Friday, June 22, 2007

How to pick a stock ??? May be We are late for this financial year, but there is another financial year ..Experience is the best teacher !!!

This data is from my understanding --- The Little Book that BEATS the MARKET .. by Joel GreenBlatt
The basic aim in investing a stock is to earn money. So if in a given time, If you are unable to beat the interest rates provided by banks,securities etc... then investing in stocks is useless. Loss in a stock means earning interest rate of less than

Actually this book generalizes the market and it does not pertain to Indian Stock Market..

Ch#2 -- Principal -- Hot air Rises.
Explanation :- Whenever a ballon is filled with hot air, it rises a lot i.e., whenever some hot topic is raised about a share it's price raises. Bag that oppurtunity.

Ch#3 -- Net Income of the company (Nc)  =  Total Earnings - Total Expenditure(includes all )

Nc can be got from the balance sheet of the company.

No of shares of company outstanding in the market   Ns...

Nc/Ns = Money Earn't by each share (Ms).

P = Price at which share was bought.

Ms/P % =Earnings Yield (Ey) . Percentage of Money made by each share.

Ey > 10% which is now the market interest rate that is prevailing in Indian Economy.

P = Upper limit of P which can be afforded is got from Ey>10%

By how much percent P is more than 10% is the safety margin. It's better to have more safety margin. Lets rank on safety margin and call it SMR.

Ch#4:-
  The Upper given data is calculated on previous year's balance sheet of the company.
But what about future of the business ???

so be ready to predict the future of the business and also about Mr.Market (Stock market trends).

Return on Capital (Rc) should be more. Rc = Net Profit (Nc) / Initial Investment (Iinv)
Rc should me as more as possible.

Ch#5 :-
So a business is called good business if Rc and Ey are high.

Ch#6 :-
Rank all listed companies in the exchange depending upon Rc and Ey. Then,Make a database on both the rankings at the start of financial year and calculate the average of the rankings. Chose the one which has better rank as best business. Here I introduce a new term Rank for our benefit. Selection of stocks by Rank has made losses in the years 1990, 2000 and 2002 but in the rest made profits. You know what I mean by loss (earning interest less than the prevailing Bank's Interest etc)

Mr.Benjamin Grahim -- I suppose his methods were adopted for investing in shares by Mr.Warren Buffet (God of Investment) ,incidentally second richest in the world.

Grahim's Principle :- Buy stocks of Business which has good Rank at Bargain Prices (Bp).
Bp the price which is less than the Net Liquidation Value (Nlv)
Nlv :- The amount remaining for the company after clearing of all debts and selling all assests.

Ch#7 :-
The above discussed method is called Magic Formula. This method more dominatingly on markets with high capitalization and having large no of shares.
So Capitalization (Cp) is another deciding factor.

Ch# 8 :-
Performance of share or any investment is calculated since its inception. So Timing Mr.Market is very important. Magic Formula has worked fine if it's followed for a minimum period of 10 years. 
Belief is the key in any field. This proved worse in case it was followed for short term usually 4 years.

Ch#9 :-  Rule of Capitalism :-
 If a business performs well, It will attract competition and thereby driving the profits a little down than if it was alone in the market. So the business also along with being good with fundamentals, it should have new kind of strategies, innovative thoughts,BrandName... etc to  prosper in future.

ch#10:- Company
 buys back it's own stocks if it thinks it's undervalued. This is clear indication that that particular company's stock is quoting at a lower price in the market.

Ch#11 :- Don't
go on with this tecnique blindly for the last year. May be last year was some extra ordinary year for the company. So analysis must be done for a normal year. Or if you are unable to make out a normal year earnings. Go for average of,for atleast 3 years.

Ch#12 :- If you don't know how to evaluate a business and project normal earnings mentioned as in ch#11, you have no business in investing in INDIVIDUAL Stocks in first place.



So discussed as above we will be needing the following fundamental or minimum factors to evaluate a business.

1. Nc
2.Ns
3.Ms
4.P
5.Ey
6.SMR
7.Rc
8.Iinv
9.Rank
10.Bp
11.Nlv
12.Cp
---------------

Comments and Doubts invited ...Make this post proceed further ...

At what price Infosys Share can be bought now ???

Lets have a discussion about infosys share here ....what price its getting quoted now ?? how much can we afford towards buying that share ???

Analysis of IPO's

IPO --Initial Public Offering

The company which is in need of money comes and issues shares to public directly.

Eg: - A company needs Rs.1 Crore as capital, then it creates equal amounts of 10 lakh shares or stocks each having a face value of Rs.10. This is direct purchasing from the company without Mr.Market getting involved.After this, Stocks are traded on any stock exchange and rise and fall of price is decided by our Mr.Market.

Lets analyse on companies which are offering IPO's here with accurate data and don't forget to mention the source from where you got the data.

GOOD SITES FOR INDIAN STOCK MARKET ANALYSIS

http://www.aiiireports.blogspot.com/
http://www.desidata.com/
http://www.bseindia.com/
http://www.nseindia.com/
http://www.eagleeyetrade.com/

TYPES OF INVESTMENT

Bonds
Grouped under the general category called fixed-income securities, the term bond is commonly used to refer to any securities that are founded on debt. When you purchase a bond, you are lending out your money to a company or government. In return, they agree to give you interest on your money and eventually pay you back the amount you lent out.

The main attraction of bonds is their relative safety. If you are buying bonds from a stable government, your investment is virtually guaranteed, or risk-free. The safety and stability, however, come at a cost. Because there is little risk, there is little potential return. As a result, the rate of return on bonds is generally lower than other securities.

Stocks
When you purchase stocks, or equities, as your advisor might put it, you become a part owner of the business. This entitles you to vote at the shareholders' meeting and allows you to receive any profits that the company allocates to its owners. These profits are referred to as dividends.

While bonds provide a steady stream of income, stocks are volatile. That is, they fluctuate in value on a daily basis. When you buy a stock, you aren't guaranteed anything. Many stocks don't even pay dividends, in which case, the only way that you can make money is if the stock increases in value - which might not happen.

Mutual Funds
A mutual fund is a collection of stocks and bonds. When you buy a mutual fund, you are pooling your money with a number of other investors, which enables you (as part of a group) to pay a professional manager to select specific securities for you. Mutual funds are all set up with a specific strategy in mind, and their distinct focus can be nearly anything: large stocks, small stocks, bonds from governments, bonds from companies, stocks and bonds, stocks in certain industries, stocks in certain countries, etc.

The primary advantage of a mutual fund is that you can invest your money without the time or the experience that are often needed to choose a sound investment. Theoretically, you should get a better return by giving your money to a professional than you would if you were to choose investments yourself. In reality, there are some aspects about mutual funds that you should be aware of before choosing them, but we won't discuss them here.

Compared to bonds, stocks provide relatively high potential returns. Of course, there is a price for this potential: you must assume the risk of losing some or all of your investment

Alternative Investments: Options, Futures, FOREX, Gold, Real Estate, Etc. So, you now know about the two basic securities: equity and debt, better known as stocks and bonds. While many (if not most) investments fall into one of these two categories, there are numerous alternative vehicles, which represent the most complicated types of securities and investing strategies.

The good news is that you probably don't need to worry about alternative investments at the start of your investing career. They are generally high-risk/high-reward securities that are much more speculative than plain old stocks and bonds. Yes, there is the opportunity for big profits, but they require some specialized knowledge. So if you don't know what you are doing, you could get yourself into a lot of trouble. Experts and professionals generally agree that new investors should focus on building a financial foundation before speculating.

Thursday, June 21, 2007

BASICS OF STOCKS

What Are Stocks?
The Definition of a Stock Plain and simple, stock is a share in the ownership of a company. Stock represents a claim on the company's assets and earnings. As you acquire more stock, your ownership stake in the company becomes greater. Whether you say shares, equity, or stock, it all means the same thing.

Being an Owner Holding a company's stock means that you are one of the many owners (shareholders) of a company and, as such, you have a claim (albeit usually very small) to everything the company owns. Yes, this means that technically you own a tiny sliver of every piece of furniture, every trademark, and every contract of the company. As an owner, you are entitled to your share of the company's earnings as well as any voting rights attached to the stock.

A stock is represented by a stock certificate. This is a fancy piece of paper that is proof of your ownership. In today's computer age, you won't actually get to see this document because your brokerage keeps these records electronically, which is also known as holding shares "in street name". This is done to make the shares easier to trade. In the past, when a person wanted to sell his or her shares, that person physically took the certificates down to the brokerage. Now, trading with a click of the mouse or a phone call makes life easier for everybody.

Being a shareholder of a public company does not mean you have a say in the day-to-day running of the business. Instead, one vote per share to elect the board of directors at annual meetings is the extent to which you have a say in the company. For instance, being a Microsoft shareholder doesn't mean you can call up Bill Gates and tell him how you think the company should be run. In the same line of thinking, being a shareholder of Anheuser Busch doesn't mean you can walk into the factory and grab a free case of Bud Light!

The management of the company is supposed to increase the value of the firm for shareholders. If this doesn't happen, the shareholders can vote to have the management removed, at least in theory. In reality, individual investors like you and I don't own enough shares to have a material influence on the company. It's really the big boys like large institutional investors and billionaire entrepreneurs who make the decisions.

For ordinary shareholders, not being able to manage the company isn't such a big deal. After all, the idea is that you don't want to have to work to make money, right? The importance of being a shareholder is that you are entitled to a portion of the company’s profits and have a claim on assets. Profits are sometimes paid out in the form of dividends. The more shares you own, the larger the portion of the profits you get. Your claim on assets is only relevant if a company goes bankrupt. In case of liquidation, you'll receive what's left after all the creditors have been paid. This last point is worth repeating: the importance of stock ownership is your claim on assets and earnings. Without this, the stock wouldn't be worth the paper it's printed on.

Another extremely important feature of stock is its limited liability, which means that, as an owner of a stock, you are not personally liable if the company is not able to pay its debts. Other companies such as partnerships are set up so that if the partnership goes bankrupt the creditors can come after the partners (shareholders) personally and sell off their house, car, furniture, etc. Owning stock means that, no matter what, the maximum value you can lose is the value of your investment. Even if a company of which you are a shareholder goes bankrupt, you can never lose your personal assets.

Debt vs. Equity
Why does a company issue stock? Why would the founders share the profits with thousands of people when they could keep profits to themselves? The reason is that at some point every company needs to raise money. To do this, companies can either borrow it from somebody or raise it by selling part of the company, which is known as issuing stock. A company can borrow by taking a loan from a bank or by issuing bonds. Both methods fit under the umbrella of debt financing.

On the other hand, issuing stock is called equity financing. Issuing stock is advantageous for the company because it does not require the company to pay back the money or make interest payments along the way. All that the shareholders get in return for their money is the hope that the shares will someday be worth more than what they paid for them. The first sale of a stock, which is issued by the private company itself, is called the initial public offering (IPO).

It is important that you understand the distinction between a company financing through debt and financing through equity. When you buy a debt investment such as a bond, you are guaranteed the return of your money (the principal) along with promised interest payments. This isn't the case with an equity investment. By becoming an owner, you assume the risk of the company not being successful - just as a small business owner isn't guaranteed a return, neither is a shareholder. As an owner, your claim on assets is less than that of creditors. This means that if a company goes bankrupt and liquidates, you, as a shareholder, don't get any money until the banks and bondholders have been paid out; we call this absolute priority. Shareholders earn a lot if a company is successful, but they also stand to lose their entire investment if the company isn't successful.

Risk
It must be emphasized that there are no guarantees when it comes to individual stocks. Some companies pay out dividends, but many others do not. And there is no obligation to pay out dividends even for those firms that have traditionally given them. Without dividends, an investor can make money on a stock only through its appreciation in the open market. On the downside, any stock may go bankrupt, in which case your investment is worth nothing.

Although risk might sound all negative, there is also a bright side. Taking on greater risk demands a greater return on your investment. This is the reason why stocks have historically outperformed other investments such as bonds or savings accounts. Over the long term, an investment in stocks has historically had an average return of around 10-12%.

Different Types Of Stocks
There are two main types of stocks: common stock and preferred stock.

Common Stock
Common stock is, well, common. When people talk about stocks they are usually referring to this type. In fact, the majority of stock is issued is in this form. We basically went over features of common stock in the last section. Common shares represent ownership in a company and a claim (dividends) on a portion of profits. Investors get one vote per share to elect the board members, who oversee the major decisions made by management.

Over the long term, common stock, by means of capital growth, yields higher returns than almost every other investment. This higher return comes at a cost since common stocks entail the most risk. If a company goes bankrupt and liquidates, the common shareholders will not receive money until the creditors, bondholders and preferred shareholders are paid.

Preferred Stock
Preferred stock represents some degree of ownership in a company but usually doesn't come with the same voting rights. (This may vary depending on the company.) With preferred shares, investors are usually guaranteed a fixed dividend forever. This is different than common stock, which has variable dividends that are never guaranteed. Another advantage is that in the event of liquidation, preferred shareholders are paid off before the common shareholder (but still after debt holders). Preferred stock may also be callable, meaning that the company has the option to purchase the shares from shareholders at anytime for any reason (usually for a premium).

Some people consider preferred stock to be more like debt than equity. A good way to think of these kinds of shares is to see them as being in between bonds and common shares.

Different Classes of Stock
Common and preferred are the two main forms of stock; however, it's also possible for companies to customize different classes of stock in any way they want. The most common reason for this is the company wanting the voting power to remain with a certain group; therefore, different classes of shares are given different voting rights. For example, one class of shares would be held by a select group who are given ten votes per share while a second class would be issued to the majority of investors who are given one vote per share. When there is more than one class of stock, the classes are traditionally designated as Class A and Class B. Berkshire Hathaway (ticker: BRK), has two classes of stock. The different forms are represented by placing the letter behind the ticker symbol in a form like this: "BRKa, BRKb" or "BRK.A, BRK.B".