Investing Success Comes from Conviction and Executing Your Ideas

1133804_sign_success_and_failureDo you know how many people investing and/or trading in equity markets truly succeed over long term? Success here means increase in wealth over their investing lifetimes. This group of people includes individual retail folks and professionals. I am sure many of us would have no clue.  I do not have any hard core reference to share; however, I can recall reading various percentages that range from 1% to 7%. Without going in specific data points, my observation has been every time this is less than 10% of investing population. More than 90% of the folks will lose money in equity markets over their investing lifetime. Quite startling but this is very true.

We as individuals focus too much on one or two big time success or multi baggers, but ignore the importance of sustainability and consistency. We fall into the “Chalta hai” trap. Long term success is not built on few multi-baggers. Long term success is built on multiple average successes that are sustainable over time. Continue reading rest of this article…

Dividend Investing – Few Tidbits

1133804_sign_success_and_failureIn 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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Overlooked Aspects of Dividend Investing

investingThere are many different styles, approach, and methods of investing. Many individual investors focus on trading (swing, positional, momentum, speculation, technicals etc.), while many others focus of investing (value, growth, blend, etc), and still many others on special situations (opportunistic, arbitrages, etc). In addition, there are quite a few individual investors that attempt at combination of trading and investing. Similar to glass being half full or half empty, I believe every style has its own pros and cons’ depending upon in what context one is looking at it. Individuals have to figure out what works best for them.


Readers are already accustomed to my approach of dividend investing. I am a long term buy and hold investor and prefer to buy my positions at fair values (fair value calculation methodology). The reason I use fair value is because, I do have enough expertise to determine the tangible book value. While I still use book value based on Graham’s method, it is not the only one on which I base my decision.

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High Dividend Yield – Good or Bad?

As always there is no simple answer and it depends on many factors. For me, it does not matter whether it is high yield or low yield. One of the key aspect that I look for in dividends is its sustainability.

Focusing on high initial dividend yield may be good for someone who wants to harvest only dividends and get out of the stock. This is a high risk preposition. The dividend cash you receive may or may not cover the stocks price fluctuations. Since I look for longer term, high yield is acceptable, if I am able to understand how the company is sustaining it. Let us take few examples.

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Hero Honda: Dividend Stock for Long Term Investment

hero_honda_logoHero Honda Motors Limited (HEROHONDA) is India’s largest 2 wheeler motorcycle manufacturer in India. It has two manufacturing facilities at Dharuhera and Gurgaon in Haryana, which produce over 3 million bikes per year. It is has largest market share in excess of 50% in Indian two wheeler segment.

One notable aspect that I personally like about HEROHONDA is its positioning in the market segment. It satisfies the vehicular needs of large number of middle class in India. It is very well positioned in a sense that recessionary trend, slow down, or increase in oil price improves its sales and revenue. This is evident by relatively stable stock during this current market turbulence since Year 2009.

Trend Analysis

The whole reason for any business to exist is to generate sales revenue and make more profits. At a minimum, the parameters listed below should have continuously increasing trends. All the data below is based on last 8 years i.e. from 2001 to 2008.

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Tata Investments: Attractively Priced Dividend Stock to Invest

logo_tataTata Investment Corporation Limited (TATAINVEST) operates as an non-banking financial company. Its primary activity is to invest in long-term equity shares and other securities of companies in a range of industries. It is also engaged in management and distribution of mutual funds. TATAINVEST operates as a subsidiary of Tata Sons Limited.


One notable aspect that I personally like about TATAINVEST is its business model. This revenue and profitability comes from dividend income and profits from selling investments. Majority of its long term investments are in blue chip companies that have good cash flow and profitable businesses.

Trend Analysis

The whole reason for any business to exist is to generate sales revenue and make more profits. At a minimum, the parameters listed below should have continuously increasing trends. All the data below is based on last 8 years i.e. from 2001 to 2008.

Continue reading rest of this article…

Asian Paints: Top Diviend Stock To Invest

ap-logoAsian Paints is India’s largest and Asia’s third largest paint company. It is a vertically integrated paint company with in-house manufacturing facility. It’s product portfolio includes wall paints, metal paints, wood finishes, primers and others. The company’s market segments include decorative and industrial coating segment. The industrial coating segment consists of automotive coating, powder coating and protective coating. Besides Asian Paints, the group operates around the world through its subsidiaries Berger International, Apco Coatings, and SCIB Chemicals.

One notable aspect that I personally like about Asian Paints is that, it has been able to expand globally without taking on too much debt. It is able to support its expansion plan from its internal sources.

Trend Analysis

The whole reason for any business to exist is to generate sales revenue and make more profits. At a minimum, the parameters listed below should have continuously increasing trends. All the data below is based on last 8 years i.e. from 2000 to 2008. Continue reading rest of this article…



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