My (Sahil's) investment Questionnaire

Investment Learning
1

Hi everyone,

I’m sahil. I work at Google India. I got interested in investment a few years ago since it seemed like a fun and challenging activity to me. Most of my net worth is in Google stock and indian MF, but i do manage roufhly 20% of my network as direct stocks. I would like to switch to this way of management asap because i do not like any MFs in the indian stock market, neither do I like a large fraction of my net worth being in Google stock.

Up until now, I have read several books on investment including but not limited to:

  1. intelligent investor
  2. Warren buffet way
  3. Warren buffet portfolio
  4. Common stocks and uncommon Profits
  5. Rule #1 investing
  6. The education of a value investor
  7. The dhando investor
  8. The rebel allocator
  9. The naked trader
  10. Magic formula investing (the book that beats the market)

I’ve only shared the ones which have influenced me the most and which I keep near and dear to my heart.

One of the things I really liked in “The education of a value investor” by ‘Guy Spier’ is the idea of an investment checklist. I think this makes a lot of sense and enables us take decisions which are higher quality and lower the risk of our investment not doing as well as we want to. I wanted to start doing this as well and for that I have created my own investment questionnaire:

The idea is for this questionnaire is to help me better articular why I’m making a particular investment and stay true to my documented reasons for investing, using this as a guiding force to decide when to exit the investment among other things. I also hope this would enable me to become more disciplined and increase the quality of my judgements.

Request all of you to review it critically if possible and help me improve the questionnaire. Also, if you find parts of it useful, please feel free to use it as well. PS: I’ve only given everyone view access to keep the document decluttered.

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2

Hi Sahil,

While it’s a prudent thought to decouple your investment from your primary income, I would say to think through this and no go by the textbook approach. While we could be cynical of the growth etc since we are in the inside but a company like Google is unique.

Also you should factor that INR keeps depreciating against USD so all things being equal, keeping a sizeable part of the investment in USD might be better. Of-course you have to factor the tax considerations etc.

A DIY approach to investments might be exciting but be-aware that Indian stock market (particularly the midcap/smallcap sector) is full of landmines - corporate governance issues, lack of innovation, lack of moats, competition from global established companies etc. I would suggest to invest in index funds if you don’t want to invest in MFs. I don’t know how old you are but remember that investment in your career has the greatest returns.

All the best.

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