Cartoonist: Farris, Joseph; cartoonstock.com – Sunday, 26 March 2017 The returns for the calendar year 2017 (thus far) have surprised the most optimistic of market participants. Using Stock Seasonality, I have tried to answer the rhetorical question: Will 2017 be an outlier calendar year for the Indian Stock Market? Monthly Stock Market Seasonality For the uninitiated, Seasonality is the characteristic whereby data experiences changes that recur every calendar year.  Any predictable pattern in a time series that recurs over a one-year […]

Cartoonist: Collins, Dan; cartoonstock.com – Sunday, 12 March 2017 I think the image above correctly describes the ethos in the minds of the Indian Mutual Fund Investor. Practically everyone now uses a Systematic Investment Plan (SIP) for investing in the Indian Stock Market. A Systematic Investment Plan (SIP) as an investing strategy has stood the test of time, and its efficacy is beyond doubt. However, I wish to highlight the fact that the asset class that is chosen is far […]

Cartoonist: Farris, Joseph; cartoonstock.com Saturday, 25 February 2017 In the world of Mutual Fund Investing, one can be an active investor by investing in an actively managed fund or a passive investor by investing in an index fund. How does one decide as to how ‘Active’ a money manager in an Actively Managed Fund is? That’s what ‘Active Share’ is all about. Passively managed funds are those that mimic the benchmark. Actively managed funds are the ones whose composition varies from […]

Cartoonist: Schwadron, Harley; cartoonstock.com – Sunday, 12 February 2017 How many of us have a strategy while investing? How important is it? I think that having an investment strategy in place is a precursor to the actual investment process and its importance cannot be understated. Investment Strategy: Why? In the extremely noisy world of investing products, there are multiple strategies. To be fair, there cannot be any one strategy that fits all. Each of us has to devise or tweak our […]

Cartoonist: Hesse, Peter; cartoonstock.com – Sunday, 29 January 2017 The obsession of the investing community with benchmarks has increased their importance. The Nifty 50 Index, disseminated by the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) is the most popularly used benchmark for the Indian Stock Market. Nifty as a Benchmark The Nifty 50 benchmark index represents 65 percent of the float-adjusted market capitalisation of stocks that are traded on the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE). I think it is necessary to […]

Cartoonist: Brown, David; cartoonstock.com – Sunday, 15 January 2017 A Magic Formula Investing post has become an annual ritual on Sentiments & Bubbles. Using the Magic Formula as an investing strategy was popularised by Joel Greenblatt in The Little Book that ‘Still’ Beats the Market Magic Formula Investing is a strategy whereby we end up buying shares in companies that have both, a high earnings yield and a high return on capital. In other words, we buy shares in good […]

Cartoonist: Morris, John; cartoonstock.com – Sunday, 1 January 2017 It does appear that forecasting has become little more than an excuse for sloppy thinking. Hence, it would be easy to conclude that we should ignore forecasts altogether. But just as we don’t throw out an ideology because it has been used disingenuously, we shouldn’t be too quick to dismiss forecasting skills. Burton G Malkiel in his seminal book A Random Walk Down Wall Street – The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful […]