Category: Decision Making

Most Bollywood movies are about the victory of the hero (good) over the villain (evil).

Most Hindu mythological stories are about the victory of Dharma (good) over Adharma (evil).

And most enduring investment successes are about the victory of returns (good) over risk (evil).

A very happy Dussehra or Vijayadashami to all the readers of Smart Sync Services. There are three religious stories for why Dussehra is celebrated today in India:

1. The victory of goddess Durga over demon Mahishasura
2. The victory of Lord Rama over demon Ravana
3. The victory of Pandavas over Kauravas (Source: Wikipedia)

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I run the risk of losing a few of my existing and prospective clients for Smart Sync Services when I write this. If you agree with what I am going to say now, I may not get any business from you. In fact, I may lose a few of my existing clients. However, I hope that I would earn your trust. And maybe, sometime in the future you would come back to me and give me more business when you reap the rewards of this invaluable advice. Let’s deep dive into one of my most loved investing philosophy: “Survive to Thrive”

“Survive to Thrive” has been a very powerful and motivating thought for me. During tough times, in investing and in personal life, I use it as a tool to get me back on my feet and start working towards my goal. I have written a couple of blogs here and here. Both had a different angle of looking at the investing landscape from the lens of “Survive to Thrive”.

Welcome to the third edition.

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“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” — Leonardo da Vinci

Like many things in life, ‘Investing’ works best when it is kept ‘simple’.

You don’t need a jazzy dashboard or a complex excel model to make wealth over the long run. The wealth generation process is simple and boring. And it is the same for everyone.

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This is the 1st post in our quarterly result update series for Q2FY21.

In this post, we’re sharing the latest updates of the stocks from our watchlist. Please don’t treat this as a buy recommendation. We find these businesses interesting and we may build position (or buy more of those that are already in our portfolio) in them in the future. The purpose of this post is to bring clarity to our understanding of the businesses we are tracking.  We make our notes on the quarterly results and conference calls. Putting it up here makes it easier for us to refer them at a future date.

You can see the earlier updates here.

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A slightly edited version of this post was originally published in Morningstar.

The price to earnings ratio, or P/E ratio, is probably the most commonly used valuation metric in the stock market. It is a mathematical expression calculated by dividing a company’s current market value by the net profits of the current year.

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Murphy’s Law says “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong“.

Today, the management of VIP Industries would probably agree to it more than anyone.

We have extensively covered (here and here) the progress of VIP Industries over the last seven quarters.

Recently, COVID-19 has led to many ugly surprises for VIP that no one could have envisaged.

And that reminds me of this quote by Robert Rubin:

Condoms aren’t completely safe. My friend was wearing one and he got hit by a bus.

Risks often play out in the most unanticipated ways.

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“I will call you on the weekend.”

“Let’s have lunch sometime.”

“I will follow up tomorrow”.

“I am really busy at the moment but would definitely check the mail in the evening and revert”.

We often make these statements all day long to people around us. Do we really check later if we actually perform those tasks as said?

Let’s be honest. Most often, we don’t.

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