Building on my mistakes- Jornaling my Investing journey

Chandan_Sharma · March 30, 2026, 11:23pm

Just to give a brief background, I am Chandan, from Odisha. I started investing in Feb 2020 (lucky me, you must think) with the IPO of SBI cards. I am a salaried person and invest at least 50% of my net salary in market.

I started investing with mutual funds SIPs and a few indivisual stocks watching finfluencers. Luckily 3 stocks went 3x from buying price (KEI, VBL, SGB) but I made almost nothing because the amount invested into them was hardly anything.

I was busy educating myself in my job till 2023 end, continuing my SIPs. I then took a 4-6 months break from everything because of mental health issues. I was learning about market, macros, how to read businesses, balance sheet whnever I had free times (I am a Chemistry graduate for the context).

In 2024,I was watching something on YT about position sizing and its impact on overall portfolio return and then looked at my position sizings and feeling utterly disgusted and finally decided to give it a chance. The first book I read about investing was “One up on Wall Street” and naturally I am influenced by Peter Lynch style of investing as of now. Also I was/am at the stage of my carrer, where it is going on auto mode except requires 9/10 hours which naturally gives me less time to read and learn. But I try to make the best of it.

I have been a serious investor since start of 2025, reading through Quarterly results, Investor presentations, Con-calls and making notes out of it, doing valuations exercise and deciding what to do about any stock. I don’t understand technicals very well but have been trying to use 30 WMA/200 DMA and Relative strength to decide my position sizing lately.

This is my portfolio as on 31.03.2026 taking current price for calculations.

Name	% in PF (at CMP)	Brief explanation
Manged by a pro	22.42%	Most of my incremental money will go here
Cash	13.82%
Freshara Agro	7.94%	Interesting business, great management, high margin of safety in valuations
Rico Auto	6.04%	Playing the auto-annx cycle
Piramal Finance	4.99%	20%+ AUM growth guidance at 1.5 P/B, Rs. 14,500 cr tax shield after merger with Piramal Enterprises, monetiziation of stake sale of Sriram Life
Sathlokar Synergys	4.66%	Just look at the orderbook and who are the getting it from, have to track the execution
Ujjivan SFB	3.22%	MFI turnaround, changing book towards secured loans, universal bank license can be the next big trigger
Muthoot Microfin	2.81%	Playing MFI cycle reversal, playing for valuation re-rating, management
Satin Credit care	2.56%	Playing MFI cycle reversal, playing for valuation re-rating
Senores Pharma	2.53%	Guided to double their PAT in June con-call, good execution, waiting for next guidance
IIFL Finance	2.13%	Back in the game after RBI lifting ban on Gold loan
xxx	2.06%	Not sharing the name, as this was not my research
Silver ETF	2.03%	Sold off most of the precious metals holding, this is the last chunk
xxx	2.00%	Not sharing the name, as this was not my research
Northen Arc	1.83%	Playing MFI cycle reversal, less risky as the finance the MFI cos.
Integrated Industries	1.63%	One of the fastest growing FMCG player, new capex coming
Arman Financial	1.61%	Playing MFI cycle reversal, best mangement in the sector
xxx	1.59%	Betting on the management and their acqisition, Not sharing the name, as this was not my research
Sky Gold	1.44%	One of the best B2B palyer in Jewelery sector.
JM Financials	1.35%	Diversing towards wealth management, reducing real estate exposure, 25% growth guidance for next 3 years,
IIFL Capital	1.22%	Trasnsitiong from broking to wealth management, cyclical to shalow cyclical
Edelweiss Financials	1.15%	value unlocking + deleveraging, EAAA IPO,
Manorama Industries	1.11%	Well discovered story, playing for CVE and the super execution
Reliance Infra	1.07%	Betting on the value of assets even if if goes bankrrupt
Samman Capital	0.98%	At 0.5 P/B and possible management change looks an interesting candidate for turnaround.
SBFC Finance	0.97%	Best player in MSME lending, great management
Entero	0.95%	The business model is very interesting, indirect bet on GLP, tracking position
Orient Bell	0.91%	Tracking position, waiting for the cycle to reverse
AGOL	0.67%	Tracking position, very cheap, technicals, fundamental not supporting
Samvardhana Motherson	0.65%	One of the best large caps, great managemet
Veranda Learning	0.59%	Journey from loss to profit and the potential de-merger
Zaggle Prepaid	0.54%	Good business, 30%+ organic growth, Market is punishing for -ve cash flow after the Claude’s new upgrade
Deccan Goldmines	0.51%	Tracking position

**This is not a recommendation in any way, just trying to journal.

** Will be writing about next buy/sell in detail.

** Will try to update the PF quarterly.

(Suggestions, feedbacks are always welcome)

kumarpalj · April 1, 2026, 12:04pm

What do you mean by this? Is it MF managed by professionals?

Chandan_Sharma · April 1, 2026, 12:26pm

Stock managed by someone else, buy-sell-position sizing is decided by him. I just implement what he says after the explanation and justification.

ShaheerAnsari · April 2, 2026, 11:24pm

Hi Chandan, thanks for sharing your journey so far. Do you mind sharing what is the arrangement that you have with this “Manged by a pro” in terms of fee? I am 23 and working on my financial journey as well - one question I’d like to ask you is that why don’t you stick to SIPs in Mutual Funds instead of trying to pick stocks?

Chandan_Sharma · April 3, 2026, 1:54am

You have to dm me to get the details, I want to outperform the index and also I am enjoying the process of research very much, more than almost anything I do otherwise.

Chandan_Sharma · April 3, 2026, 3:55am

Good Q4 updates from Ujjivan

Chandan_Sharma · April 8, 2026, 3:31am

Satin Credit care FY 26 business updates

AUM 19%
Disbursement 17%
Credit coat down from 3.8-4% from 4.6% in FY25
392 branches added in FY26
Collection efficiency improved
Cost of Borrowings down 49 bps

Chandan_Sharma · April 15, 2026, 4:07pm

HDB Financials Q4 results and concall

HDB Financials, a subsidiary NBFC of HDFC bank can out with the result for Q4FY26 and the full year FY26.

Geograpgy & Product mix

Goods

NIM was at 8.23% vs 8.09% YoY.
21.6% YoY growth in NII.
Credit cost reduced sequentially from 712 cr to 685 cr,
GNPA reduced from 2.81% to 2.44% sequqntially. (Reason for higher NIM, NII)
Almost 20% growth in customer base.
CoF, NIM, RoA, ROE moving in right direction

Bads

The YoY growth for gross loan book as well as Disbursement was unimpressive with 10.9% and 12.9% .
No growth in LAP.

Con-Call Snippet

The west Asia conflict & El Nino may have an impact on growth & inflation.

Expecting +ve growth momentum in unsecured business loan. (Good for NIM, yield)
74% of the book is secured.

Borrowing cost has gone up in the maerket in last 1 month.

18-19% growth is possible (Confidence level- Medium)
Having difficulties to pull back the challanged accounts of Q1 but no effect afterwards in asset-finance/ enterprise lending.
Medim term growth guidance- Nominal GDP + 6/7%.
8% NIM guidance, Credit cost upto 2.3%.

Conclusion

There are many positives no doubt but I am not willing to buy a 13% growth engine at this valuations where there are many better players available in same & similar sector but would be interesting if the growth rate goes up.

**Not a buy/sell recommendation, too dumb for that, DYOR.

** Fell free to reach out in case of any suggestion or feedback. Thank you for reading.

Chandan_Sharma · April 16, 2026, 5:34am

Interesting development- NBFCs can now open branches without approval from RBI

Chandan_Sharma · June 7, 2026, 1:36pm

Inedegene- An interesting IT business working in Pharma sector, leveraing AI

Chandan_Sharma · June 16, 2026, 10:21am

Q4FY26 results and concall-

The co has outperfomed its guidance of 50% topline & 100% bottomline growth.

Segment wise, it has done very well in regulated market with the acquisition of Apnar.

** Regulated market contributed 64% of the revenue while 24% came from emerging market.

The receivables, WC days took off which was sue to the acquisation as stated by the management.

Also, the comapny turned Cashflow +ve with 62 cr CFO.

Concall snippets-
For FY27, our initial outlook indicates revenue growth of approximately 30% to 40% and PAT growth of about 50% to 60% with similar EBITDA %.

** The guidance mightbe revised after the macro-economic uncertanities.

Product pipeline

This consistency reflects the credibility of our long-term strategy and the strong execution culture embedded across the organization. We remain optimistic about sustaining this momentum in the years to come. Our confidence is supported by a robust product pipeline, expanded manufacturing capacities, and a strengthened R&D infrastructure, coupled with our Senores Pharmaceuticals Limited May 14, 2026 Page 3 of 17 proven ability to identify, develop, and commercialize niche products in developed markets, as well as our deep understanding of market dynamics. We believe we will continue to outperform industry growth trends.

Rest 25% acqusition of Apnar pharma to be done by the end of this year, which has US-FDA approved manufacturing facility.
acquired Zoraya Pharmaceuticals as a step-down subsidiary in Q3FY26, bolstering our marketing and distribution strength in the US.
Indian branded generic business also grew five times to a revenue of 40 crores, also commenced supplies to several marquee hospitals across the country.
The reason for the increase in other financial asset from from 116 to 172 crores.

In the emerging market, we anticipate that next year our projection is about INR180 crores of revenue that we are looking to get from emerging markets, with 20-21% EBITDA.
80-100 cr revenue from Apnar pharma current year.
Expecting 2500-300 cr revenue from USA alone in next 3-4 years.

**which implies 2750 crores revenue in the next four

years with a CAGR of 40% plus, even if the other business verticles grow by mere 10%.
Tax rate would be 23% on average.
200 crores of capex plant for FY27.
Will genrate FCF in the current FY.

**Not a buy or sell recommendation, too dumb for that.

**I am an investor and consider me baised.

Chandan_Sharma · June 26, 2026, 1:09pm

Guidance of all companies across the sectors in a single google sheet-

Chandan_Sharma · June 27, 2026, 2:24pm

Portfolio update as on 25.06.2026 EOD

Updates-

Added SJ Logistics (@ 323.40)- Co. outperforming the peers available at single digit P/E, missed to catch the bottom, although there is no presentation, con-call after the end of the FY.
Sold Edelweiss- Had only a tracking position, made room for better and simple stock.
Added Bhansali engineering- the capacity got doubled. Available at lower double-digit PE and 4 to 5% divided yield.
Sold Orient bell- Lost patient in this case for some reason
Added Cartrade(@ 1938.30)- Platform business sitting on L curve of profitibility with huge cash is B/S for further acquisition, the risk of AI in the business is minimal becuase of domain specific knowledge and experience. Co. guided to 4x the PAT in next 4-5 years.
Sold remaining Silver when it was around 80$.
Added Suryodaya SFB (@ 173.30)- This year could be interesting with MFI cycle turning, 30-35% growth guidance, 400-450 cr CGFMU claim, still below book value.
Sold Nurture well- The risk of revenue from Middle east with trading business there, also there is no con-call after the FY end, no guidance in Investor presentation.
Added more in Sammaan Capital- With the FII entry, there seems to be a new kind of energy with the business, giving long term guidance, also guiding for 33% AUM growth, co is at nil NPA, still available at book value, will add more after execution.

This is the PF-

	% of PF
	CMP	Buy Price	Comments
Freshara Agro	11.44%	9.29%	One of the largest gerkins exporter, even more interesting after the acquistion, good growth potential with even better starting valuation
Rico Auto	8.23%	8.77%	Auto annx play with good medium term growth guidance
SJ Logistics**	6.87%	7.07%	Co. outperforming the peers available at single digit P/E
Piramal Finance	5.90%	4.43%	25% growth with tax shield after the merger
Sathlokar Synergys	5.27%	9.03%	One of the most aggressive PEB players, constant execution, market is not looking at it.
Muthoot Microfin	4.74%	4.00%	One of my favourite MFIs, playing the MFI revival, got it around/below book value
Cash	4.54%	4.86%
Satin Creditcare	4.44%	3.08%	Playing MFI revival, a decent company with most favorable valuations
Senores Pharma	4.36%	2.23%	I wish I had bought more, I don’t understand pharma well, still looks decent after the run with decent valautions
Ujjivan SFB	4.13%	4.26%	Playing MFI revival, also the universal banking license
Car Trade**	3.30%	2.54%	Platform business sitting on L curve of profitibility with huge cash is B/S for further acquisition
Northen Arc	3.02%	2.91%	Playing MFI revival, one of less risky and diversified MFI, a must read business model
Arman Financial	2.73%	2.59%	Playing MFI revival with the most trusted business, couldn’t add more as the magagement is still skeptial about the revival
IIFL Finance	2.58%	3.22%	One of the diversified NBFC with cross sector financing, 20-25% growth guidance
~~xxx~~	2.56%	2.90%	Not my research, bought on suggestion
Suryoday SFB**	2.53%	2.73%	Strong buisness guidance with valuation below book value
Samman Capital	2.44%	2.37%	New FII entry makes the case really interesting, but execution is the key
Sky Gold	2.33%	1.55%	One of the best B2B jewellary player with decent growth guidance and at decent valuations
Manorama Industries	2.19%	2.05%	A sweet business but never get a chance to add more and the price is consolidating for over a year
~~xxx~~	1.77%	2.36%	Not my research, bought on suggestion
IIFL Capital	1.73%	1.69%	Playing for the transition from broking business to wealth management business, From cyclical to shallow cyclical business
Bhansali Engineering**	1.61%	1.77%	Capacity just got doubled at a decent valuation with a decent dividend yield
~~xxx~~	1.51%	2.28%	Not my research, bought on suggestion
JM Financials	1.51%	1.94%	Diversing towards wealth management, reducing real estate exposure, 25% growth guidance for next 3 years
Reliance Infra	1.25%	2.62%	Betting on the value of assets even if if goes bankrrupt
Deccan Goldmines	1.19%	0.73%	Tracking position (always read a business if it crosses ATH)
SBFC Finance	1.15%	1.50%	Best MSME NBFC still guiding for 5-7% QoQ growth but the management’s confidence seems a bit low.
Veranda Learning	1.07%	1.17%	The company turned profitable, with great growth guidance but not much operating leverage, playing for the demerger of J.K. Shah Coaching Classes
Samvardhana Motherson	0.97%	0.77%	One of my absolute favorite management I was in and knew the company before, will make a really big postion here someday
Entero	0.97%	0.99%	Interesting business, indirect bet on GLP,pharma, hospitals tracking position, valautions are on a bithigher side to add more
Fineotex**	0.87%	0.89%	Looks really interesting after the acquisition of Crude Chem, also the guidance upgraded from 2,000 to 3,000 crore by FY30, which translates to 40% CAGR
AGOL	0.80%	1.42%	Tracking position, chart not favorable to add more

**Not a buy/sell remommendation.

(Can dm me if you want to have a conversation)

Thank You.

Chandan_Sharma · June 28, 2026, 11:37am

Krishival Foods-

Background -

The co. was incorporated in 2014 by the promoter Mr. Sujit Bangar, Mrs. Aparna Bangar and Anant Pandurang Kulkarni with the name Empyrean Cashews which was subsequently changed to Krishival foods in 2023.

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The co. started with B2B, B2C cashew and other nuts selling, the ventured into ice-cream by the wholly owned subsidiary Melt and Mellow Foods and eventually IPOed in FY25, raising 19 cr, mostly for working capital requirement.

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The co. did a rights issue in December with a price of ₹300, which is to be used for expansion of new facility.

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TAM, Opportunity size-

The global dry fruits market is estimated to grow at 8.5-9% CAGR till 2034 and the ice-cream market by 16% CAGR according to the management.

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Facilities, Sourcing-

The nuts are procured from 9 countries which help them mitigate the risk of price and bad weather.
The 2 nuts processing capacity is at Halkarni, Sinoli at Kohlapur 10 km from each other.
The nuts capacity was 10 MT/day which was recently doubled to 20 MTPA after commissioning of 2nd capacity.
The ice-cream facility is at Aurangabad with total capacity of 1L ltr/day, and also 20 MT/day for milk products, 10 MT/day for bakery.
The nuts have 67 SKUs while ice-cream has 189.
For FY26, 69% revenue came from nuts and 55% of nuts revenue is B2B.
Nuts business has 11,000 touch points while ice-cream has 34,200 with 300 Singapore TPs for nuts. Also, the deep freezer network of ice-cream is 15,490 as of end of FY26.

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Q4 and FY26 results-3

The sales grew by 38%, 44% in the qtr and year respectively.
Melt-n-Mellow turned PAT +ve, one year before the target.
31% revenue came from mNm and the share is increasing qtr on qtr.

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Trade receivables more than doubled to 49 cr, which might be attributed to the expansion in ice-cream business, the freezer network got 5x from 3k to 15k+ during the FY.
Although the PAT jumped 60% for the FY, the co. struggled to make cashflow, which is the issue for most fast-growing co.s and it is a key monitorable.

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Tailwinds, Opportunities-

The GST for nuts, ice-cream has reduced from 18% to 5% recently.
Raising spending appetite beyond tier-1 cities can be of big positive and quick commerce is adding fuel to the fire.
Shift from unorganised to organised sector is also a boon.
Both the segments that Krishival is in, is growing at/above the real GDP growth rate.
The co. is mostly present in the south, so it has big TAM ahead of it.

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Risks-

There will be constant competition in nuts because it is only a commodity at the end of the day, the brand hardly helps in a price sensitive market like India, which is also evident by the mere 17% growth in the segment for the FY.
There are big players in the ice-cream section Amul, HUL, Arun etc which can give tough competition but the market is big enough to accommodate a new player.
There is the risk of import dependency and raw material price for nuts and seasonality for ice-cream.
The biggest red flag could be 9.5% shareholding by ED, Raipur.
The scaling and execution risk is there in ice-cream segment because of high capex requirement, advertisement cost and perishability.

Q4 results, concall snippets-

In coming financial year '27, we hope to continue to maintain the growth trajectory, and we see around 50% top-line growth and 50% plus bottom-line growth.

The co. was asked about the ED shareholding in last 2 concalls and the justification was that the ED has attached share of some FII.

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Planning to open 25 FOCO stores in Pune, Mumbai in current FY.
aspire to strive for making Melt N Mellow a top three ice cream brand in India in the coming 7 years.
Nuts business has 15% EBITDA, 10% PAT, ice-cream has 7% EBITDA, 3% PAT, will at least maintain it.
The co. is targeting to use 25% of enhanced nuts capacity (10 MT) and utilization of the current capex is to increase from 70% to 90%.

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the ice-cream facility will be fully utilized by Q1FY29 which is currently utilized at 25%. The peak revenue of it will be around 600 cr.
The co, is planning to grow deep freezer network to 26,500 in the FY (+70%).

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Both the segments will have equal contribution to revenue by FY28 or 29.

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And the reason for that is that we have to continue to maintain this margin while scaling up. That is the reason for that. And regarding the operational rigor, in the Nuts segment, certainly operational rigor is quite available because we are not doing trading, buying nuts and rebranding and selling. So, if we are buying nuts and rebranding and selling, then in that case, there is operational leverage is not a major point over there. In our case, the nuts we are processing at our end and also raw nuts procurement is being done by ourselves. We are investing quite a lot into that in last many years, and that has translated into this leverage and this profitability in the Nuts segment.

Question-

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Answer-

Yes, very valid question. I will refer to the earlier point which you have raised regarding operation leverage because that is relevant here. In Nuts segment, you cannot do a business in all-India basis just by purchasing nuts, branding in your packaging and selling. That’s way you cannot create a profitable – you can do sale, but you cannot do a profitable, scalable, long-term business you cannot do. In the nuts, the most important thing is that from the January to December, customer should get an assured quality of nut, which is possible only if there is strength in sourcing. So, what I feel is that in India, unless there is a back end of sourcing, processing in-house, you cannot give a quality nut on table to the customer. So that’s why I feel there is a quite a good headroom if there is a integrated player who is working on it. So, from that angle, I feel for Krishival, going forward, emerging as a numero uno player in India, there is a lot of chance. I’m not saying that it is easy, but there is a quite a good chance, and we are very confident of achieving it because we are going at three levels; the supply chain we are working, we are working at processing level, and as far as sales is considered, we are going to the customer to Tier 2, Tier 3, Tier 4 towns and in B2B also directly to the players who are using it as an ingredient.

Key monitorable going forward-

Price volatility of nuts and the ability to pass-on the price.
How fast the capabilities are utilized.
How do the FOCO stores perform
Pressure of WC requirement
Cashflow movement

Conclusion-

Krishival is most definitely an interesting FMCG play catering to educated and health-concisious customers as well has having presence guilty pleasure of ice-creams. Based on guidance of both the businesses, the co. will outperform the 50% guidance if they can execute.
With approx. 1100 cr MCap, the co is at 33x forward P/E and it’s your decision to decide if the risks are worth the bet.

( I had absolutely great time writing the report, I hope you had equally good time and I justified your time.)

**The conclusion is most definitely biased, take it with a bucket full of salt.