Graham number is one of the five method I use to estimate the fair value of a given company share that I am willing to pay. I have provided the formula I use and a very brief description. However, over the last few weeks, I have received questions requesting to help explain why this particular formula and is there any rationale on how this is derived. So here it is…..
Graham’s view was the price-to-earnings ratio should not be more than 15. At the same time, price-to-book value should not be more than 1.5. He also mentioned that it would be justifiable to have higher P/B ratio if PE ratio is below 15.
With this thought process, Graham proposed that the product of these two parameters should not be more than 22.5 Continue reading rest of this article…
Two readers of this blog left couple of intelligent questions in comment section on some of the articles. Both of these questions relate to what I term as rebalancing the portfolio (or profit booking). I wanted to wait until I posted articles on TIPBlog portfolio update and risk analysis. I wanted to discuss these two questions in the context of TIPBlog portfolio. It will help better understand the re-balancing and profit booking processes.
You may have read earlier post that discusses risk analysis. I made a comment that the portfolio has overexposure on few stocks like ONGC, LNT, etc. I also mentioned that I will not be selling any partial shares to bring down allocation. Many use the term profit booking for partial selling.
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In an earlier post, I mentioned that I use XIRR as one of the metrics for measuring the individual stocks performance in my portfolio. In simple terms, XIRR is the interest rate you would need to make the same money from any interest bearing account (with same investments). While XIRR can be extended at portfolio level, in today’s post, I am only discussing how I use XIRR at individual stock level.
I have pulled out one excel sheet [copy is in my toolbox at TIP-Stock-Tracker] as a representative example for this discussion. The primary notion behind this excel sheet is to keep records and track the performance. It is not intended “to model an automated tracker” or “to perform any automated calculation across the board”. Except XIRR, I have used only few basic math formulas like addition, subtraction, divisions, multiplication, and percentages. In order to understand the formula, I suggest to use formula auditing tool bar (which will show arrows to linked cells) to understand the formulas. This excel is segregated into different regions.
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I am presenting a direct copy of an email by one of the readers of TIPBlog. In this email, the reader shared his/her journey and is narrating an experience. After the story I will present my views and thoughts about it.
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My experience in stock markets has been one involving many emotions right from elation (beginning with RPower in Jan 2008) to point of being depressed (with the Oct-Lehmann crash)……. I just wanted to share it with someone hoping you can bring some clarity to my investing/trading style and how I can chart a path in this field.
I was a college grad with 1 yr experience and already into a second job (hopping very early) in early 2008 when I got caught in
the euphoria of RPower. That was when I actually came to know the ‘ABC’ of stock markets. I wanted to make quick bucks (and still in that mindset I feel) and subscribed to full limit thinking it would double in no time after listing. I even borrowed from my brother to invest on his behalf. I didn’t know what was a ‘bull’ or ‘bear’ and just blindly went on buying stocks which propped up in media and held some 2L worth of stocks during the Feb ‘08 – June ‘08 period. I didn’t even know that a fully charged bear market was ongoing until it was too late for me to grasp the various terms and happenings around the world.
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When a company goes for an IPO, it collects money that is higher than face value of the company. For accounting purposes, this additional money (or capital) is transferred to a separate account known as share premium account. This share premium account has to be considered as part of the total capital i.e. it has to be captured in company’s balance sheet. There are many different ways this premium account can be used. I will list few of them in very common layman language.
- Company pays bonus shares and/or options to many employees or services provided to the company. These bonus shares and options are paid from premium share account;
- Use it to balance out or writing off company’s expenses in issuing IPO;
- Use it to balance out or writing off commission paid for marketing expenses of IPOs;
- Use it to balance out or writing off discounts allowed to any issue of shares or debentures of the company;
- Use the money for share buy back;
- Use the money to fund growth and expansion for the company;
- It cannot be used for dividends.
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In my last post, I discussed about two important but overlooked aspects about dividend investing. Today, I am discussing few tidbit that I have learnt over the years.
Dividends provide stability in your portfolio: Companies that are generating profitable cash and sharing with shareholders are the ones that do not go bust. Even in down market they give you cash dividends. While your portfolio’s capital values go down, your dividends are positive return to you portfolio. I crave for such a scenario. I position myself to make sure I have enough cash to buy such companies at lower valuations. I see downturn such as early 2009 as an incredible buying opportunity.
Dividends to investors cannot be manipulated: Companies demonstrate profit in their books which fuels the market price. But can you as an investor spend company profits? Profits can be generated from financial engineering, ROC or ROE can be engineering, but cash flow from operations or dividends to shareholders cannot be manipulated. As an investor you need cash to spend, and not company profits. The company you work for gives you cash (and not profit statement). Will you be willing to work for profit statement? Probably not!
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Measuring Progress – XIRR as Personal Rate of Return
In this context, I use few different monitoring and/or performance metric. Earlier, I have talked about yield on cost as one metric to determine cash flow (or dividends) received from my original investments. YOC is a very good metric to measure the growth of your dividend based cash flow over a period of time. However, it has a drawback. It does not take into account the variability of capital invested. The price of the stock does not remain static. It keeps changing over a period of time.
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