Chill Maadi

Conservative estimates place it around 70%… while others believe it is closer to 95%… the number of investors who “fail.”  I suppose it shouldn’t shock us… after all, whenever you talk with a Mutual Fund representative, if they’re doing well, they will point you to the fact that they are in the 1st or 2nd Quartile – meaning, the fund they manage has returned more than 75% or 50% of the other fund managers’ portfolios.  Obviously, there must be several then who are in the 3rd or 4th Quartiles (the bottom).

There are several reasons why investors fail and today I thought I’d share a few more.

It’s perplexing… the number of investors who continually lose money trading, but for some inexplicable reasons, continue to trade.  I suppose a variety of reasons exist, including poor money management (high commissions on small positions eat away at any profits), the delusion they have the skills and knowledge to trade (after all, isn’t everyone else getting it?), or addiction to trading (like gambling, just “sanctified.”).

Some, in sheer frustration, choose to pay hundreds and even thousands of dollars for trading software that promises every success… so they get split screens, subscribe to live news feeds, etc. and still struggle to make money trading. Then they flood their email inboxes with a plethora of free newsletters… worth every penny!

I’m not slamming these individuals… after all, most of us have had experiences like these somewhere along the line. But I am concerned for you if this is your current experience… and I’d like to help.

I think one of the most fundamental reasons why investors fail and why people are losing money in the stock market is because they are trading rather than investing.  Perhaps this is so subtle you think I’m trying to create something out of nothing… but hear me out for just a moment.  When you think of the term “trading”, what comes to mind?  A transaction, a swap, buying and selling, dealing, etc.

Now, when you consider the term “investing” what comes to mind?  Yes, some of the same elements of purchasing and transaction but with an added component of you having to “put something into” the transaction.  Investing seems to require more than to merely trade.  And you’d be right…

If making money in the markets was as easy as trading this stock for that one, and then exchanging it again for another one, we’d all be successful… but very few do this well.  Instead, the average Weekend Investor needs to do less “trading” and more “investing.”  You’re going to have to put something extra into the transaction… considering the fundamentals of a stock, watching the technical indicators, and keeping track of your “investments” because these investments of time, work, thought, consideration, management, etc. will all determine how successful you’ll be as a financial investor.

I realize most of you don’t have the time to do this on your own… hence, you should stop trading and simply buy the index when you have the money you can spare.

Doctor Stock has experienced some excellent trading success so far. Much of that success is due to his disciplined use of market risk management techniques. In his quest to help you make money on the markets every morning, he has often emphasized the need to balance risk vs. reward.

There are many ways that traders and investors can manage market risk in their portfolios. Here’s a sampling of 5 of the most common ones:

Momentum

Stop-Loss Orders

Position Sizing

Diversification

Rebalancing:

Disciplined market risk management, in whichever form(s) you choose to implement, is the key to successful investing and trading. What kinds of strategies do you use to manage risk?

William Bernstein says that he wrote The Investor’s Manifesto: Preparing for Prosperity, Armageddon and Everything in Between even though he swore he would never write another book after The Four Pillars of Investing (read my review) because, in his view, the dramatic market developments of 2008-09 provided a perfect “teachable” moment to clearly define a set of timeless investment principles.

In this book, Mr. Bernstein starts off with an overview of financial theory illustrated with relevant bits of financial history, then takes readers on a tour of the behavioral traps they might stumble into and concludes with the mechanics of building a portfolio. If this synopsis sounds familiar, it is because Four Pillars dealt with similar themes: the theory, history, psychology, and business of investing.

As you might expect of a brilliant writer like Mr. Bernstein, his writing is so quotable. Here are some examples:

“Investors cannot earn high returns without occasionally bearing great loss. If the investor desires safety, then he or she is doomed to receive low returns”.

“… the rewards of equity ownership are paid for in the universal currencies of financial risk: stomach acid and sleepless nights.”

“Much has been made lately of “black swans”: rare and supposedly unexpected events that roil society and the financial markets. In the world of finance, the only black swans are the history that investors have not read.”

“You are not as good looking, as charming, or as good a driver as you think you are. The same goes for your investing abilities. In an environment filled with incredibly smart, hard-working, and well-informed participants, the smartest trading strategy is not to trade at all.”

Mr. Bernstein is a wise investor and talented writer and while The Investor’s Manifesto is a very good book, I feel that it doesn’t quite achieve the brilliance that The Four Pillars did. If you’ve read the previous book, you can re-read it and safely skip this one. If you haven’t read Four Pillars, perhaps that’s the Bernstein book you should be reading. The Investor’s Manifesto is published by John Wiley.

William Bernstein, a practicing physician, has written an excellent guide to invest (affiliate link) that contains important (as the sub-title says) “lessons for building a winning portfolio”. The Four Pillars of Investing that the title refers to are theory, history, psychology, and business of investing.

Often, books on investing are dry, and reading them is a bit like working through a dense textbook, but fortunately, this scholarly book is not one of them. Even the driest theoretical concepts are illustrated with historical examples.

In the section on history, Dr. Bernstein tells the tales of bubbles and busts past and present and points out that lack of historical knowledge hurts investors the most. I realized that this is an area I need to learn more about and helpfully, the author provides a list of useful books in Chapter 11 (no pun intended). The book concludes with practical ideas for assembling your portfolio.

I can’t hope to do a better job of summing up the contents of this book than the author himself:

The overarching message of this book is at once powerful and simple: With relatively little effort, you can design and assemble an investment portfolio that, because of its wide diversification and minimal expense, will prove superior to most professionally managed accounts. Great intelligence and good luck are not required. The essential characteristics of the successful investor are the discipline and stamina to, in the words of John Bogle, “stay the course”.

I think “The Four Pillars of Investing” is worth reading and would also make a nice addition to your bookshelf (I am adding it to my list of recommended books).

A Multibagger in stock market parlance is a stock that can return multifold returns when invested in it. The holy grail of investing is to identify such multibaggers and hold them in your investment portfolio.

To spot a multibagger needs a thorough study of multiple fundamental parameters, a few of which are listed in this article. Please note. However, we cannot be rigid on any of these parameters. We need to be flexible to interpret things from a bigger picture point of view.

So what are these parameters of a multibagger stock that we should look for?

No doubt about business survival.

Identifying a  multibagger begins with identifying a business that can weather the test of time. Whether there be a health crisis, economic crisis, or political crisis, these businesses should not have any difficulty in surviving. When I was young, my father told me that to survive, humanity will always need food and consistently invest in promising companies that cater to the hunger of the masses.

There are many other businesses, apart from those in the food industry that can survive and thrive in adverse circumstances. The health sector is one; the information and technology sector is another. There may be sectors that will come up in the future; you may be aware of them due to your line of work. Look into those businesses.

Visible & sustainable growth potential

Most businesses are not built because the management wanted them to remain stationary. Entrepreneurs and management want a steady and sustainably growing business. Look for companies that are growing at a fair clip with good management. 

A management team that continuously innovates and optimizes its core business should provide profitable growth for investments in the company. A management team that is not focused is a poor innovator, and does not optimize resources, may give spectacular returns in the short term, but may not be able to sustain in the long run. Such businesses usually do not provide multibagger returns.

Management has a vision of growth.

Identifying potential in future markets is a must for any good management. The company should not bask in the past and should be forward-looking to identify the ideal growth opportunities. The management should be ethical and provide adequate consideration for every stakeholder.

Reasonable Promoter stake

There should be fair skin in the game from the promoter.  Many successful investors avoid companies that have a very low promoter stake. Ideally, the promoter should have at least a 50% holding in the company, and the higher this number, the better it is, and the likelier it is to end up as a multibagger. If in case there is a low promoter stake, then promoters should increase stake at every possible opportunity. Also, pledging should either be zero or minimal.

Debt zero or going towards zero

Debt is becoming a dirtier word at the individual as well as at the corporate level. A Debt to equity ratio of less than 0.5 should be an ideal investment; however, do remember that smaller companies that are growing fast may not always be debt light—most of the time, the lower the debt, the better the valuations.

Increasing cash flow

At the most fundamental level, a company’s ability to create value for shareholders is determined by its ability to generate positive cash flows, or more specifically, maximize long-term free cash flow (FCF). If the cash flow of a company is increasing, it means that the company is growing well and can use the amount to grow itself further.

Rare equity dilution

The lesser the equity dilution, the better will be the valuations. Stock dilution, also known as equity dilution, is the decrease in existing shareholders’ ownership percentage of a company due to the company issuing new equity. New equity increases the total shares outstanding, which have a dilutive effect on the ownership percentage of existing shareholders. Management should avoid equity dilution at all times. To improve the liquidity, equity dilution is suitable sometimes; however, it should be only when the proportionate growth is visible.

Reasonable dividend

If the company is showing earnings of 100 & giving dividend equivalent of just ten or less, it raises more doubts on such companies before building conviction. There should be an acceptable dividend policy; however, if the profits are being used to improve the business quality further or for capacity expansion, fewer dividends may be sufficient.

Low PE

Lower the price-earnings multiple, better multiple returns potential in the future. With the growth in earnings & with every new milestone achievement, PE gets re-rated, and then there is usually a multiplier effect on the stock price.

Association with a brand

If the company has its growing reputation or is associated with some client who itself is a brand, that’s a big positive.

In conclusion, do remember that these are just a few aspects to spot a multibagger. Many stocks may not fit into any or all of these parameters. An example is Bajaj Finance, which has proven to be a massive compounder despite not checking many of the boxes like Debt, Environment risk, or having Low PE. It is essential to be flexible when looking at the fundamentals of the stock before investing in it. If you are a retail investor, keep some basic things in mind as follows: