The Tortoise Speaks… – Page 10 – A blog which periodically revisits evergreen investment principles!

How permanent are the “temporary” measures?

On August 8, 2013

In the past 2 months, RBI has tried to take many steps to stem the flow in the fall of rupee against the dollar. If you have a glance at the exchange rate history over the past month,it doesn’t seem as if those measures have had any effect on the rupee. But if you think the other way round, if RBI had not taken those steps then the rupee could have depreciated even further. The RBI has taken steps towards tightening the liquidity in the system while the government has tried everything to curb the gold imports from increasing the import duty on gold to limitation on borrowing against gold. The measures include RBI cutting the amount of funds it lends to individual banks under the liquidity adjustment facility (LAF) to 0.5% of the deposits of a bank. This compares with 1%, or Rs 75,000 crore, available for the entire financial system.RBI raised lending rates to commercial banks 2 per cent to 10.25 per cent making the loans costlier.The other measure was to suck out liquidity from the system. The RBI asked banks to maintain a higher average CRR (cash reserve ratio) of 99 per cent of the requirement on a daily basis as against the 70 per cent required earlier. Also, the RBI made it mandatory for the FIIs to obtain the consent of holders of participatory notes and derivative instruments. While announcing these measures, RBI has always said in their statement that these measures are “temporary” and they will be rolled back as soon as the currency settles a bit and the economy improves. How long will the “temporary” measures last is the question stock market is asking.

While we are sleeping

By PPFAS Mutual Fund

On July 31, 2013

In Investing

By Ankur Mahajan, [email protected]

“Thoda market ko stable hone do, phir invest karenge” , exclaims a potential investor being chased by every salesperson of a financial intermediary in these dampened markets. In hindsight, the salesperson is offering the sanest advice to invest especially when the markets are battered and bruised. However, the person who was thinking to invest has never run out of reasons for his preference towards real estate and gold over equities. His primary reason of abstaining from equities is waiting for the Indian markets to resuscitate. While equity Investor continue to sleep and invested heavily in gold and real estate, the markets are offering them umpteen hints to resume investing.

Investing for Beginners & Finding our own Investing Style

By Raunak Onkar

On June 21, 2013

In Investing, Value Investing, Warren Buffet

By Raunak Onkar, [email protected]

When a lot of people first start to read & learn about investing they invariably end up reading about Warren Buffett in their first few weeks of reading. From there onwards begins this fairy tale dream ride into the idea that someday they can also invest like Warren Buffett. The next automatic step that people tend to take is to read what any other fund manager worth their salt has to say about Warren Buffett. To remind you, at this point there is not a single rupee invested by this person, ever in his life (apart from may be the automated Fixed Deposit certificates & PPF investments).

After having read & being enamoured with Warren B’s performance & his dazzlingly simple explanations of how he analyses businesses, people start with the notion that investing is an easy affair. By this time, the activity of really sitting through an entire market cycle not being able to find great investment opportunities or even spending huge amounts of time & effort in researching industries & their managers has never happened to them.

Risk vs Uncertainty

By Jayant Pai

On June 5, 2012

In Investing

By Jayant Pai | [email protected]

Quick question: When was the last time you woke up in the morning and felt completely certain about the way your day would pan out? Sure, you may have aimed at accomplishing a series of tasks and also meticulously planned your path. Despite this, you tacitly knew and acknowledged that there was always the possibility that things may not turn out as planned. This, however, did not paralyse you and make you sit at home.

The point I am making is that we live in an uncertain world. While some factors are within our control, there are others which are not. That is why I am puzzled to hear some market mavens advise stockmarket investors to desist from investing now and step in when things are certain.

Mutual Fund Scheme Selection : A Do-It-Yourself Kit

By Jayant Pai

On May 18, 2012

In Investing, Mutual Funds

By Jayant Pai | [email protected]

Choosing good mutual fund schemes is not an easy task for beginners. The same applied to me too. I too have undergone many teething troubles before finally honing in on a few rules which work for me. Initially, I relied on the advice of others, but my entire investing approach changed when I subscribed to a highly reputed magazine meant for serious investors. Today, my scheme selection process is a distillate of of several intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Here are a few of them: