Back to my investing journal/log after 21 months.
A fresh (re)start with a fresh year 
Posting after April 2021, close to 2 years. And what a period it has been. No kidding when they say you need to pay tuition to the markets in the initial years. Be it loss of capital or opportunity, you do pay in some way, only to (hopefully) benefit in the future.
So, what happened?
The last 21 months have been a roller coaster of sorts. I went from a self-proclaimed “quality/value/long term” investor to running after the flavour of the month. Subscribed to 2 stock recommendation companies (both momentum based). Plus 1 free Telegram based research/recommendation service in a bull market! What a mistake!!
After feeling like a super smart choice for the good part of 2021 when everything was going right, then came December 2021 and February 2022 and how things turned.
In their defence, 1 twitter based advisory majorly outperformed while the other was rather disappointing despite being a good short bull market where most things were clicking. Telegram channel was a mixed bag, but then again it was for free!
What’s the current situation?
As of mid-2022, I have let go of my memberships with the advisories and concentrating only on my core portfolio along with managing the skeletons of the advisories (I am calling it the residual portfolio).
In the meantime, my core portfolio has not really performed that well except for ITC. I still believe in the names and that things will get better for these quality businesses.
Here is my core portfolio. I will get into details in the subsequent posts.
| Company | Weightage |
|---|---|
| ITC | 16% |
| DEEPAKNI | 8% |
| HDFC | 7% |
| LAURUSLABS | 7% |
| SUPRAJIT | 6% |
| SHARDACROP | 4% |
| INFY* | 4% |
| NEULANDLAB | 4% |
| HDFCBANK | 4% |
| INDOCO | 3% |
| IEX | 3% |
| CANFINHOME | 2% |
| MANAPPURAM | 2% |
| MCDOWELL-N | 2% |
| HDFCAMC | 2% |
| RADICO | 2% |
| 76% |
Here is my residual portfolio:
| Company | Weightage |
|---|---|
| JUBLINGREA | 2% |
| GUFICBIO | 2% |
| CMSINFO | 2% |
| FORTIS | 2% |
| TATACOMM | 1% |
| REDINGTON | 1% |
| SUNTECK | 1% |
| SYNGENE | 1% |
| BAJAJHCARE | 1% |
| SEQUENT | 1% |
| FINCABLES | 1% |
| IBREALEST | 1% |
| NMDC | 1% |
| VLSFINANCE | 1% |
| RIBATEX | 1% |
| ORIENTCEM | 1% |
| HINDPETRO | 1% |
| HRYNSHP | 1% |
| ETHOSLTD | 1% |
| SINCLAIR | 1% |
| PPLPHARMA | 0% |
| 24% |
What’s the plan going forward?
I have tried to mentally keep the 2 (core and advisory) separate, but eventually this is becoming tougher. More so due to the same account, keeping 2 separate accounts might have been a smarter idea. 2 main goals:
- Concentrate fully on the core portfolio. Rebalance the portfolio.
- Exit the residual portfolio with possibly minimum damage
Some super high return names in short duration (all advisory recommendations)
- Balrampur Chini
- JSW energy
- BSE
- ABB Power India
Some valuable lessons in valuations:
- IEX: bought at low levels, thought I have the found the treasure. Great company, no doubt. But such high valuations, as at the time of split, will simply not last. Should have been smart enough to trim more or sell out completely, but greed kept me hooked on. Hence, I learnt what is confirmation bias. Currently hold 75% of original investment.
- Pidilite: again, a great company, although I was simply lucky to make a good return on this one, mainly due to buying very low, overall, I realise (I could be wrong) valuations like 100 PE is just not worth going after. Still believe great company, with a great MD Mr. Bharat Puri. Fully exited.
Some rude lessons based on investing via tips and YouTube (totally deserved it). Will write a detailed explanations on what I should not have done, to remind me in the years to come.
- Sequent Scientific, Laurus Labs, Hikal
My takeaways from this wild 1.5-year period. This is no newly found “Gyan”, just a reminder of what I already knew, but now have also experienced:
- VALUATIONS ALWAYS MATTER!!! It’s never different this time, no matter how much Fed prints
- YouTube, Twitter and Telegram tips are “almost” always bound to fail, unless you consider it an idea generation tool and research yourself further
- Momentum strategy needs many things to go right. It is best avoided, at least for me
- Do not rush! Invest systematically and in tranches. Keeping some cash component ready always is very important. One very senior member of VP had personally told me not to invest everything in beginning of 2021. But of course, FOMO, I went all in! When the real corrections came, I had not a rupee more left to invest and my positions were in red.
- Not so well researched or borrowed ideas aren’t worth staying in for long, exit sooner before the stock becomes a permanent unwanted guest in your portfolio.
- Mean reversion as a strategy/factor from @harsh.beria93, still understanding and observing this trend.
Looking forward to documenting my thoughts and process this time around better.