Vimal & Sons

October 10, 2021

Are Stocks Too High?

Prologue: 1. The article from which the following is excerpted, was originally published in Fortune magazine on September 28, 1987. You can read the whole thing here: ARE STOCKS TOO HIGH?. 2. Black Monday (1987) - Wikipedia, talks about market volatility in the week starting on October 19, 1987. The above wiki link may be treated as a ...
Read more
October 3, 2021

Affect Heuristic

This post is a continuation of my earlier posts. I suggest reading The Art of Selling - Preview, The Art of Selling - Winning the Loser's Game, The Art of Selling - Who is on the Other Side?, The Art of Selling - 10 Commandments, The Art of Selling - Coffee Can Portfolio, The Art of Selling - Psychology of Investing, and The Art of Sel...
Read more
October 3, 2021

Do Colours Nudge our Investing Behaviour?

This post is a continuation of my earlier posts. I suggest reading The Art of Selling - Preview, The Art of Selling - Winning the Loser's Game, The Art of Selling - Who is on the Other Side?, The Art of Selling - 10 Commandments, The Art of Selling - Coffee Can Portfolio, and The Art of Selling - Psychology of Investing, before you rea...
Read more
October 3, 2021

Psychology of Investing

This post is a continuation of my earlier posts. I suggest reading The Art of Selling - Preview, The Art of Selling - Winning the Loser's Game, The Art of Selling - Who is on the Other Side?, The Art of Selling - 10 Commandments, and The Art of Selling - Coffee Can Portfolio, before you read this post. After writing this part in this s...
Read more
September 25, 2021

Coffee Can Portfolio

This post is a continuation of my earlier posts. I suggest reading The Art of Selling - Preview, The Art of Selling - Winning the Loser's Game, The Art of Selling - Who is on the Other Side?, and The Art of Selling - 10 Commandments, before you read this post. The Coffee Can Portfolio In 1984 Robert G. Kirby wrote a paper about portfol...
Read more
September 19, 2021

10 Commandments

This post is a continuation of my earlier posts. I suggest reading The Art of Selling - Preview, The Art of Selling - Winning the Loser's Game, and The Art of Selling - Who is on the Other Side? before you read this post. 10 Commandments of Selling Stocks Like I hinted at in my very first post on this topic, there aren’t any books on ‘...
Read more
September 11, 2021

Who is on the Other Side?

This post is a continuation of my earlier posts. I suggest reading The Art of Selling - Preview and The Art of Selling - Winning the Loser's Game, before you read this post. Who is on the Other Side? Does the person on the other side of the trade matter? Why can’t we buy and sell without really caring for ‘who is on the other side of t...
Read more
September 4, 2021

Winning the Loser's Game

In the last post, I said that the selling decision matters more than the buying decision. For those who haven't read the earlier post, it might be a good idea to do so, before you read this one. Click, The Art of Selling - Preview to read the earlier post. So, why does the selling decision matter? By the time you finish reading this po...
Read more
August 28, 2021

Preview

The prevailing wisdom seems to be that: it never hurts to book a profit. To me that seems to be pretty dumb, and in my opinion, it almost surely isn't the way one should arrive at a selling decision. If you were to Google or do a search on Amazon using the words in the title of this blog post, you wouldn't get any meaningful content. I...
Read more
May 29, 2021

Rule Breaker Investing

Since, I started my investing advisory cum brokerage business, things have changed rapidly (they seem to keep on changing all the time). Ever since the internet made its presence felt in the brokerage business, there have been two business models in the investment world that have proved to be revolutionary. These are the subscription b...
Read more
April 18, 2021

Infy Buyback - What's Different This Time

(Disclosure: I am long Infy, so readers may consider my views as biased) Before I explain what is different about the latest Infy buyback, I think it is necessary to understand what is meant by a stock buyback. Unfortunately, the concept has been butchered in India and the regulator is directly responsible for the misuse of the concept...
Read more
April 14, 2021

Fooled by Randomness - Investor Expectations

I have written earlier about Expectations Investing. I think I missed out on a related feature. I didn’t write about investor expectations and that is what this post is about. At the end of the financial year 31st March, 2020, the yearly returns from the Nifty 50 were skewed to the negative side; reason being the benchmark hit its nadi...
Read more
April 6, 2021

The 'S Curve' and Expectations Investing

When we are buying or selling a stock we are indirectly making a forecast of what we expect the price will be in the future. But, the time horizons for these forecasts, differ from one investor to another. And, time horizons can stretch from a couple of hours to a couple of years. Irrespective of the time horizon, there is an element o...
Read more
April 1, 2021

When NOT to Buy - Sideways Markets

It is tough to ignore the fact that the Nifty 50 has roughly doubled from the lows that it hit one year ago. During this period, a strategy of buying the dip has given excellent returns. That doesn’t mean that this ‘buying the dip’ strategy will work in the future as well. A lot of ink is spilled on words like, ‘bull market’, and ‘bear...
Read more
March 31, 2021

Buy Low & Sell High

By definition anyone who invests in stocks has one common objective. He or she wants to buy low and sell high. Some investors want to sell first, and then buy back what they have sold at a cheaper price. Yet, more often than not, we end up buying high and we want to sell when the stock that we have bought climbs even higher. And when t...
Read more
March 14, 2021

Are we in a Stock Market Bubble?

Readers who want to know more about the definition of a stock market bubble, should click and read this before reading further: What is a Stock Market Bubble? So, what is the answer, to the rhetorical question: Are we in a Stock Market Bubble? There can be four ways to answer this question: 1. Yes 2. No 3. I don’t know 4. I don’t care ...
Read more
March 14, 2021

What is a Stock Market Bubble?

We live in the Information Age and the signal to noise ratio is abnormally low. There is far too much noise, and for the most part there is no signal. Moreover, the reporting about the daily happenings in the Stock Market has acquired a cult status. We are in an environment, where anyone and everyone opines about the future direction t...
Read more
March 12, 2021

Winning the Losers Game

To view this post in your browser or to share it click Winning the Losers Game. To subscribe click Subscribe. When we participate in the stock market, we are either buying or selling a stock. There are two parties to the transaction. When we buy a stock, someone has sold it to us and when we sell a stock, someone has bought it from us....
Read more
March 10, 2021

Insider Trading - Is SEBI sleeping at the wheel?

To view this post in your browser and share it, you can click Insider Trading - Is SEBI sleeping at the wheel? To subscribe to future posts, click Subscribe. In the book titled, The Little Book that 'Still' Beats the Market the author Joel Greenblatt has hinted at what is meant by an investing edge. In his words: “Choosing individual s...
Read more
March 6, 2021

Tata Motors DVR and Tata Motors - Arbitrage Opportunity

A bit of perspective about the two instruments is necessary for readers to understand this post. What are DVR's? 1. DVR shares are shares with Differential Voting Rights. The holders of Tata Motors’ DVR shares can cast one vote for every 10 shares held. The holders of the 'normal' Tata Motors Equity shares are entitled to one vote per ...
Read more