Value Investing Lessons Relevant At All Times

• Identifying a textile stock: Do's and don'ts
  (Apr 9, 2007)The debt-laden Indian textile industry that was embroiled in BIFR cases until the early part of this decade, spun a turnaround with the lowering of interest rates and dismantling of the quota regime. Aided by lower interest rates, restructuring packages from financial institutions and the more recent Technology Upgradation Fund (TUF), the sector today is well poised to capture growth opportunities.
• Identifying an auto stock: Dos and Don'ts
  (Apr 9, 2007)"It makes nearly 60m cars and trucks a year, and employs millions of people around the world. Its products are responsible for almost half the world's oil consumption, and their manufacture uses up nearly half the world's annual output of rubber, 25% of its glass and 15% of its steel. No wonder the car industry accounts for about 10% of GDP in rich countries."
• Identifying a construction stock: Do's and don'ts
  (Mar 19, 2007)After being in the limelight for the past two years, stocks from the construction sector have witnessed tremendous pressure in the recent market meltdown with the pressure being aggravated by the Finance Minister's clarification that tax benefits under Section 80-IA would not be applicable for entities executing projects through work contracts (i.e. sub-contracting of projects won by the entities).
• Identifying a sugar stock: Do's and Don'ts
  (Mar 8, 2007)Sugar being a commodity, the sugar industry is cyclical in nature. It is a typical cycle which is affected by cane supply and sugar demand. In this article, we take a look at how to identify a good sugar stock. Currently, with the sector looking bitter, it is even more important to identify the right stocks to sweeten the gains.
• Identifying a telecom stock: Do's and Don'ts
  (Mar 6, 2007)Telecom has been one of the fastest growing sectors in India, with the performance of services providers being led by mobile telephony. From around 2.8% tele-density (connection per 100 population) in March 2000, the sector now connects around 17% of India's population through a host of services, which include mobile, fixed line and Internet. Thriving Indian businesses, especially the IT and BPO industries have also helped the strong growth in another segment called 'Enterprise services', which include wholesale proviosion of data and bandwidth services.
• Identifying a shipping stock: Do's and don'ts
  (Jan 8, 2007)Shipping industry is a primary means of international transportation of any essential commodity. Around 80% of the cargo moved today is seaborne and almost 100% of hydrocarbon is transported through ocean. The global shipping industry can be broadly classified into wet bulk (like crude and petroleum products), dry bulk (like iron ore and coal) and liners (like containers and others). There are various benchmarks that determine freight rates for these segments. The prominent amongst them are Baltic Freight Index, Baltic Handymax Index (for dry bulk segment) and World Scale (for tankers).
• Refining: Understanding GRMs...
  (Sep 7, 2006)After touching historic lows in the late 1990s, the oil-refining sector has seen a significant increase in gross refining margins (GRMs) owing to two factors. One, hardening of crude prices and secondly, a favorable demand- supply equation in the global markets. As compared to GRMs in the range of US$ 1.0 to US$ 1.5 per barrel in late 1990s, GRMs crossed US$ 10 per barrel at one stage. Though margins have softened in the recent past, it is still substantially higher than the average of the last three years.
• P/E ratio: Look beyond it!
  (Aug 21, 2006)The P/E ratio is easily one of the most widely used valuation metric employed by the investors worldwide to arrive at an attractiveness of a stock. However, what the ratio numerically denotes is not necessarily the truth always and application of other valuation matrices could prove to be more useful. Let us see where this ratio fails and how other ratios takes its place.
• PEG ratio: A perspective...
  (Mar 2, 2006)How to go about investing in stock markets is a never-ending quest. And since there are no right or wrong ways to go about things, it becomes even more perplexing. Here is one of the valuation parameters, which an investor could make use of while making investment decisions in equities.
• P/BV: Understanding the concept
  (Sep 13, 2004)Apart from the price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio, another parameter that is commonly used to value stocks is price-to-book value (P/BV). But what does P/BV means and how can investors use this parameter to value their investments? In this article, we will try and simplify this concept.
• Understanding Options
  (Jul 17, 2004)Derivatives markets are important constituents of the capital markets anywhere in the world. Thus, in the Indian markets too, derivatives have become an important part, which is evident from the volumes in the derivative segment. The volumes in the derivatives market has gone up steadily in the last three years (since its commencement in India) and during the last one year, they have been consistently higher than the cash market.
• Identifying an auto anc. stock: Do's and don'ts
  (May 31, 2004)In the outsourcing space, the prospects for auto ancillary manufacturers are bright from the long-term perspective. But identifying the right stock from this sector becomes difficult on account of technical complexities involved and higher nature of fragmentation of the industry. In this article, we have made an attempt to simplify this process and help investors identify a good auto ancillary stock.
• Identifying a paint stock: Do's and Don'ts
  (Apr 17, 2004)In the consumer's hierarchy of needs, the importance of housing cannot be understated. Given the fact that the housing sector has been growing at an impressive rate in the last five years on the back of various factors like tax incentives and the decline in interest rate, it is pertinent to look at sectors that benefit from this scenario. Apart from banks, cement, steel, the paint sector also benefits in a large way. In this article, we look at factors that have to be borne in mind while identifying a paint stock.
• When to Buy? When to Sell?
  (Mar 16, 2004)"An investment operation is one which, upon thorough analysis, promises safety of principal and an adequate return.' This was how Benjamin Graham defined 'investment'. There are three important aspects here,
• Identifying a cement stock: Do's and don'ts
  (Nov 29, 2003)One of the key factors that seem to have a major say on stock price movements of cement companies are cement prices! Given the volatility and seasonality involved in the same, should one place such high weightage on cement prices to ascertain investment decision in cement stocks? Here is an attempt to simplify the analysis of a cement company.
• Identifying an MNC pharma stock: Do's and don'ts
  (Oct 11, 2003)The case for an MNC pharma company for retail investors as far as equities are concerned stems from the fact that earnings visibility is relatively stronger compared to domestic pharma companies. Unlike Indian peers, risks regarding R&D is also absent. However, while MNCs, in general, bring in a culture of professionalism, there have also been instances of Indian shareholders getting an unfair deal when these very MNCs delist from the domestic stock exchange or when they are taken over by another company (like Digital-HP and Kodak to name a few). In this article, we shall understand the various factors that should be borne in mind while investing in an MNC pharma stock.
• Understanding the refining business
  (Sep 27, 2003)The black crude is fed to the refineries and we get various clean fuels like petrol, diesel, etc. For a layman, it is hard to believe all this but science has gone to such an extent that we can separate the crude oil into various useful products. This is just one thing. The science does not stop here. It can further alter this product mix by other processes to get even more value added products. By this time, you must be wondering what’s an article with scientific connotations doing on a financial website.
• Identifying an aluminium stock: Do's and don'ts
  (Sep 23, 2003)Investing in commodity stocks is always a risky proposition because the cyclicality of the sector is one of the most important criteria, which decides the fate of your investments. Keeping this in mind, we have tried to highlight here some factors one should keep in mind before investing in an aluminium company.
• Identifying a power stock: Do's and Don'ts
  (Sep 6, 2003)"When you think of digitizing India there will be a massive amount of power required and I pray to this government that you have to push and push and push to invest in infrastructure - Mr. Jack Welch"
• Identifying a steel stock: Do's and don'ts
  (Aug 25, 2003)Steel stocks have been the object of heavy reviews off late in discussions about the Indian equity markets. And this is not without reason. In recent times, steel stocks have gained tremendously on the bourses. Whether this is a factor of rising speculation or fundamentals of steel stocks, is a different story altogether. However, in this article, we try to elucidate factors one should keep in mind before investing in a steel sector company.