Author Archives: ZerotoBillion

Indian markets have finally made a semblance of a bottoming out formation with a massive short covering 500 points rally today. So what are we seeing

Over the past two months, with relentless FII selling, our markets have corrected just over 10%, technically entering the correction territory. What I’m seeing is that with a lot of froth being taken out and most large caps down close to 20% from their all time highs, markets are definitely a good place to be.
I certainly have remained an India Perma bull and in any case, in my humble opinion, we are in the middle of a multi year bull run and this is somewhere in the middle when we throw away the skeptics and move on to higher highs.
Psychologically, most people have been waiting for a correction and people don’t wait for such days in the middle of a bubble but in the skepticism phase. So going by the logic of market cycles, we are nowhere close to a top.
The FII selling, for whatever reason has made valuations a lot reasonable which means whatever the amount of cash our people had on the sides can now be deployed.
It has also proved the fact that in this bull market, most Individual investors have made a ton of money and every supposedly smart investor has not even come close. The dumb retailer has certainly been the best performers .

Further, it’s evident that our great experts have only been momentum chasers because they were very happy to buy whatever went up and then come on TV to intellectualise their purchases.
Now coming to what I feel is the undercurrent all about.
Just look at what’s happening to stocks which are within 5-10% of their ATH – Capital market plays which refuse to go down since the party has only begun. With low float and huge outperformance, these yesteryear’s small caps are now knocking on doors of the large cap indices and the funds have to buy them at higher prices, which Keeps the price afloat. What sustained fund buying from passive funds can do was best evident in case of FAANG and now Nvidia so this is just the beginning in many of our names like BSE type.

Also the last decade heroes are finally biting the dust one by one, with Asian paints being the newest of the lot. This only proves that their cycle was over at the peak of Covid and history always rhymes in market. This lot Will possibly give next to zero rerun in this decade and money, especially index money Will make an exit fast.

Anyone who wants to make money needs to remember that index investing doesn’t make any money unless you really stretch it out for five-seven years to average the volatility out. I’ve been extremely blessed to have owned BSE for six plus years now and it’s not even a question that it’ll at least be a triple from here in two-three years. Simply because the earnings Will compound massively. It did 345 crore PAT this year which is close to 1400 crore annualised! At current market cap, it’s just 45x almost trailing earnings growing at 25% Q-o-Q and 100% Y-o-Y. Even with all the regulations on F&O, just because of the sheer size of our market, it’ll do at least a Billion Dollars in Sales in three- four years . To give you a perspective, the Intercontinental Exchange which owns the NYSE does over 3.3Billion Dollars in a quarter. So the runway from here is massive. No doubt BSE Will be a $25 Billion company soon and maybe a $100Billion company in next ten fifteen years! The time to sell BSE is still 5 years away!

So to wrap things up, it’s an unbelievably good time to redeploy in the markets since every year we have this 10-15% drop when people say it’s getting all doomed but it never does. India continues to remain the fastest growing economy and we are getting incredibly rich as citizens. A lot of that money Will find it’s way in luxury spends and a part Will be financialised through stock market. That’s all the theme there is! Stay invested, stay bullish!

Disclaimer- The views expressed in this blog are personal opinions and are shared for educational and informational purposes only. They should not be considered as financial, investment, or legal advice. I write primarily to document my own learning and thinking process. I am not a SEBI-registered investment adviser, research analyst, or financial influencer, and no part of this blog should be seen as a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security. Please do your own research or consult a qualified professional before making any financial decisions.

What a run this stock has had over the past week- up well over 40%! It’s up over 80% in less than two months and of course, with the hype in media, we all know that it’s the most buzzing stock of the moment.

I have been a perma-Bull on the stock, not from yesterday but ever since I discovered it in 2018. So what is that I am now trying to convey which I have not yet said multiple times over.

First of all, this is a loud scream to say that it’s the biggest stock since the Covid lows, up over 44x from the now adjusted price of Rs. 75. 

So today I am trying to gauge what’s lying ahead of us and how the market will play out the FOMO in the stock.

BSE, as I have said earlier is on track to do well over a 1000crore PAT this year with a revenue of roughly 2500crores. Even at current levels of trading, it is poised to grow the revenue multifold over the next two-three years and in no time, by FY2027-28, it should be a 5000crore revenue company at the very least with close to 2500 crore PAT. With the kind of multiple expansion which generally follows in such stories, it will command the valutation a Dixon or a Trent does and the very early signs of that were witnessed this week.

This week was an indication that the PMS type, the HNIs are getting restless and are finally throwing in the towel and buying the stock. One Amit Jeswani who jumps around on TV with a lot of such fancy names gave a five minute pep talk about the virtues of the stock and how the stock will make so much money and then confessed that he bought it at 3400! That was on Tuesday.

This is the point I am trying to convey- retailers have already made 5-10 times their money in the stock and the biggies are just about to get in. FOMO in stock market is the biggest wealth creator for long term investors. These people who claim to be the greatest investors can’t embarrass themselves by admitting that they missed out on a stock which is 40x since Covid, 10x since March 2023 and up 40% in a week! So now they will fall over each others to buy some quantity and run on CNBC claiming that they have discovered BSE!

Just the way that Ramdeo Agarwal still claims to have discovered Hero and Bharti. So the thing is, BSE is most likely going to be the stock of the decade- the poster boy of the rise and rise of Indian Capital Markets- eloquently capturing the power of Indian retailers. And all these funds managers who in my mind are nothing but momentum chasers will sell their kidneys to claim that they have always been the first to discover BSE!

This is that moment when the gush starts!

Imagine the bell ringing before the flood-gates open in a dam. After some time, the flow of the water takes control of itself and everything else. This move from 3000 to 4000 in a week is that moment when BSE has joined that league of stocks which were seriously missed by the big boys.

Imagine Tesla in 2020 or Jockey in 2010 or even Bajaj Finance in 2015. Once the big money gets in, there is no looking back because all these people will redo their models to add BSE’s past performance to claim, of course falsely that their funds have always been the best performers. This is how the game is played and all I can tell you guys is that every single share of BSE is going to be worth its weight in 24 carat gold. 

Let me add one more point. The float of BSE is very limited- there are only 13.5 crore shares of the stock. So once people begin to buy and hold, a smaller additional demand results in greater price movement on the upside. This was visible in Nestle, OFSS, Jockey, Eicher and so on. So every share you have and are not selling is a share less available for someone else to buy. That pushes the price up each time there is additional demand.

Now the thing is, most of these fund managers are over 1000-5000crore types. So even if they have to add 1% of their portfolio to BSE, they’ll buy close to 50 crore of BSE shares. That is roughly 12 lakh shares at this price. And when the price moves up, they are compelled to add more because relative to the market, it’s performing even better. And thus, the shares vanish from the market and the price moves in a parabolic trajectory.

If you don’t trust me, go see how a mega cap like Apple or Amazon or Nvidea over up 20-30x in two-three years. BSE is still just at $6 Billion market cap.

With the kind of PAT coming in, it won’t be a big deal if it’s $20B by the end of this decade. 

So I can only say one thing- hold on to your shares, let someone else take credit on TV. It doesn’t matter to me because as long as the price moves up, I am making real money! 

Disclaimer- The views expressed in this blog are personal opinions and are shared for educational and informational purposes only. They should not be considered as financial, investment, or legal advice. I write primarily to document my own learning and thinking process. I am not a SEBI-registered investment adviser, research analyst, or financial influencer, and no part of this blog should be seen as a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security. Please do your own research or consult a qualified professional before making any financial decisions.

The last month and a half has been extremely kind. Portfolio recovered over 20% plus since the budget day lows and what a smart recovery BSE has shown.

Even the benchmark indices have hit record highs with Nifty scaling Mt. 25K and Sensex cruising past 82,000. So what are my views and what are we happy about today!

A lot of people have been talking about the markets having moved up a lot. I have a different view in this- a lot of times when people think that the markets have moved up, they compare it from Nifty 7500 in March 2020. They assume that we are up over 3.5x in four years and thus we are bound to falter. They conveniently forget that Nifty was 6000 in October 2008 and was still 7500 in March 2020. So in effect, zero return for 12 years! In that way, we are only up 4x jn 16 years which is worse than a poor FD rate!

So for Nifty to even deliver its annualised compounded returns of close to 14-15% over long term, it is obvious that this decade will see bountiful of returns, only as a reversion to mean. Even at 60000 Nifty in 2030, it would only be 10x in 22 years! That will only be 11% CAGR over 22 years! So by the same logic of people saying markets should fall, I’m saying markets will double and double again in the next 7-8 years and still be cheap!

Now coming back to BSE. Like I’ve said in the past, with the kind of volumes it’s generating, its revenues can easily compound at 50% plus levels and which will only mean its PE being rerated to a much higher levels and sustaining for a long, long time. It’s an at least 10x in this decade, If not more.

Now let me come to something very close to my heart! Three of my companies have finally hit the coveted milestone of ₹ 1 lakh crore market capitalisation this week- OFSS, Colgate and HDFC AMC.

All three have either been a doubler or a tripler for me and the fine rerating melted my heart away! Colgate in particular has Been the star this year, already up almost 80% without even being mentioned in any news publications!

The moral of the story is, if you do good research, stick to your companies and avoid the temptation to buy the hottest defence PSU or the latest Chemical stock or the new Zomato; you will make a lot of money! It’s important to make money, it doesn’t matter if you buy Paras defence or Colgate!

One of my friends wanted to buy Paras defence because it was going up but unfortunately went down. It all happens when you latch on to the latest fad at the last leg of a bull rally and can’t get out in time. This, happens but the best is to avoid being stuck, take a loss and redeploy capital elsewhere where you know what you have bought.

So I would urge all of you to remember the good old adage, don’t eat junk! If you can sit tightly though this mega, mega, multi year bull run, you’d do exceedingly well by the time we are in 2030 and nifty itself is around 80K then!

Stay bullish on India! Stay invested

Disclaimer- The views expressed in this blog are personal opinions and are shared for educational and informational purposes only. They should not be considered as financial, investment, or legal advice. I write primarily to document my own learning and thinking process. I am not a SEBI-registered investment adviser, research analyst, or financial influencer, and no part of this blog should be seen as a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security. Please do your own research or consult a qualified professional before making any financial decisions.

I’ve not been this bullish on a stock for a very long time. This is what we live for in the investing world. When what you have been silently dreaming about appears to happen in reality, on corporate announcements about the results of the quarter gone by, and then the stock moves up like you have always been borderline fantasising; you sense the sweet scent of success.

FBSE came out with its numbers two days ago and what a sensational set it was. The quarterly revenue were over ₹650 crores with PAT over ₹265 crores. That means that it was now making more in profits in a quarter than it used to make in a year until one year ago!

The Equity derivatives are now bringing home over ₹100 crores in revenue every month from near zero for the entire year! That’s close to ₹1200 crore revenue for the year, assuming zero growth whereas it’s growing every month. The star MF is clocking close to ₹50 crore revenue a quarter! So for this year; it won’t be a surprise if it does close to ₹3000 crore in revenue and over ₹1000 crores in PAT.

For a company which never did a 1000 crore revenue in its 150 years of history to go to almost 3000 crore and then onwards mean that the markets are going to finally restate the stock at a P/E it deserves. It’s growing at over 100% y-o-y and can’t be trading at 35-40 multiple but would soon be doing at least 65-70 multiple. Plus, with profits at over 1000 crores, BSE should at least be over ₹70,000 crores market cap in a year or less and that means that the stock would be at least worth ₹5,000/-. It means that on a per bonus basis, the stock would then be worth ₹15,000/-

Just wait and ponder. In 2018; it was trading at ₹700; during Covid it gone down to ₹275 and even until 2021 October; it was sub ₹800 levels. From there to where it is now; this has been the biggest story of my career and I’m sure, the next double will come much ahead of my limited understanding.

But the game has just begun. NSE is doing close to ₹2500 PAT a quarter and BSE can easily be doing that much in five years time. At 50-60x multiple, BSE should be worth close to $50B market cap or close to ₹425000 crores. That means BSE will be worth over ₹30,000/- per share at that price. So the game I’m playing is at least a ten times in five- six years time.

This time, the entire bad news which would have hurt the stocks made it correct 35% in three months. It’s still down over 20% from its April 2024 peak.

For those worried about the F&O taxation and regulations, I’ve only the example of tobacco companies to offer. ITC was India’s biggest wealth creator since 1980-2014 with all the taxes going up in tandem. Altria , the maker of Marlboro was the best stock of the past century in the USA, turning $1 into $2.65 Million between 1925-2013. Yes, it was worth a million times.

So for anyone worried about taxation should look at that and ask himself if it’s all worth it.!

Overall, I can’t even complain about the markets as the much needed shakeups are arriving regularly to wake all of us up. The Indian story is well and truly underway and my constant belief, that by the end of this decade, the Indian markets and India as a country will be truly different are intact.

PS: my other love, Tata Motors has came out with the new Curvv and am sure with the kind of numbers it’s delivering consistently, we see a double in two years!

Stay bullish on 🇮🇳, stay invested!

PS:

As I update this blog, BSE trades at ₹3825/-, over 60% from the time the original blog was written less than a month and a half ago! This move has only made me more humble and grateful and I truly am! This stock is funnily so less covered that I am always anxious when it’s in the news.

Remember, the true big, huge money is made in sitting. From the absolute covid lows of now adjusted price of ₹95, the stock is up over 40 times! Yes, 40x in 4.5 years and still we hardly give it the credit it deserves. This is what the supposedly smart money does- chase momentum. I’m proud of having owned BSE since August 2018 and having ridden it all the way!

BSE now is over ₹50k crore market capitalisation and I won’t be surprised if it goes up 8-10x from here in this decade itself!

Stay bullish, get rich!

Disclaimer- The views expressed in this blog are personal opinions and are shared for educational and informational purposes only. They should not be considered as financial, investment, or legal advice. I write primarily to document my own learning and thinking process. I am not a SEBI-registered investment adviser, research analyst, or financial influencer, and no part of this blog should be seen as a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security. Please do your own research or consult a qualified professional before making any financial decisions.

This was the epitome of when whatever which could go wrong, did go wrong and then got worse. The Budget turned out to be a dose of heavy realism for the markets- higher Short Term gains tax; higher long term gains tax, higher STT on F&O- it was the recipe of a perfect disaster. And guess what happened, the markets collapsed in unison. It collapsed for a total of one hour and then, it roared back up like a phoenix.

Those of us who have been in the markets for sometime remember that fateful day in February 2018 when Arun Jaitley introduced the LTCG after a hiatus of one decade plus which led to the end of the then mega run in mid and small caps and there was a total panic in the markets which didn’t recover until after the corporate tax cuts in September 2019! One must have to have lived through that peril when the pessimism about the India story was immense. And the markets tanked and just didn’t recover. It took four years for the small and mid caps to come back to their 2017 highs, long after the Covid Period was over.

So what happened today! The taxes have been raised to an even more higher levels and the LTCG rate hike was completely out of syllabus. Everybody almost desperately wanted the F&O tax but higher LTCG and STCG- no way. It was the killer punch from the government. How the hell did markets recover?

The answer lies in two things- one, we are in the middle of a structural multi year sustained bull run which is going to rise above all walls of worries and two, this is the bottom for the market related stocks- the BSE/ Angel one types.

I’m calling it with my neck out as the absolute multi year bottom for BSE stock. you’ll not get this stock at anywhere close to 2000₹ for a very long time now. Why do I think so?

BSE is the director beneficiary of market activity as its volumes are rising since this is the place where trading happens, apart from NSE. The markets have made new lifetime highs but the price of BSE is effectively at October 2023 levels, having corrected 35% since May 2024! All the things which could go wrong, did go wrong- the SEBI tax demand which led to that famous 30% drop; news of higher F&O taxation, potential curbs by SEBI and the stock went into hiding. The poster boy of their post 2020 bull run collapsed while the markets made new highs repeatedly. This was also the time when it consistently grew its business side and achieved over 20%+ market share on a sustained basis in Q1 2025 and is on track to do over 25% in July 2024 in terms of volume in F&O. It’s cash volume is up over 50% YoY and it’s F&O volumes are rising at 10% month on month basis.

So I was convinced that the peak of the bad news will mark the end of the panic bottom and today was the absolute panic- 2105₹ post announcement of the budget which recovered to almost 2295 an hour later. It is obvious only in the hindsight but in my limited understanding of to markets, this is how bottoms are made.

The other newsmaker of the day was ITC! It’s a core holding for me and I was raising my positions all through the year and the stock is now clearly on track for at least 700+ levels. It’s the absolute best stock to own currently and I’m in love with its dividends!

Coming back to dividends, the newest member of the five digit club OFSS is still trading at 2.5% yield! It has been the fastest tripler of my career and with IT back in fashion, it won’t be a surprise if it doubles from here, at the very least!

Of course everything I say is with a huge ownership bias but anyone who has read this blog since inception knows that going back to the dark days of Covid pandemic, I was convinced that we are at the cusp of something incredible and what journey it has been! By the end of this decade, it won’t be a surprise if we go up 2-3x on index levels!

Stay bullish on India, Budgets or no budgets, the bulls won’t budge!

Disclaimer- The views expressed in this blog are personal opinions and are shared for educational and informational purposes only. They should not be considered as financial, investment, or legal advice. I write primarily to document my own learning and thinking process. I am not a SEBI-registered investment adviser, research analyst, or financial influencer, and no part of this blog should be seen as a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security. Please do your own research or consult a qualified professional before making any financial decisions.

In lives of men and in nations, there aren’t very many moments which are truely historical in the sense the world is never the same again. Tomorrow, we are at the cusp of one such moment when the Indian polity, as we have known hitherto will never be the same again.

With the incumbent government winning a third term with a full majority, the Bhartiyakaran of the Indian state will be complete. We will break shackles of the left-leaning, pseudo socialist and anti Bhartiya narrative which had ruled the nation for over 80% of the post independence period.

This will be the beginning of an era when the India will be run by a system which takes prides in the Bhartiyata of our culture; which puts the safety of our nation borders first and is hell bent on retaking our rightful place at the Big Boys table on the global arena; which wants India to have the best public infrastructure, which is striving to free the country from the malaise of deep rooted inefficiencies and ofcourse, is not shy of the cultural roots of our great land.

By the time this government completes its term in 2029, half the bureaucracy at the lower to mid level would have no idea how the babus used to be the Kings in the old days of socialistic planning societies. The country would have moved past the days of power shortage, bad airports and filthy railway stations, potholed roads and a mobile connectivity only in the name for over 15 years. The nation would be a thumping Third Largest Economy, with over a Trillion dollars of Exports; the mega expressways connecting the citiess would already be operational; Bullet train would be up and running; Indian households would be running on Solar energy and the Indian consumer the toast of the world through its insatiating lust for the luxury goods.

Come tomorrow evening and we will have the political stability at the very top for the next five years wherein we can harness on the mega foundations laid down in the previous five years. The highways which are currently under construction will be completed at a faster pace and the economy which has finally moved out of its perpetual repair mode can finally take giant strides forward.

The Wait at Ayodhya took over five hundred years; Kashi and Mathura will not take that long. Our temples and public places are getting cleaner at also maintained better; The rise of jihadi element in Europe must be a wake up call for all those high on the Woke opium. India cannot afford another lost decade and I’m so happy that the Elephant’s dance has finally begun.

Today’s markets only reflected part of what is to come over the next decade. This will be and is most likely to the Indian decade like the US had in the 1980s. Our companies are growing at a fast clip and the market capitalisation will grow at an even faster clip. Our markets are already the fifth largest in terms of capitalisation and we will rigthtfully lay claim to be the second largest in another five ten years. The Indian middle class is only waking up to the equity cult. Once the markets move up and the FIIs come in, as they bloody have to with their hats in hand, the Indian markets will experience a bull run unheard of in the history. Never before in the history that a $3.5 Trillion economy growing at 7-8% a year was so underallocated by the large Global funds.

With the Chinese weights in the Emerging market indices going down, India is already close to 17% weightage which will only go up from here. Our Mutual fund industry is hardly $700Billion in size whereas Blackstone alone manages over $10 Trillion. Once you have the sovereign wealth funds lining up for a piece of action, the daily funds inflow will be close to $3-5 Billion for years to come.

I see a bull run like never before. Like Rakesh Jhunjhunwala has maintained, the mother of all bull markets is ahead of us in India and there will be a Tsunami of flows rushing inside the country. I’ve unwavering belief that our markets will triple by the time 2030 is here and most stocks selling for peanuts will be worth their weights in gold. If you’re on the right side of the India story, you will make 10x in 5 years or less.

The Bet on India is beginning to work! The amount of wealth creation which will take place in the rest of this decade will be cumulatively more than what has been made in the past 75 years put together. I can’t wait for tomorrow’s final figures, can you!

Disclaimer- The views expressed in this blog are personal opinions and are shared for educational and informational purposes only. They should not be considered as financial, investment, or legal advice. I write primarily to document my own learning and thinking process. I am not a SEBI-registered investment adviser, research analyst, or financial influencer, and no part of this blog should be seen as a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security. Please do your own research or consult a qualified professional before making any financial decisions.

Not everyday you come across a book which changes your perception of life. I’ve discussed at length how Richer wiser happier by William Green allowed me to make bigger concentrated bets and hold my winners for longer.

I recently finished Billionaires’ Row by Katherine Clarke and I’ve not stopped obsessing over it ever since. It has completely transformed the way I have thought about making it big in life by positioning of a North Star in what big actually is!

First the book- it’s the story of Skyscrappers built in New York post the global financial crisis in 2008 who share certain characteristics- they’re all at least a 1000 feet high, are all overlooking the Central Park and are of course, only available for the absolute wealthiest. Not for the 0.1%, but for the 0.001%!

I’m an absolute believer in the art of making money and have huge respect for anyone who has built generational wealth from scratch, on his own, by fair means and by paying full taxes. If only you’ve it in white can you buy a Ferrari and paint the town red. So my rock stars are the likes of Bill Ackman, Stan Druckenmiller, Mohnish Pabrai and towering over all of them is the late Rakesh Jhunjhunwala.

They all have one thing in common- they’re all first generational billionaires( not sure if Pabrai is one but he’s at least good for a hundred million). Also, they’re all into the markets- stocks mostly.

So when you’re in the field of finance, be it in banks, NBFC, hedge fund or a financial regulator, you’re all part of the game of managing money. The winners take home the most and the rest are left with peanuts. So for anyone reading this and saying, oh I am not in the race of making million dollars a year is being a fool. If you’re in the financial sector, you’re naturally competing with someone who is making a million dollar a year at least. And more often than not, you’re more qualified than him as well or have better understanding of the rules and the game also. So if you’re trading dollars and making a lakh a month and are fooling yourself that you’re doing great, the person on the other side of the trade is doing the same work but is making ten fifty hundred times more than you do and is happy to call you Sir while taking home the moolah!

Financial sector is a giant trading ring. Everyday you’re competing with each other to make money. You’re either playing or umpiring or just being a spectator but in the end the money is right there for taking. And if you’re not playing to win, you’re just being dumb!

In this context, understanding the full potential of the game is essential. So when I read about $50Million homes being normal, when I read that home by Ackman worth $90Million plus $20M for interiors, I understood wah making big smells like. When I read that if you had $10M, you might not be even able to buy the smallest condominium in there, I understood how small we are playing now. I understood why all the private bankers and hedge fund guys are so polite when talking to someone from the government or the regulators because they’re simply massaging their ego since they just don’t want anyone else competing for the fat bonus at the year end.

So this is why I realised unless you’re in it to make hundreds of millions, you’re not even playing. A person with five crore portfolio is like a club level cricketer playing with tennis ball while the real boys are playing Test Cricket. Just imagine the distance one can and has to go to achieve some semblance of success or in other words, make it big. 🍻

It’s been three years since I started this blog and it’s time to do a celebrational post. No, not for the blog but for the markets!

So the markets are at a new all time high and are digesting a full bumper majority government at the centre, like most of us are. Personally, it’s going to be a phenomenal result because the kind of infrastructure, both digital and physical has been put in motion in the past ten years must not just be brought to completion but also to fruition. India just can’t suffer another lost decade of appeasement, corruption and lawlessness like the one it had between 2004-14.

So in the past three years, markets have virtually doubled from around 11-12k to almost 23k nifty while a lot of stocks have been sensational multibaggers.

I was fully convinced since four years ago on April 24,2020 that we are in the midst of a multi year mega bull run which will make some of us who dare to dream rich beyond imagination and the same has been beginning to take shape. Every single blog since then has stated that if you bet big on India, you’ll make tons of money and it has been vindicated ever since.

Every bit of dip must be bought, every fall to be celebrated as a discounted buying price and staying invested is the name of the game. Anyone who has remained invested has at least seen his portfolio gone up at least three to four times in the past three years. I’ve said this before, it’s not the percentage gain which matters but the multiple fold wealth which results in a life changing wealth building.

This is a full bloom mature bull run taking its shape where now everyone’s convinced that we are in a bull market. If you read my blogs since 2021, you’ll see that I was talking about the phases of bull run and how crowd psychology tells you as to where are we in the rally.

Post June 4, with the official announcement of return of the current dispensation, you’ll see everyone including the FIIs turning big time positive on Indian markets. The infrastructure story, the defence story is all in the play and people have made tons of money.

Some people ask me why I haven’t bought into any of the DLFs, the HAL, Canara Bank or any other metal mining plays etc. This is the topic I wanted to share with you all today

The end game for all of us in the markets is to get rich. It doesn’t matter how you make a million dollars as long as you make one. Every big investor has made his big money in different stocks. Warren Buffet had American Express and Coke; he never had Google/Meta/Nvidia etc. Jhunjhunwala made his billion dollars in Titan and Crisil; he never had HDFC Bank or Eicher or page. So would you say that they missed the bus? No, right.

So everyone who’s in the markets for over five years ( seven plus for me now) will discover his own trading style, investment philosophy amd it may be extremely different from other equally successful imvestors.

I began my career with the PSUs, the metal mining stocks etc and even though I did make money, I was never comfortable owning anything which made me uneasy- a NALCO can fall twenty percent due to some metal news overnight; an IOC will fall thirty percent a day ( it did in October 2018 when Jaitley announced ₹ 1 , yes just ₹1 subsidy in petrol prices)or a Vedanta can go down twenty percent on a corporate governance matter.

We are in that phase of the market where people have forgotten how these companies languished at decadal lows for years together and those who are jumping over each other to buy Vedanta or third rate real estate players will do well to remember that in the eventual bear market which follows, DLF didn’t cross its 2007 peak until 2024! Yes, 17 years!

So my investment philosophy includes three essential elements

1. Low debt good, zero debt excellent- anyone who doesn’t owe anything to others can’t go bankrupt!

2. Corporate governance must be tried and tested and should only be of the most pristine standards.

3. It must be a positive secular aspiration Indian growth story

So for all the companies I’ve bought and held. TaMo had huge debt concerns but is now on path to be net debt free this year and it’s being shown in results as well. Reliance has debt but has at least three lakh crores in cash so that’s not an issue.

I just don’t want any company who can either go bankrupt due to debt or bad management. And for the love of PSUs, I just am too capitalistic in my approach to believe that they can actually deliver once the frenzy subsides.

My investment thesis is simple- India is getting rich, Indians richer. They’re in love with luxury, better lives- cars and goods combined. They’re also madly in love with the stock markets as essentially we Indians are entrepreneurial people. Plus, the savings are increasingly being channelised to markets and it’s on an irreversible generational shift.

So you buy whatever is the core beneficiary of this trend which will outlast every war, election, World Cup frenzy etc.

This allows me to also have a multi year long term approach which helps calm my nerves when BSE fell 18% that day or when TaMo went down 12% post staggering results. It allows me to hold AMC or an ITC beyond the downetrends and collect dividends as and when due.

PS- BSE recently made a new high of ₹3264 which is pre bonus adjustment ₹9800/-. Please go and read my three year old blogs when I had said that this will be at least worth ₹10000/-. The victory is sweet!

TaMo is on track to produce Assembled in India Range Rovers beginning yesterday and it’s a huge move towards catering to the aspiration of Indians who are now in love with their luxury SUVs. Don’t pay too much attention to the short term price movements, it will at least be a double in three years from now.

So I reiterate what I’ve said ever since- bet big on India, it works!

Four years ago, on March 13, 2020, we witnessed the first circuit down on Indian markets since 2008. The COVID crisis as it came to be known had officially begun though on that day, it was more an oil shock which led to the capitulation. Yes Bank had failed a week prior and Saudis have started the oil price war which led to the price of Brent crude settling in the negative territory, albeit technically.

It was crazy time. You start your day at 4 AM with markets falling in Australia to 6.30M when SGX nifty fell in Singapore to 9:15 AM when you watched your markets fell 10% like a pack of cards without breaking a sweat. Stocks collapsed in unison and the mega caps like Reliance dropped 10-15% intraday for fun. The portfolio lost 40% in less than three weeks and it was crazy times! Nifty which was almost 11K in the last week of February 2020 went to 7500 intraday low on March 24!

Anyways, today is the fourth anniversary of the crazy day and markets have given a salute by falling across the board, with mid and small cap indices falling 5% each. The froth in PSU and select other smaller companies has cleared out a bit where some stocks have corrected almost 40%!

The erstwhile darlings such as Angel one are down 40% too and this is a sign that there is a strong churn going in the market when not everyone who has a demat account will make a million bucks in a month.

So what do I think now? Well, today’s fall was a brutal capitulation when the screen showed a near vertical collapse all day long, barring a minor recovery at midday. Is it the beginning of a bear market? No. Is the top in place? Absolutely no!

I’m a student of market history and market psychology and in my limited understanding, tops are not made when the SEBI chief warns of a bubble and the indices correct the next day like good obedient students. The tops are not made when everyone is worried if the bubble is being built and how valuations are frothy and why there should be a correction. Tops are and will be made when after two years of 40-50% index returns, at around 35-40k NIFTY the then SEBI chief or someone as prominent will defend the valuations and say that all’s well on Dalal street and in their opinion, the markets are likely to go higher.

This is nothing but a textbook bull market correction which will scare the hell out of you and many others who will miss the strong rebounds we are likely to see and then curse themselves for selling out at the bottom.

For me, the stocks which are not falling as much as their peers are going to lead the rebound and the next leg of this rally. BSE is the absolute king of the post covid run and it will be a one lakh crore company, a darling of all MF and PMS and FII portfolios in three five years and then be talked like Bajaj finance does today. Please remember, Bajaj finance was hardly 100₹ in 2014, 1000₹ in 2017 and corrected by over a third multiple times before hitting the absolute top of 8000₹!

Tata Motors is the HDFC Bank of this decade which has gone over 15x since COVID, the highest a large cap had and will see its weight in the index go from currently 1.7% to over 4% in two three years. This story is a secular decades run and the only thing which can derail this is if the electric cars stop selling in India.

The other joker of the pack is OFSS! It has been my fastest doubler and the way it’s holding up, it won’t be a surprise if it becomes the Nestle or Page of this decade! The thesis of strong growth, low float and great management is playing out very well!

It’s not on the days when everyone makes money that you give a bold call. It’s days like today which separates the man from the boys. I’m strongly bullish and if I have any money left, I’d go out and buy at a frenetic pace. When the screen bleeds, you buy stocks! This correction will be over sooner than you imagine and the rebound will be sharp. It won’t be long that the portfolios which are down 10-12% from recent highs, go up 30-40% in six months time!

PS- the Indian economy is growing like crazy. People are spending to buy better stuffs like anything. One of my friends told me about a 2023 Range Rover Velar which was sold to another buyer at no discount to the ex-showroom price after a year! In a normal world, it would have gone for at least 15% discount! The India story is real and kicking. Stay bullish, let the screen bleed red!

This week I have completed seven years in the markets. Back in 2017, I first bought some shares of SunPharma, HUL and Asian Paints as my first investments. That was also my 25th year and I was still two years away from declaring to self that investing will be my final destination.

The journey from zero in 2017, from making first 20-30k ₹ investments to now having quite a few multi-baggers in the bag has been phenomenally good. God has been kind and the journey has made me a better investor and thrown me on a lifelong pursuit of knowledge.

I titled this blog as Zero to Million for reminding myself two things- one, I started at zero which keeps me grounded and thankful for everything I have and two, a million dollars is the absolute million a normal investor must strive for. It also is a way of telling myself that what I have currently is not even a fraction of what I am supposed to make in this market and that keeps me off from losing focus and wanting to do more.

One of the most important points I have learnt is that a professional fund manager can never equal a person like me who is investing for the sheer joy of it. If you’re doing it for a salary and I’m doing it for fun and passion, I’m going to be better than you hands down. I am not often into self-praise but when you realise that some people with fancy degrees suck at basic investing is not because they’re not smart but because they lack the zeal of learning whatever there is!

For example, if a person with a lot of finance degrees can’t understand that a balance sheet is fudged and its implications are horrendous, he or she will never appreciate what bad governance can do to a company because unfortunately, governance cannot be taught and can only be learnt. Here’s an example:

Over the years, I have made some great investments and some terrible ones. Reliance Home Finance went from ₹105 to ₹0.95 in three years and yours truly lost 99%. So was the case with Yes Bank when I lost my shirt. This was all due to bad governance and nothing else. The balance sheet will never scream a fraud; you need to decipher through the arcane world of nuances in the notes to accounts.

I got off the PSU basket in 2021 for I realised that even if they will go up, like they have these days, I am not the kind of investor who will like to sleep well with a NALCO or an IOC with the fear of a news announcement from the ministry bringing an end to the party . It’s essentially a case of luck that the sector is doing well and people are going gaga but I have learnt a lesson- essentially it’s about what not to do in the markets is all there is to do!

So my investing style now encompasses to worry early, and worry a lot about the bear markets. You can’t survive for a decade if you can’t survive two bear markets. And thus the maxim, a company with no debt can’t go bankrupt. So this is one of the reason I love the stock ITC-Colgate-HUL type for they are there through the rainy days.

Investing is about longevity- longevity requires patience, grinding it out alone for years together for one multi-bagger to emerge through multiple suzlon types!

PS- Oracle has been my fastest doubler, almost on the verge of a tripler in a year. The story is beautiful, one of P/E rerating of the entire sector along with earnings expansion after a decade! Can it be a 15000₹ stock? Who knows but I do pray.🙏