When to sell a stock?

I recently re-read this simple statement over and over again. Philip Fisher has a way of communicating that makes it sound easy....

Excerpt from "Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits"

There is still one other argument investors sometimes use to separate themselves from the profits they would otherwise make. This one is the most ridiculous of all. It is that the stock they own has had a huge advance. Therefore, just because it has gone up, it has probably used up most of its potential. Consequently they should sell it and buy something that hasn’t gone up yet. Outstanding companies, the only type which I believe the investor should  buy, just don’t function this way. How they do function might be best understood by considering the following somewhat fanciful analogy.

Suppose it is the day you were graduated from college. If you did not go to college, consider it to be the day of your high school graduation; from the standpoint of our example it will make no difference whatsoever. Now suppose that on this day each of your male classmates had an urgent need of immediate cash. Each offered you the same deal. If you would give them a sum of money equivalent to ten times whatever they might earn during the first twelve months after they had gone to work, that classmate would for the balance of his life turn over to you one quarter of each year’s earnings! Finally, let us suppose that while you thought this was an excellent proposition, you only had spare cash on hand sufficient to make such a deal with three of your classmates.

At this point, your reasoning would closely resemble that of the investor using sound investment principles in selecting common stocks. You would immediately start analyzing your classmates, not from the standpoint of how pleasant they might be or even how talented they might be in other ways, but solely to determine how much money they igt make. If you were part of a large class, you would probably eliminate quite a number solely on the ground of not knowing them sufficiently well to be able to pass worthwhile judgement on just how financially proficient they actually would get to be. Here again, the analogy with intelligent common stock buying runs very close.

Eventually you would pick the three classmates you felt would have the greatest future earning power. You would make your deal with them. Ten years have passed. One of your three have done sensationally. Going to work for a large corporation, he has won promotion after promotion. Already insiders in the company are saying that the president has his eye on him and that in another ten years he will probably take the top job. He will be in line for the large compensation, stock options, and pension benefits that go with that job. 

Under these circumstances, what would even the writers of stock market reports who urge taking profits on superb stocks that ‘have gotten ahead of the market’ think of your selling out of your contract with this former class-mate, just because someone has offered you 600 per cent on your original investment? You would think that anyone would need to have his head examined if he were to advise you to sell this contract and replace it with one with another former classmate  whose annual earnings still were about the same as when he left school ten years before. The argument that your successful class-mate had had his advance while the advance of your (financially) unsuccessful classmate still lay ahead of him would probably sound rather silly. If you know your common stocks equally well, many of the arguments commonly heard for selling the good one sound equally silly.”

Ciao till next time...Harsha

Ajanta Pharma - A story of the missed bus..

It was I think year 2011 and I was looking at some potential stocks to buy. Two stocks popped up on horizon in pharma - Piramal and Ajanta Pharma.

After reading the wonderful post from Prof Bakshi (here) - I had no further analysis to do except verify the facts and I decided what a wonderful side-car investment it would be!

Piramal indeed turned out to be a good investment. From sub Rs 500 it has gone up to Rs 837 and I am sure its a money multiplier in the long term at 18 - 20%; a wonderful appetite to invest and the good sense to not dilute equity will keep Mr. Ajay Piramal a man to watch in years to come.

Now - coming back to the lesser known name - Ajanta Pharma. I had about brushed this company aside thinking that the growth was unsustainable and the motives of promoters were unknown or suspect at best (having taken over the business in early 2000's as second generation owners - I suspected Yogesh and Rajesh Agarwal were not known entities).

The difference and thumb sucking left lots of money on table. Here's how the financials for Ajanta looks currently -

Mkt Cap has grown by an astonishing 25,518 Cr in 10 years and Retained Earnings in the same period has been 707 Cr. Every 1 Rs retained has created a value of 36 Rs in 10 years! What a wonderful business.

As it looks one of the dangers for Pharma companies is not entering big markets like US or Europe and be localized generics players in India. A branded-generics player needs to have three things going in the right direction - right product strategy (areas to play which on hindsight has been successful - I will not delve on this point here though you can read more in the annual reports), right regional strategy (where to play) and the right people with vision handling the company.

With Ajanta - all three seem to be coming right. The key point going forward seems to be the second strategy which I thought was doomed for failure (restricting to India and developing world). This has been a blessing in disguise helping Ajanta pile loads of cash and grow at a tremendous pace - 23% sales growth and 45% profit growth in past 10 yrs... what a wonderful business this must be - establishing presence in developing markets before actually venturing into developed markets!

With US and maybe Europe later beckoning - is this a missed bus or still something that can be caught?

Is it overpaying for growth? Is the growth sustainable?

For an instance - considering that FCF keeps growing at rate of 35% (which is what it has grown in the past and considering that they are also gaining market share in their current markets - this may not be far fetched) over next 10 years and terminal growth 5% with discount rate of 12% - I still arrive at a value of Rs 1591.

Potential Growth –

Emerging countries hold unique potential in years to come as population growth and movement of people from rural to urban areas give unique possibilities to create long lasting businesses.

Here’s a very interesting perspective of world population growth and economic growth possibilities in Asia and Africa (the two most populous continents growing rapidly for the next 3 decades) – 

Link

“Can you see, as the years pass by, child survival is increasing? They get soap, medicine, hygiene, education, vaccination, penicillin and then family planning” – Hans Rosling.

Ajanta Pharma holds the unique position of playing in the right markets and the right segments.

Not one to over-pay I am still thinking..... 

Ciao till next time...Harsha

The pumpkin seeds..

This is a borrowed idea.. You can do two things with pumpkin seeds. Eat them, an excellent source of protein, or plant them, and watch a successful seed bring back 100 more. The farmer who plants the seeds aggressively, without regard for, "hey, be careful, I could have eaten that seed," often ends up with many more pumpkins and many more seeds. On the other hand, the person who guards all the seeds and then eats them ends up with not much.

And of course, money works the same way. Time, too.

Ciao till next time...Harsha

My ideal portfolio size

Over the years I have tinkered with having many many stocks to owning less than handful of stocks. Through the last 3 to 4 years - I started buying small quantities of stocks I wanted to call as 'tracking stocks' - just enough to keep an eye on, but not big enough to pinch if it hurts.

Over the vacation time during Christmas and New-year - I started re-looking... if this strategy was really worth the 'buying'. Especially if the tracking portfolio portion starts creeping upwards of 80.. or 90.. with all the nice screener tools available online - the big question was: is it really worth the money to buy something for the sake of tracking..

I think it becomes painful to see small amounts of money get painfully low / out of sync... also especially if I have no further interest in doing any research on those companies. Even getting 5% of portfolio doing bad because of a stupid idea of 'tracking' seems to be a waste of good time over bad ideas..

Its good to have the best 3-4 stocks hold 80% of portfolio (obviously changing percentages over time) and rest 20% in 5-7 stocks. This seems to be the ideal sweet-spot for me. Usually I have seen that I am highly reluctant to change much on the 3-4 stocks if all's going well. The 5-7 stocks on the periphery are the ones to read more on... maybe learn more about the industry.. how they make money, how the best-in-class companies WW make their money.. read books about the industry.. some biographies.. autobiographies... and the like. I need to do more of this. The dilution which had creeped-in is doing more harm than good.

So.. my goal for the year is to think more deeply before jumping.. and to cut down on crap. Cut the crap.

Ciao till next time...Harsha

Oil crisis

Very interesting. I was still not sure about buying. But, this graph sort of gives me some historical perspective. Was searching for a 30 year trend on oil prices.. thought I share this with you.

Time for some action. Silent in stock market for upwards of a year now.

Ciao till next time...Harsha

My investment rules

I thought of penning down my rules for making a stock investment. Over the past year or two this has been revised and here's what it stands as currently:

1.       I am an investor and not a speculator. I am not as brave as the other people who are trying to get rich overnight.. I like to have a BIG margin of safety (bigger the better).. if I don’t think I am getting a $1 bill for 50-60 cent. I am happy to wait.

2.       I am a patient man. As long as fundamentals are good; I have no issues in holding the stock I invested in (as long as I have a dividend yield of 2.5% or higher and hopefully growing YoY).

3.       I like the Rip Van Winkle theory. If I can’t visualize that the company stays in 10 – 20 years.. I would be wary of buying the stock.

4.       I respect market cycles. I can’t and don’t predict the future. I just prepare for it.

5.       I am crazy about capital preservation. First of all – I am worried about return of my money than return on my money.

6.       I like my companies to grow at a decent pace – 10% YoY (sales growth) operating at a decent margin (varies by industry), with a ROE 20%+ employing either no debt or very low debt.

7.       I like monopolies that exist in very favorable circumstances. As long as the government does not try to lick into the honey-pot. Or – in private industries as long as the management stays honest.

8.       I want to concentrate on setting individual targets for the stocks I hold. I like absolute numbers. My favorite growth number is 26%. I have no interest in what the sensex or the index as a whole is doing. And I don’t really care as well.

9.       I like to get dividends. My thumb rule is 2.5% to start off when I invest and a nice 10% YoY dividend growth.

10.   I like to hold 10% of my wealth in cash. I am not clever enough to find a place to park all my cash. I never know when I will need it.

11.   I like to read. I want to read all the annual reports of my stocks. I may not understand everything that gets written in the reports (I am not a mind reader); but I like annual reports that don’t excessively use magic words..  Vision, mission, culture, commitment, system, integration, globalization (these are just a few.. you know what I mean, don’t you?).

12.   I like 26% for a reason. It’s a neat number – you double your money every 3 years and you grow 10 times every 10 years. A million grows into a billion in 30 years..

13.   I usually don’t like to sell my stocks. If they continue to grow 10% YoY and have 20%+ ROE and has a sensible management in place.

14.   I like sensible management. I don’t like it if the management salaries are excessive. Especially if they grow over 5% of profit the company makes. I also don’t like heroes – I like honest, simple and motivated people to run my company.

15.   My company. Yes, I like to call all companies where I hold stocks as ‘my’ company. I like to see myself as a part owner of the company. I am terribly angry if someone dilutes me.. I like companies that don’t dilute me.. better still if they reduce outstanding share count.

16.   I like to look at a long history.. usually 10 years. I like companies which know what they are selling. And stick to it. Not go after growth for the sake of it. I get mad if good money is spent after bad. Decent retained earnings are key.

17.   Finally, if my companies have more money than they need – I am happy to have more dividends coming in.

Ciao till next time...Harsha

Why (not) to buy a house

Last month I got a phone call. Finally I had found a buyer for my house. In a few weeks time - the sale was finally done. I was thinking what my reaction would be once the house was (really) sold with money in my bank- would I be sad that I would be selling a 'fixed asset'? Should I be thinking of buying 'another fixed asset'? Well, actually I just felt free, a big relief. Finally - I was able to free up some under-performing capital that was not generating sustainable, inflation beating economic returns.

I decided to pen down my thoughts on why it is such a bad idea to look at real estate as an investment class - especially first time buyers (like I was) looking at cheap (that's a relative term) investment which will magically grow once you purchase that house/apartment. Especially in the current situation. Also, especially if you are looking at buying something for 'investment' and not to 'live' in it.

I want to use my use-case for ease of explaining.

I bought a house in 2007 and sold just a few months shy of holding 7 years in 2014. Also, since I took a loan to buy the house - I did end up paying more through all these years for the interest component. Some rough calculations later - I have a number of Rs 49L for the overall ownership cost (based on loan closure). For the sake of maintaining simplicity I have not considered time value of individual loan payments which will make my overall returns worse still (not better). Considering a discount rate of 7% (inflation), here's what I see (all values in Rs.)-

Annualized return of 5% is not what you would have hoped when buying a house - would you? That quickly turns negative if you take inflation into account which hovered in range of 7 - 8% through the period. Investing in a index fund would have returned 10% annually (Jan 1: Sensex at 14,090).

Well - you may ask, what am I getting at? I'm jotting down a few mistakes I did as a real estate investor which one can easily avoid (lest I forget and make another mistake in future). Here are my top 5. I hope you can benefit from my mistake!

- I have only talked about the purchase price and sale price and not about the most important aspect - where and what did I invest in. As they say - the three most important things in real estate investment are location, location and location. Its better to invest in a property in a very good location (when you find something within means so to say).

- Avoid buying when something looks costly and indicators suggest that you are not able to afford prices being asked. Is the EMI equal to the rent you are paying currently? Are you just buying the house as an 'investment'. Buying a house which costs >3 times your annual income with a costly loan (as a thumb rule anything over 2% points over 'Fixed Deposit' rate would look high to me).

- I learnt it the hard way. The first investment should be a property to live in, not to look on. As Francis Bacon told in 1500's - "Houses are built to live-in and not to look on". Especially since any real estate investment needs 'taking care off' - it does no usually generate effort-free rental returns i.e., its better to think in terms of return on unit effort put-in; rental yields you calculate and actually end up with after expenses are quite different - its usually a modest 2 - 3%. And if you think you can increase rents 10% y-o-y think again :-)

- Investing to get tax benefits  as your primary reason (especially on the first property) is not such a good idea! Its good to pay your taxes.. someone needs to pay for the roads, lighting, government running (I know.. who likes it?), etc.. But if you find a nice property to live-in and save on rent plus create a nice environment where your children grow - that is an added benefit.

- Think before you jump. Its much easier to invest in a cheap index fund or an actively managed fund or better still invest in stocks yourself which would be highly enjoyable especially if you like do some thinking behind your investments (I ended up making 21% yearly returns from 2007 until 2013; taking away 2014 which would skew the returns further since this year returned close to 78% ytd). Its a good question to ask if you are ready to make an illiquid, not-so-easy-to-dispose real estate investment!

A normal question to ask oneself: Are there metrics worldwide which rationalize price paid for housing. Well, I read an interesting forbes article a few years back. 'Income to Home price ratio' is an interesting historical indicator.. read on, here's something I picked up -

The price-to-income ratio looks at the total cost/price of a home relative to median annual incomes. Historically, the typical, median home in the US cost 2.6 times as much as the median annual income (so if the median income in an area was $100,000, the median price of a home would typically be about $260,000: $100,000 * 2.6).

A similar scenario exists in UK. A January 2014 article on www.economicshelp.org points out that "First time buyers in London are seeing house prices at a record 7.5 times average earnings. For the UK as a whole, the ratio of 4.3 is still above long term trends." Most people in Germany prefer not to own homes. Here's why: article.

In comparison, if it takes 20 - 30 years of annual income to buy a home in any tier 1 city of India, what it clearly means is that the real estate companies have priced themselves out of the market. Looking at the huge inventories built up by companies like DLF, Unitech, Purva, Shobha, Prestige, others (on top - the enormous amount of debt these companies carry).. its prudent to think again.. is it not better to wait than rush in to buy?

Finally - Is the juice really worth the squeeze?

Ciao till next time...Harsha

Ownership..ownership..ownership.

I read this statement of an American-Indian chief and found it greatly amusing.. something in this made me re-think about 'ownership'-

How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land?
The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness
of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?

- Chief Seattle, Nineteenth Century American Indian (Tribe: Suquamish)

This is the great paradox of our times. That is the essence of investing. You see - stocks are but pieces of business ownership material. I am interested in holding and increasing  pieces of business that I like and admire. What I like and is available at a bargain price - I intend to buy and what is selling at a higher price than what it really is worth - I am willing to part with (maybe lets say I am  learning this aspect of selling still; for you see I would like to hold onto something for as long.. I mean forever.. unless it screams in the eye that its a sell..)

No animal but man can lay claim to own things, places, and stuff like that.. Animals are known to defend themselves, their mates, children, pack, food and area where they inhabit. Animal territory is defended by scent and once the animals are gone.. come new ones (not exactly offspring's) to take their place..

Human beings are different. We purport to believe that individuals can 'own' the most astonishing things.. we can own land, whole islands, mines, mountains, forests and anything else we can name and lay our hands on.

We do believe we own ways to execute a mere 'idea' - the basis for patents and intellectual ownership. Even more astonishingly we pretend that names can own such things, what else to do we call a partnership, company of even a country but a name?

I get this concept, its mind blowing... Something inside struck a deep chord.. Thank God we have this 'ownership thingy', however cynical it really is.

Ciao till next time...Harsha

What an inspiration!

Learning of the day!

Ciao till next time...Harsha

Getting on the right train..

I was reading the Q&A's that Buffett took when he visited the Tuck's school of business. Here's a interesting answer. What a gem!

Q:I worked in the paper and packaging business this past summer and really enjoyed my experience. None of my classmates are interested in the paper business and the company I worked for has not had MBA interns in years. Clearly the paper business has its challenges, but do you see this as an opportunity or a roadblock?


A: Well, you've got it right that the paper business is challenged. High capital intensity, low margins, cyclical. It is a brutal business; no one cares who made the box their Dell computer came shipped in. In general, commodity businesses, even you're the low-cost producer, are difficult. There are generally two recommendations I offer to college and business school graduates. The most important thing about where you work is that you admire/love it. So it sounds like you liked your experience, and that's great. But we come to my second recommendation, which is to get on the right train; that is, moving in the right direction. There's no course in business school called "Getting on the Right Train", but it's really important. You can be an average passenger but if you get on the right train it will carry you a long way. You want to learn from experience, but you want to learn from other people's experience when you can. Managing your career is like investing - the degree of difficulty does not count. So you can save yourself money and pain by getting on the right train.

Ciao till next time...Harsha