A load of crap from an idle brain

Been a while since i updated my equity portfolio.  Some of the stocks were already at their highs; and i felt it was appropriate time for me to liquidate them and invest in others.

Bought the following

Sold the following

Hoping for the markets to correct sharply once the much expected double dip recession hits the US economy.  There would be lots of great bargains out there then.

Above stock price history courtesy:  Yahoo Finance

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The author has perfected a formula that he has used to beat the market consistently and earn more returns than what the index has provided. He calls it the Magic Formula Investing.  The formula is explained in the book in relatively easy language.  According to Greenblatt what you need to be concerned is just 2 things about a company:

• A company’s earnings yield

• Return on capital

The rationale is straightforward: buy shares in good businesses, measured by returns on capital, only when they’re available at bargain prices, defined as a high earnings yield.

The magic formula looks for companies that have the best combination of earnings yield and return on capital, with each input weighed equally. An outstanding company with an expensive stock ranked, say, first for return on capital but 1,999th on earnings yield, would have the same combined ranking of 2,000 as a low return on capital company within expensively priced shares, ranking 1,999th in return on capital but first on earnings yield.

Using this approach to create a regularly updated portfolio of about 30 stocks with the highest combined rankings, Mr Greenblatt tested his formula between 1988 and 2004. The results were remarkable: with only one down year, the magic portfolio would have returned 30.8 per cent a year, against a 12.4 percent annual return for the S&P 500. Rather than using the latest 12 months’ earnings to calculate earnings yield and return on capital, Mr Greenblatt and his analysts try to improve on the rote application of this formula by using earnings estimates in a “normal” year, one in which nothing unusual is happening within the  company, its industry or the overall economy.

source: Amazon

The Little Book That Beats The Market
Author – Joel Greenblatt
Pages – 176
Publisher – Wiley

The next 7 years (2010 – 2017) of infrastructure investments in India would see an investment of almost a trillion dollars (approx 50 lakh crore rupees). Lots of money to be made for all the corrupt fellas as well as for the ones who want to earn legally.

And the infrastructure push just for the next one year is $140 billion (approx 7 lakh crores). Once in the lifetime of the growth of a country you can see such an explosive growth.  If you can identify the correct companies and make investments, it will give you the kind of returns which you would have never imagined.

India is roaring towards an infrastructure boom and plenty of jobs will be created like never before as capital expenditure in the next financial year is expected to surge up to a whopping Rs 700,000 crore or about 10 per cent of the expected gross domestic product of about Rs 70,00,000 crore. Companies in auto, power, railways, irrigation, airports and ports sectors are on a major expansion spree and Indian banks and financial institutions are pooling in massive resources.

But this may not be enough and some bankers expect companies to access other financing avenues such as capital market and overseas borrowing. Yet others feel that financial closure of many projects might have already been achieved and the implementation might not lead to fresh sanctions.

There is an overall economic recovery, thanks to improving operating profits and favourable equity market conditions this year. Almost every infrastructure sector is witnessing investments driven largely due to government support.

Both Crisil and the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) have nearly doubled their capital expenditure (capex) estimates for the next fiscal year to a whopping Rs 6,60,000 crore and Rs 7,00,000 crore, respectively.

“Every capacity addition activity leads to job creation, it cannot be a jobless growth. I cannot put a number on how many jobs would be created from the projected Rs 7,00,000 crore capex spending during 2010-11, but for every industrial job created, the multiplier effect in form of other jobs like contracts, etc, is 1:4,” says Ajit Ranade, chief economist of Aditya Birla group.

Some of these investments include

NTPC – 16,400 crore investment to expand coal based electricity production by 4100 MW
Mahindra & Mahindra – 2500 crores at Chakan near Pune to make 3 lakh vehicles annually
Tata Motors – 1500 crores at Sanand in Gujarat to make the Nano car
Renault Nissan – $990 million (approx 4500 crores) in Chennai to make 4 lakh cars annually
Maruti Suzuki – 2500 crores investment in Rohtak, Haryana
JSW Energy – 4200 crores
GVK Power – 3200 crores
Tata realty – 1370 for highways
IRB – 1824 crores for highways
Jindal – 47,000 crores for coal to liquid fuel plant & thermal power plant in Orissa
Tata -  21,000 crores project in Kalinganagar, Orissa

“There would be huge money coming as foreign direct investment in the next fiscal while the external commercial borrowing norms are expected to be relaxed further. Besides, India’s savings rate is 34-35 per cent of GDP, which translates into huge savings at the projected Rs 70,00,000 crore GDP for fiscal 2010-11. Hence I think, despite having high borrowing plans from the India Inc, capex spending by private and public sectors could be easily absorbed,” says Ranade of Aditya Birla.

Read the full articles here and here

Above picture courtesy: Abhijitkar

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Seriously, its high time the government of India paid proper heed to push up the manufacturing industry in the country.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh dropped a bombshell at the meeting of the full planning commission on Tuesday when he disclosed that the US computer hardware giant Dell was looking at shifting out of China, and hinted that the company may be looking at India as its sourcing base. Dell, he quoted the company’s chairman as saying, buys $25 billion from China. China’s loss could mean a huge gain for India, he added.

The news comes on the heels of software giant Google shutting down its search engine in mainland China and redirecting Chinese language search traffic to Hong Kong.

The prime minister, in his closing remarks at the plan panel meet, said: “A very important point has been raised regarding development of the hardware sector of information technology. This morning I met the chairman of Dell Corporation. He informed me that they are buying equipment and parts worth $25 billion from China. They would like to shift to safer environment with climate conducive to enterprise with security of legal system. So I think this is an area where there are immense opportunities. I urge the Planning Commission to apply their mind about development of hardware and parts of computer industry.”

Full article here

Google picture courtesy:  Apple Investor

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What a recovery it has been for the markets.  Just a year ago, the Sensex crashed to 8160 points.  Now its trading above 17000 points.  More than 100% growth in just a year.  No other sector (gold, PPF, debt, realty) would give you that kind of growth.  When the markets were down last year and i was talking about the opportunity to buy into some good companies, many of my friends dissuaded me from doing that.

“Buy when everyone sells and sell when everyone buys” is probably the only way to make money in the market.  Following the heard mentality is sure to give a lot of heart pain in the long run.

The exhilarating bounce from the lows that the Indian equity market touched on 9 March 2009 is now a year old—and what a year it has been. These 12 months have been a wildly profitable time for those brave souls who held their nerve and bought stocks, while it has been a missed opportunity for those who thought it was a short-lived bear market rally and thus preferred to sit on cash.

The benchmark Bombay Stock Exchange Sensitive Index, or Sensex, closed on Tuesday at 17,052.54, up 109% over a year ago, though just about nobody believes the next 12 months will be as good.

Read the full article here

Above picture courtesy: Livemint

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Bill Bonner of the Daily Reckoning has for long had a bone to pick with Thomas Friedman of the New York Times. It all first started with legendary short seller James Chanos calling China “Dubai times 1,000 – or worse.” To which Thomas Friedman wrote that James Chanos should be careful about trying to “short a country that has $2 trillion in cash” in this article titled “Is China the next Enron?”

Thomas Friedman & Bill Bonner

In his article, The Long and Short of China, Bonner goes hammer and tongs at Thomas Friedman saying…

Oh happy days are here again. Obama is going to get our money back from the banks. Jeffrey Sachs is telling Haiti how it can get its economy back in order (with other people’s money, naturally). And Thomas Friedman is offering investment advice.

This should be fun. We’re all on the bus…and it’s driven by the blind, the deaf and the very dumb. Oh, sorry, we meant the visually impaired…the hearing impaired…and the mentally deficient.

Friedman is, as we all know, full of advice on just about everything. He advises finance ministers on how to soup-up their economies. He advises the Arab world on how to update its religious institutions. He advises whole nations on how to improve the future before it happens.

And here he is now counseling Mr. James Chanos, noted short seller, on how to make money

Big egos are at play here.  But its not to discount the value of the words being spoken here.  Bill Bonner, Thomas Friedman and James Chanos are all good at what they do.  They have built up a career full of backing their claims with the work they have done.

Last word on whether China is a bubble or not is yet to be spoken.  Meanwhile, Thomas Friedman finds another supporter in Keith Fitz-Gerald of Money Morning.

Above pictures courtesy: Theteemingbrain, Cityfile & Stockopedia

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For a country that has always looked at Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) with suspiction and has resisted the entry of foreign money, the $100 billion mark that India has hit is not a mean achievement.

India has crossed the $100 billion milestone in FDI through equity since 2000 up to July this year testifying the country’s increasing profile as a safe and sound investment destination in the midst of the global financial crisis.

As much as 44% of the money came through the Mauritius route, apparently because the investors wanted to take advantage of India’s double taxation avoidance treaty with the island nation. The cumulative FDI inflows since 2000 and up to July 2009 amounted to $100.33 billion. The inflows in the first four months of the current financial year was $10.5 billion, according to data compiled by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion. The other big investors included Singapore, the US, UK and the Netherlands.

Commenting on the $100 billion milestone, economists said India is being perceived as a safe and dynamic destination for global investors. “This is a reflection that India is being taken as a safe and dynamic destination for investment as the economy is growing at 6%. The investors also want to diversify their portfolio from China by investing here,” Rajiv Kumar, CEO and director of Icrier said. The FDI would further improve if the economic recovery continues.

“We did not receive much FDI initially…since 2008 we have started receiving good numbers…there are signs of economic recovery in a few countries and I think inflows will improve with the economic recovery,” Crisil principal economist D K Joshi said.

Ficci secretary general Amit Mitra said FDI not only brings money but also new technology and managerial capabilities. “FDI’s main impact comes from new technology, new managerial capabilities, new benchmarks in corporate functioning,” Mitra said.

Above news source: TimesofIndia

Picture source: The Hindu

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40 years after he took over his family’s vegetable oil company and turned it into a $5 billion company selling IT services, computers, consumer care, lighting and medical equipments, Azim Premji is on the lookout for his next billions.  He sees them coming from renewable sources of energy.  Water and Eco-energy are the two areas of focus for Wipro and that is where they believe the next billions will come for the company.

For those who know Premji, it is not uncommon to see the fifth richest Indian on the Forbes List and the 63-year-old chairman of Wipro switching off the lights before leaving office. It is this commitment to avoid waste that has turned Premji’s attention to ecology and sustainability.

In October 2008, even as it warned of slowing growth in its main software outsourcing business in the backdrop of a global financial crisis, Wipro released a recruitment ad for two new businesses, Wipro Water and Wipro EcoEnergy. The company has spent the previous two years preparing for this diversification, which may turn out to be the company’s third big change. The first was when a 21-year-old Premji took charge at Wipro after his father’s sudden death; the next was when the vanaspati and soap maker transformed itself into a multi-billion dollar information technology giant in the 80s and 90s.

Chief Financial Officer Suresh Senapathy says green services and solutions will bring in up to one out of every four dollars of the company’s revenue, three years from now. In the financial year ending March 2009, Wipro had revenue of more than Rs. 25,000 crore. Even if the revenue were to stagnate, a fourth of it — Rs. 6,250 crore — from ecology is no small amount. The plan also aligns well with Premji’s desire to ease down IT’s profit contribution from 93 percent currently to 70 percent in the next few years.

The new idea was first thought up by the 41-year-old head of Wipro Infrastructure Engineering (WIN), Anurag Behar. The two new ecology businesses will be housed under WIN. In January 2007, Behar made the first formal presentation about the ecology business to Wipro’s board of directors. The board reacted positively but also advised caution: Ecology was a nascent field with rapidly evolving technology and Wipro should not get locked in a technology that ran the risk of becoming obsolete soon.

Wipro has turned its 50-acre campus at Electronic City in Bangalore into a test bed. While 25,000 software engineers write code for Fortune 500 corporations, waste food from the cafeteria turns into methane for lighting burners, harvested rainwater is used to cool air-conditioning towers, a paper pulping plant recycles waste paper into writing pads and a micro windmill lights bulbs along the perimeter of the campus. Wipro’s Sarjapur campus a few kilometres away has India’s largest LED installations — all compact fluorescent lamps have been replaced with LED lights, helping save 75 percent in electricity consumption. Since 2003, Wipro has cut water usage in its offices across India by nearly two-thirds.

Read the full article here

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