This week I have the honor of hosting the 169th edition of the Festival of Stocks. This is the second time TIPBlog.in is hosting the festival. According to the festival’s original sponsor, ValueInvestingNews, “The Festival of Stocks is a blog carnival dedicated to highlighting bloggers’ best articles on stock market related topics. This will include research and commentary on specific stocks, industry analysis, ETFs, REITs, stock derivatives, and other related topics.”
Now, on to this week’s submissions. There are a lot of good posts included in this festival from writers and thinkers. I hope you enjoy reading all of them as much as I did!

Lately, we are seeing telecom companies cutting voice and SMS rates in an attempt to keep up with one another. The main focus in these rate cuts is to ensure that they maintain (or increase?) their market share. The rates are now being calculated in paisa per second for voice and one paisa for one SMS message. Coming from the consumer side these are best times to be using cellular phone for communication. To me, pricing these services in terms of paisa and seconds means this is practically free, relative to what a rupee can buy in today’s market. More so, when you start thinking about the capital expenditure in developing these communication networks and licensing fees involved.
My objective of investing in index based ETF is to have a total return that is somewhat similar to the market performance as a whole. It also acts as my benchmark for other long term portfolios. As mentioned in earlier post, if I cannot beat the market by stock selection, I should just close my long term portfolio and invest everything in these index ETFs.
I have been trying to understand the options available for the index based investments that include index based mutual funds or exchange traded funds. In principle, I am fan of exchange traded funds because (a) they follow a given index; (b) no manager involvement; and (c) low cost structure. Index based fund investments are very good vehicle if an individual wants to avoid stock selection and just wants to follow the index performance. In general, for last 10 years, the NIFTY index has returned an average of 15.5% per year. This return excludes the dividend payments.
Voltamp Transformers Limited (VOLTAMP) is one of the leading player in customized transformers for industrial applications. It has a niche in 132kV market segment and now looking to expand upto 220kV market segment. The key aspect that I like about Voltamp Transformers is its focus on niche market. It has created a space for itself in industrial segments, has zero debt, and focus of controlled growth.
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