Switch off that TV!

Posted On Monday, Dec 29, 2014


Television commentators are a strange breed especially the ones who lay out investment advice on multiple business channels. Most of them have the attention span of a housefly and long term investing usually means investing with a view of one week!

In August of 2013, when the fears of US tapering led to sharp correction in global equities and emerging market currencies took a tumble, one could hardly find an expert recommending investment into equities. It was all gloom and doom, with greater downside to come, India was clubbed into the fragile five with very weak external accounts. Equities since then have rallied close to 100%!!

Guess what they are recommending now, high allocation to equities, the common language used is ‘even if the market corrects it will not fall more that 5%-10% and one can allocate even more at that point, given that India is at the start of a multiyear bull run’. Why should Indian equity markets not fall by more than 5%-10% is a mystery to me, given that the rally has been so sharp, without a corresponding up take in corporate earnings and the mid year economic review paints a fairly dismal picture of the revival in investment cycle. But the ‘experts’ are saying it, so must be true and the crowd will behave accordingly.

The price of any share is a reflection of what the majority believes is the correct value. It primarily combines two aspects one is Investment value, based on pure facts derived from the current state of company financials, competitive environment, state of the economy, balance sheet and management quality etc. The other - speculation value, based of growth rate of future earnings, forecast of FII flows, possible PE multiple expansion, regulatory action etc. It is the latter which tends to have a disproportionate share of news flow coverage while the former barely gets a mention. With expert after expert propounding the story of an onset of a multi year golden period for Indian equities, the fear is the speculative element of company valuation has far overtaken the facts and the disconnect between ground reality and valuation of companies grows wider by the day.

At Quantum, we make it a point to avoid listening to these so called experts. Each company that our research team covers has a predetermined buy limit and a predetermined sell limit based on the facts on the ground and our understanding of investment value. If a company comes below our buy limit irrespective of the opinion of ‘experts’, the stock will come into our portfolio, similarly if the company exceeds our sell limit and we have no reason to upgrade our long term earnings estimate, we will exit the stock.

The last few months has seen us exit quite a few stocks as we believe they became more expensive relative to their investment value, raising the cash levels in the fund. Our constant check of ground levels facts (and we know we can be wrong as well) has so far not led us to believe that our earnings estimate of companies are way off the mark. And so against ‘expert’ advise of the onset of a multi year bull run, we remain on high cash. We wait patiently for value to emerge. Investors trying to build a portfolio for the long term could also follow a similar pattern. Would urge all investors to check with their financial advisors before taking any investment decision, no matter how loud the volume of the television ‘pundits’.



Disclaimer, Statutory Details & Risk Factors:
The views expressed here in this article are for general information and reading purpose only and do not constitute any guidelines and recommendations on any course of action to be followed by the reader. The views are not meant to serve as a professional guide / investment advice / intended to be an offer or solicitation for the purchase or sale of any financial product or instrument or mutual fund units for the reader. The article has been prepared on the basis of publicly available information, internally developed data and other sources believed to be reliable. Whilst no action has been solicited based upon the information provided herein, due care has been taken to ensure that the facts are accurate and views given are fair and reasonable as on date. Readers of this article should rely on information/data arising out of their own investigations and advised to seek independent professional advice and arrive at an informed decision before making any investments.

Risk Factors: Mutual Fund investments are subject to market risks, read all scheme related documents carefully.
Please visit – www.QuantumMF.com to read scheme specific risk factors. Investors in the Scheme(s) are not being offered a guaranteed or assured rate of return and there can be no assurance that the schemes objective will be achieved and the NAV of the scheme(s) may go up and down depending upon the factors and forces affecting securities market. Investment in mutual fund units involves investment risk such as trading volumes, settlement risk, liquidity risk, default risk including possible loss of capital. Past performance of the sponsor / AMC / Mutual Fund does not indicate the future performance of the Scheme(s). Statutory Details: Quantum Mutual Fund (the Fund) has been constituted as a Trust under the Indian Trusts Act, 1882. Sponsor: Quantum Advisors Private Limited. (liability of Sponsor limited to Rs. 1,00,000/-) Trustee: Quantum Trustee Company Private Limited. Investment Manager: Quantum Asset Management Company Private Limited. The Sponsor, Trustee and Investment Manager are incorporated under the Companies Act, 1956.

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