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Thats strong conviction and most importantly sticking to your investment style in difficult times!

My style is rather SIP oriented and I have also doubled my Nykaa position over last few months at various price points. Although my overall portfolio percentage of Nykaa would be negligible in silo as well as compared to yours so I can only imagine your courage & conviction!! (increased Nykaa allocation from 1% to 2% of portfolio…so I must not even be commenting here :slight_smile: )

As we talking about Nykaa, some recent thoughts I had - No doubt recent pink sale was a tremendous hit but off-late I am not seeing many Nykaa packages with numerous delivery people, when they come in societies etc., as I used to see back in 2021-early 2022.
(I know not very relevant but still at back of my mind).

Also, today I saw a Big basket delivery agent carrying beauty products, that also unpacked and delivering like loose potatoes. First time I saw them delivering something other than eatables. My wife informed even instamart has beauty products. The USP for these is quick delivery and also they are more widely used for non-beauty products also. What this means to me is that customers have starting trusting more non-Nykaa platforms for Beauty products…something to keep watching…

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Hi @Investor_No_1

So many strategies to make money - as long as we get the returns commensurate to the risk we are taking, all is well. My strategy involves gut wrenching falls & high volatility. How ever, I have underperformed many diversified portfolios last year! Let’s see.

  1. At this juncture, I’m not too much concerned about the competition but I have them at the back of my mind - as you said as well. The customer engagement of the Nykaa app is really miles apart. The fulfilment costs, customer acquisition costs & strategies, premium user base, app experience, myriad collection, in house brands, more importantly the execution skills of the management is top notch. I personally believe they will pull this off well.

  2. Even Blinkit delivers beauty products. None of them are making money yet. Even Bigbasket is losing money in the grocery business.

  3. Bigbasket has a right to win in online grocery segment, DMart has a right to win in offline grocery, Titan has the right in offline jewellery, Nykaa has that right in beauty & premium fashion category. My observation is Nykaa is meticulously targeting a specific user base, which will be its strength in future. Market now does not differentiate all this. Nykaa is pioneer here while even Tatas are followers. Tatas missed the digital bus & are now busy making up for it by venturing and/ or buying monitory stakes in digital businesses. Tatas even bought 10% stake in Matrimony at 1200 & current stock price is 550. My personal opinion is - they must have had a whirlwind meetings couple of years back & started to venture aggressively. Anyway, we cannot brush the Tatas. Tata Neu app is meh actually.

  4. At some point the online beauty would be massive Billions USD - probably 15 years? So, competition is not the worry now, the worry is will India grow to 5 T USD, 10 T USD GDP? If yes, then lots of wealth creation opportunities, if No, then why are we in stock markets at these rich valuations? For now, market thinks Yes, so Indian stocks are at these valuations. EU, USA stocks are at such low valuations right now because the growth is hardly anything there.

  5. Looks like your society observation is right because consumer discretionary companies are reporting loss of momentum in sales from mid nov from urban centres. I think & hope this is temporary. So, short term guys will sell & rotate to staples while long term investors will wait this out. Fingers crossed.

  6. What is priced in the current price? This is a major determinant of the short & medium term returns.

Disclaimer: I’m not an RIA & None of the stocks mentioned are recommendations & this is purely academic discussion. I hold some of the stocks mentioned in this post.

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A narrative has build against Nykaa, false or true is a different story. A narrative backed with a sharp fall in price. So, I want to see some consolidation on the chart. Before I start buying again.

A consolidation like in Kotak, Dmart.

YTD23 is -5.5%. 3 year XIRR is +28.64%. I have underperformed PPFAS over the past 3 years.

There are minor changes, nothing new is added that is outside my watchlist or exited completely. I’m not active in the markets as my trading & small cap positions got consolidated into my existing ones in Jan, as I wrote at that time.

100% consists of the below, I have given interesting names for fun!

  1. Khal Nayak
  2. Delhi Belly
  3. Chor Bazaar
  4. Park Avenue Mart
  5. Horse Rider
  6. Kona Kona bank
  7. Super Meteor

Changes done:

  1. During YTD, Chor has gone up ~ 50% while Meteor fell 20%, so I was anyway looking for long term entry, so moved half.
  2. Delhi Belly is unmoved, but Kona, Horse Rider fell so, re-jigged.
  3. Khal Nayak - no changes. I think it is Madhuri Dixit but market thinks it is Gulshan Grover with make up. Let’s see!

I’m patient with a reason until there is none. Nothing new can be written about the fundamentals of the above stocks, in fact they have only improved over the last 6 months. Markets take out the last bear or suck in the last bull before reversing. Only, independent thoughts, conviction, courage to follow through on that conviction by ignoring the noise will bear long term success - on a 3 to 5 year. During these consolidation phases, people exit, people enter, so called experts talk based on what suits their self interest. We should do what our research says.

Anyway, I’m in positions where I have the highest conviction but will change my mind in a jiffy if I sense my original thesis is not playing out. I’m brutal in this sense.

Since my return expectations are 15% thereabouts, I do not have the motivation to find gems in the dust (there are many I believe as we speak). Even otherwise, my PF has super high risk & low beta - balance.

My full attention is now on my health, family time, books, find the social activity I’m passionate about and work towards it & of course OTT.

  • High persistent inflation, high interest rates is a potential killer of even strong businesses. So, please be very careful of selection. This is reminiscent of US markets in 1960s, 1970s. May or may not play out but better to be mindful.

  • Basing market action on macro is a land mine, markets do not work that way. Whatever macro you thought of, markets would have probably discounted that already.

  • I cannot stress enough on not buying/ selling based on twitter threads, PMS managers selection of stocks, star investor etc. Found so many PMS managers who do not make any sense while talking about valuations but just shoot from the hip on the latest trends just to attract views & then milk them for money and commissions.

  • Technical analysis - invaluable & priceless tool with its own set of limitations. So, life is not fair, deal with it.

  • New investors MUST learn by reading books on fundamental analysis, technical analysis, bull & bear cycles, psychology of markets and not play in futures & options unless you are doubly sure. This is the environment where if a right pick & right allocation is done, life changing moments come through in future. Make sure, you do not lose money, this is very important, you need to have the raw material to make more. So, keep greed at bay. Learn quickly, These days so much valuable information is available for free.

  • Nothing lasts permanently, so, keep faith, do the hard work, stay focused, be patient, no money in junk. A point will come where sellers have nothing to sell.

All the best.

Disclosure: I’m not SEBI registered & nothing I write is financial advice. This is my log of learnings, mistakes. I hold stocks mentioned here & may sell anytime without prior intimation & there are transactions in the last 30 days.

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any idea where Richdreamz is ? the very informative & insightful thread has gone very silent

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Hi @zidane - Thank you for checking on me. I’m doing fine. I hope you are doing well too and thriving in most of your efforts.

As I have written in the beginning of the year, I made some commitments to myself and for once wanted to stick to them, come what may.

Since I’m writing, I will pour all that I want to say, I hope it’s not too boring for the members. I will touch different aspects of life, not only markets.

I have made progress in most of my below goals:

  1. Fitness: I have lost 11 kilos while being metabolically healthy and improving health markers like inflammation, blood sugar levels, waist size. I want to reach 15%-12% body fat while being metabolically health, the operative word being “metabolically”.

  2. Family & me time: More vacations this year with kids and a happy mother and wife (hope so ;-)). I wish my father is alive to see me in a more matured avatar (not that I have achieved anything great in life - yet).
    I’m traveling a lot more this year and hope to continue this. I’m spending quite a lot of time on reading on automobiles at team-bhp website where I’m a member. This website is absolute gold for automobile enthusiasts. Unbiased to the core.

  3. Books: Lot of them but the focus is on Medical books, Human race origins & a little bit of fiction, quite contrary to my past 8 years genre. Re-read Jeffrey Archer. He is a gem of a story narrater. My type. Absolute focus on medicine. Intermittent fasting, Carb restriction, Junk avoidance, insulin, importance of saturated fat, proteins.

  4. Purpose of life: This is a biggie. I’m confused and do not have coherence in my thoughts to write anything yet.

Anyway, coming to the topic of more interest -

Absolutely no additions in my investment picks. There’s actually no reason to. The thesis is in tact and so is my iron clad holding period. I have added to Khal Nayak around 125 and Park Avenue mart at 3600 at the cost of Delhi Belly and Chor Bazaar.

Over the past 8 years with 3 full “bull & bear” market cycles experience - I’m actually angry with the market with the way it behaves. Of course this is in consistent with my own behaviour in market during a stock’s low and a stock’s high. I have learned a lot but still repeated some of the mistakes. This is most probably because “money” is involved. This paves way to hope (false, true), greed (did not impact me much), fear (impacted me a bit).

The most impacted/ felt emotion for me was anger, impatience. The market takes a lot of time to realise it is wrong and in the interim we feel (at least I) felt what am I missing? And then, the stock moves as if there’s no tomorrow. Now, the stock behaves like a mad bull on the upside. I do not understand why a stock is moving so way above its valuations. This is a result of “emotions of market participants PLUS market environment PLUS narrative building PLUS macro & micro PLUS who knows what new variable?”

What guarantee that I will once again be lost in this jugglery? Not much. I do not want to overestimate myself. Also, during this process there are a lot of emotions - repent, anger, hope, fear, greed, blood pressure, frustration at home, time waste etc.

So, what’s the solution?

  1. Stay away from short term trades, fake people, narratives, I told you so types. Basically, ignore short term dopamine hits.
  2. Buy stocks with highest conviction run by the greatest of people
  3. Bet on people with integrity and vision. They are built different.
  4. Patience. Long term.
  5. Keep expectations in check so there’s less room for disappointment and a lot of room for surprise.
  6. Know yourself. Know what you are not good despite trying at and stay away from it.
  7. Know what you are good at & make the most of it. Repeat day in and day out. That’s all there is to life.
  8. Have fun!

The price action of Kona Kona bank taught me a lot about market than anything else. Fantastic. All narratives END. When does it & What’s the trigger are the only variables. The stronger the narrative the longer the time the stock takes to alight itself to its fundamentals & valuations. Even a bank like Kotak faced this, imagine the fate of normal narratives. During these waves the “MEDIA, MARKET ANALYSTS, PMS MANAGERS, MARKET EXPERTS, SCAMMERS” make money. Make hay while the sun shines.

RINSE. REPEAT.

Some observations of mine which stood test of time:

  1. Market is supreme in the long term.
  2. Technicals precede fundamentals.
  3. Before you say, money is not everything, make sure you have enough of it.

Ok, that’s it for now. I was watching Gran Turismo before there’s an email notification on a new post in my thread from Abhishek. Also, I’m on fast - 19 hours. So, I will eat now and continue watching.

Take care all.

Thank you once again @zidane for checking on me.

Disclaimer: Stocks written are not recommendations and I’m not certified in anything in life, let alone on stock markets.

A person with passion does more than a person with a certification. Damani sir built a wonderful business without an MBA degree. That discussion is for another day.

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That is fantastic to hear Richdreamz. I am so glad you are achieving these goals. I understand there must be a lot of effort & discipline that must be going into it to achieve those. Your passion for investing & sticking with ideas is what I always admired alongwith a large heart to share those with others. I loved all the 8 points you mentioned & I agree with each one of those. I am personally trying to work on those.
My best wishes to you for the wonderful & disciplined path you have chosen. Now you can continue watching Gran Turismo :slight_smile:

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Hi @richdreamz,
As usual very well articulated post. Always love your writings.

If you are fine, can you please elaborate on your fitness journey. This is one of the important aspects of a good life and many of us miss it more often.
Regards,
Raj

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Absolutely Raj, why not? In fact health >>> wealth.

I will write my entire background, context and disclaimer in this post on my weight loss journey.

Firstly, Big disclaimer: I’m not a certified health coach, medical practitioner and no formal education in medicine, nutrition.

Nutrition is a personal subject. What works for me may or may not work for others and could even pose health hazard.

Bear with a lot of personal details. They are important as “humiliation”, “realisation” are very strong motivational factors in any journey.

Background:

I have has love-hate relationship with weight loss. As far back I remember, I was never fit. Probably because of my mother’s overly love (this is like blaming her instead of taking personal responsibility, but truth had to be told). Her intentions are always good - so are every mother’s - but execution on me is pretty poor. From childhood, I was fed mostly high carb foods (rice, sugar, carrot sweet, rice sweet etc.), the foods themselves are not dangerous, but the portion sizes and frequency of it were. I was a very studious one. School topper, 97.5% in Plus one, Gold medalist from then India’s top 10 engineering institute. So, all through I was fed because I need energy to study.

So, my tolerance for “enough food” signal to reach brain is very high. I’m always hungry.

I’m a short guy/ average at 164 cms and max weight reached was 102 kilos, once at 17 years and then at 26 years.

Enter job. As usual, excelled (sorry for not being particularly modest as I’m building upto my story). In fact became project manager in straight 5-6 years. At the age of 27 years, I proposed to a slim, dark but moderately beautiful girl (she’s a tad taller than me!). To my surprise, she said “Yes”. I’m sure most girls won’t bother to look at me a second time in the “looks department”. Of course, not every girl will judge a guy based on looks, but still in 20s, that’s where the sweetest pot lies.

Many were happy for me, but once in a while, a comment was made by a few, how the hell did he bag her? Then realisation dawned on me. I have to lose weight if not for the comments, at least for my girl (the attempt here was NOT for my own sake - which was a mistake because I later on put most of the weight back on).

Joined a gym, slugged it out. Cut out junk food to practically zero. I reached 69 kilos just before my marriage. You won’t believe me, how many people approached me on weight loss tips!

Most of the weight loss is due to exercise NOT much change in food, except cutting McDonalds type food.

The journey back to 90 kilos from 69 kilos started and since then it was yo-yo. Gym in 2018, lost 5-6 kilos and again put it back.

Present context:

What’s the use of wealth when I have no energy to walk? Health in shambles? Much better to be a middle class person and super health than a millionaire with daily hospital visits. Much sadder, depend on somebody in 65s for mobility, if at all I make it to that age.

I want to make changes. Started reading. This time, the passion I exhibited on stock markets, I showed it on nutrition.

In last 7 months, I lost 11 kilos and ZERO GYM. Only light walking daily in morning and evening sun. In my personal observation, nutrition is much more important then exercise. Both are important but nutrition is much more.

The main difference this time is, ZERO temptation for a cake, ice cream, biscuit etc.

I’m NOT saying, everyone should cut all carbs, but for me personally, it is either zero or full. I cannot stop by eating 2 slices of cake, I have to eat half of it. For such people, it is better to make it zero.

Key points in my journey so far:

  1. Intermittent fasting (IF) (16 hours to 20 hours) daily. Yes, I do daily. 6 pm/ 7pm is my last meal and 11am at least is my first meal. No exceptions. It took me 3 years to reach this stage of IF. So, I suggest anybody to start slow and work it up. Initially, even 10 hours seemed hell for me. But if somebody has any medical condition like diabetes etc, IF may probably be difficult initially at least and must need a doctor’s vigilence.

  2. Maximum 100 carbs per day. Most days it is 60-80 grams. Some days it is even 40 grams and sometimes it is 120 grams. Non-negotiable. I’m willing to give up on IF but not on carbs restriction. This means, I had to give up dosa, sweets etc. It’s 8 months I touched any sweet. In the interim, I had to visit 2 family functions and 3 vacations but I stuck to this. I politely refused to eat sweets at family functions and instead ate a protein bar or ate curd rice.

  3. Proteins and fats: Meat, fish, milk, butter, eggs, curd, nuts, panneer.

  4. Carb sources: Little rice, mono-floral honey, limited fruits - 1 or 2 fruits a day (pomegranate or orange), vegetables in very limited quantities, dark chocolate (70%), mushrooms.

95% of my food comes from above sources ONLY. I order from Licious or Fresh2home 100%.
Carb:protein:fats ratio = 20:30:50.

I will experiment with this ratio as I go on. I’m slowly incorporating resistance training. Started with farmer’s walk 2 months back.

Currently, I do not take any supplements. Sometime eat protein bars (Yoga bar or The whole truth bars for variety).

I feel the best at 41 years and I wore my marriage pant for my kid’s annual day celebrations today. It was loose-fitting!

Again,

  1. Every one need not follow the same path as mine but most sustainable paths must pass through proper nutrition and then exercise.
  2. This may seem a tough eating regimen but believe me, after a few months, it becomes second skin. Even if it is tough, it is better to face this than ill health in 60s.
  3. Nothing here is medical advice, I just wrote my own journey and none should take this as advice.
  4. We do not realise, but if you really count how much carbs you are eating, most obese and metabolically sick people eat upwards of 300 grams carbs. Unless you are an athlete, am not sure why we need so many carbs. Therapeutic carb restriction. Trial and error method because ONLY you know about your own body.

Whatever you do, do what can be sustainable by YOU for the rest of your life. A cheat meal here and there won’t harm but it should not be every week! If you can’t live without a Jalebi, then fine, have it but count it as part of your carb allowance!

I’m in my early stages of learning nutritional science, so read this post accordingly.

I hope, I’m of some help, @raj1968. All the best!

Edit:
Controversial points:

  1. Ancel Keys probably is a big reason for the wrong food pyramid taught in schools today.
  2. Saturated fat is not the culprit, it’s the junk carbs.
  3. They blamed saturated fat (butter) for what sugar did.
  4. Big tobacco, Big Pharma, Big FMCG/sugar have representatives in most key boards of health advisory government bodies. Irony! Conflict of interest, any body. Lobbying in US is corrupt mostly. Anyway, I can write a lot on this, courtesy, recent books, but that’s another subject for another day. My blood boils to learn what Ancel Keys did to favor a particular US president.
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congratulations richdreamz .
your understanding of nutrition and importance of carb restriction is spot on.
i can vouch for it as i myself am more or less following similar principles.
Only thing I can add is a 24 hr water fasting occasionally.
Autophagy during fasting helps reset our body. Now well known nd accepted.

Above all this develops a sense of discipline in us which in turn is a very important aspect in investing.
cheers

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Hi…very nice post and admire your self-discipline. One question- how to measure carb intake and which food to avoid in order to avoid carbs?

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Hi Mudit -

There’s no easy way initially, buy a kitchen scale and weigh food. Find out carbs in each food in google. Write down each and everything you eat, count carbs. It’s difficult only initially, later it is like back of your hand.

For example, 100 grams of cooked rice has about 25 grams carbs. I eat rice as I like it, so I eat but only 80 grams (cooked weight) per day. I stopped idly, poha, dosa, lentils etc. There’s no harm in taking them in limited quantities as it’s being eaten without issues from ages.

Also, you have to earn the carbs. Which means, a farmer who toils in the field can have 200 grams and is okay but if I’m sitting all day and watching netflix and eat 300 grams of carbs - that’s going to be an issue if I continue to do that for years. Also, everybody is different, their metabolism is different. Some can tolerate a higher amount of carbs without getting fat or have gut issues. That’s why it is important to take it slow and trial and error.

Carb heavy foods (healthy) - Rice, roti, idly, dosa, poori, poha, kichdi, utappam, paratha, bread, oats etc. You get the idea, right? Limit them but eat as per your daily limit intake. Most of these foods have 70% carbohydrates in raw form. Very high.

Carb heavy foods (unhealthy) : cake, ice cream, chocolate, chips, candies, sweets, donuts, pizza, burgers, cool drinks, milk shakes, juices in a carton, you get the drill, right? etc. AVOID like plague. Of course, once in a while is fine. I eat 10 grams 70% dark chocolate daily and ice cream (thrice in the last 8 months).

Also, generally, try to pick with better ingredients and organic foods where possible. For example, pick an ice cream brand with lesser number of junk ingredients. These days, they are available.

INGREDIENT/ LABEL READING ON PACKAGED FOOD ITEMS IS MUST IN TODAY’S WORLD.

Our bodies are not adopted or ‘evolved’ to understand what to do with the preservatives that we eat. Our Liver takes it on the chin.

99.9999% of the time in our evolution, humans never ate a “cookie” and were doing fine. It’s the recent times that spoiled us in food terms.

Industrialisation is both a boon and a bane. BUT, we can make an educated choice, right? Take the best of industrialisation but avoid the worst. HOW? Buy a car, travel in a aeroplane, buy a phone - all for your comforts but do not buy chips, do not buy junk food, eat whole foods! Simple = common sense.

Which foods to avoid is easy, no trial and error is required and 100% sure - anything that comes in a pack with lots of artificial ingredients, preservative, added colours, flavours, agents etc. All packaged food. Of course, indulge once in a while but keep track.

If you like idly or kichdi or dal rice or kidney beans, have it but keep the daily carbs within your limit (for me it’s below 100 grams).

The lesser the number of ingredients, the better. The best food is the one with a single ingredient!

Whatever changes you are contemplating, do it gradually, over time - do not cut carbs from 300 grams to 30 grams in a day, your body won’t like it most probably. Sudden changes may lead to oxalate dumping in some causing joint pains. Keep learning.

During your learning process, you will come across:

  1. Visceral fat
  2. VO2 Max
  3. Inflammation
  4. Insulin resistance
  5. Intermittent fasting
  6. Carbohydrate restriction
  7. Nutrient dense food
  8. Sun light importance (evening, morning)
  9. Time spent in nature
  10. Relax walking
  11. Cholesterol
  12. Saturated fats
  13. Gut is your second brain
  14. Sleep importance
  15. Avoiding blue light
  16. Importance of protein
  17. Antibiotic resistance
  18. Autophagy
  19. Ketones
  20. Resistance training
  21. Holistic health/ Mental health

@umesh22

Great to lean about your 24 hour fast, congrats!!! I have the below in my to-do list (3-5 years):

  1. 24 - 48 hours fast
  2. Lion diet for a month and then decide based on how my body reacts
  3. 50 push ups single take (I can do 25 now), 10 pull ups (now I can do only 3)
  4. 15% body fat

I’m not sure If I can achieve them, but I’m aiming high and see how high I can jump. Let’s see.

Disclaimer: As usual, nothing here is medical advice at all. Just my personal observations. Do not jump in with both feet. Take a sensible doctor’s advice before doing anything seriously/ long term.

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Nice points here. More power to you in your fitness journey.

Adding my 2 cents here.

Anything that has served mankind for thousands of years pre-industrialisation must be good.

That means meat, eggs , plants , nuts , berries, milk , fruits ( best has to be local available variety which is not GMO ) are by and large good. Avoid too much cooking, frying oil etc.

That also means all processed foods seeped in sugar and artificial flavours go out of the window.

When you think about it even our staples like rice , wheat etc were also mass produced in the near past .( 8-9 k years history only ). In our sedentary life style having a lot of carbs in the form of rice , chappathies etc is also not advisable.

I have personally experienced that just cutting sugar ( added sugar ) from your diet alone can give immense health benefits , cuts your waste line and boosts well-being.

P.S: I am in no way qualified in any field remotely related to nutrition and health. Just interested and sharing my thoughts.

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