The trigger for this blog is many- a recent visit to a mall over the weekend made me realise just how much Indians are consuming and at what pace! Second, the recent macro data, be it GST numbers, auto sales, luxury goods sale reported by big brands, etc. all corroborate to the above and signifies the growing propensity of Indians to consume better and at a faster pace. A fantastic elucidation of this can be found in a recent interview Roshan Desai of Morgan Stanley has given to a bunch of media outlets.
Now we all know this, right. It’s my 95th blog and over the course of just over two years, I’ve only maintained one position that betting big on India has worked, is working and will work going forward. So this post is a recollection of some of the key learnings I’ve had in writing for two years:
1. People don’t invest for the long term. A lot many are here just trying to make a quick buck to feel good about themselves and will go back to their old ways once they lose some substantial portion of invested capital. Markets is an ocean which will give you as much as you ask for. So dream big and bite bigger.
2. Investing is simple but not easy. After having read almost every decent investing book, one thing I’ve learnt is that the best investors are the ones who have the courage of conviction and patience to hold in the face of a vast swath of unfavourable information.
3. The best time to buy is during a panic. Most fund managers will then come on TV and say how they predicted the crash or called the bottom but it’s utter nonsense. Except maybe a very tiny majority, most follow the herd- sell low and buy high. I’ve lost a lot of respect for the so called market masters after having observed them carefully to either try and buy Zomato in the name of quality or to pretend to be intellectualised investors in order to generate AUM for themselves.
4. Only your research will work. Most people around you will never appreciate the work put in to find a stock and ride it through thick and thin. I still hold some TaMo stocks bought at ₹64 but at that time through now, there must be a million reasons for me to have sold it. Conviction can’t be borrowed and patience can’t be inherited.
5. Ignore the economists, TV experts and plague at all cost. The macro calls, the concerns about a debt default, Russia Ukraine, Elections 2024, rate tightening/ loosening, and everything else is just plain vanilla bullshit. Ask yourself why you bought something and what’s the story you know and believe. Big money is made in the face of biggest uncertainty and all these experts will forever write articles and publish unfathomable research articles incorporating ultra complicated Greek alphabet salad in order to look smart. Well, it doesn’t work at all in real life, in markets. One of my famous lines is- the economists can at max buy a Maserati watch while lecturing someone who drives one!
6. Unless you put in a substantial portion of your net worth to a stock, you are not invested and this, any opinion you have is not relevant. Everyone can have an opinion but unless it’s backed by money, it’s worth zero!
7. Spending time in the market after buying into a position and holding it with all the patience you can muster will make a lot of money. TaMo went from 430 to 65 to now 555 over the course of my holding but it hasn’t been an easy ride. It’s taken many a turns where the rally was almost over and I had to literally push myself to keep invested. Same is the story for a lot of other stocks in the markets. Anyone who has made a real Multi-baggers will tell you how people only see the reward, not the journey!
8. Don’t try and chase every bull market. Your stocks will go up or down even when the market does totally opposite. There might be a time when you underperform massively due to a particular style being in favour. That’s part of life and should not make you dump your Colgate to buy a Paytm! Things do return to normalcy, it’s only a matter of when.
9. Don’t chase junk, quality trumps everything! I can’t repeat this more often. In every bull market, the absolute junk rises the highest. It’s okay for your neighbor or your colleague to bask in glory after making a quick three four times his money while your portfolio stay flat to negative for two reasons. One, anybody buying junk will only tout the percentage gain he made; in absolute terms it will be peanuts. Two, he will most certainly lose it all, if not in the same stock then in some other stock but lose he will, surely!
10. The best time to buy is when you have money!
Life is all about Compounding! 