auto stocks, both four wheelers and two wheelers, PV and CV- combined, by a margin of over 40000 crores. I could never understand as to how a company with three lakh crore of sales can sell for under 70000 crore market capitalisation. Well, I was wrong, for the time being.
Then Covid-19 happened. TaMo was available at a market cap of 20000 crores which was insane. This was not something you get everyday. When everyone was selling out of it, I doubled my bet between 60-80rs and now brought my average down to 150.
My bet was simple- if TaMo goes back to even 1 time sales, I should make thrice my money. But, the world isn’t fair, or is it! The stock didn’t move for good two and a half year of my first purchase but I was willing to hold it out- what option did I have!

Once you are neck deep into a company, and the stock is down by half, you begin to seriously research about it. Here I realised one thing which was changing about
the company- it also made electric cars and became a leader by far. My original thesis was that the stock would be valued at close to 3lakh crore, given everything else remains the same.

However, by the end of 2020, when TaMo was still languishing, something else was happening both in India and in abroad- Tesla was going up like spacex and it had gone 8x in a year while Rakesh Jhunjhunwala made a splash by buying into TaMo!
This was pure luck on both counts- I never imagined electric vehicles can become such a big deal and that the great man will come alongside me.

Cut to today- when I hear Shri Jhunjhunwala, and he is my hero, telling the world how TaMo was available at 20k crore market cap with a sale of 3l crore and how he lapped onto it, my heart skips a beat. If the legend was also thinking the same thing, it is the sweetest victory ever. The game of investing is also about intellectual satisfaction- that you were right when the world was falling apart and that is when you realise you now know how to fish, and can do it again.

TaMo remains a big hold for me as the journey has just started. It may or may not go up three times from here but the battle has been won- it remains my first real double! And the most precious one as well.