No-brainer, eh? Who would choose Equities over a solid real estate investment such as a house where you can live in and your net worth is not measured everyday in a portfolio in www.moneycontrol.com or the like. (Useful little feature, check it out!)
A House is always a great first big investment and should be a part of everyone’s financial planning. And it is an emotional part of our life. No one can give a financial argument against emotions, right?
This write up assumes that we or our parents have made that big investment and how a second or third real estate investment stacks up against traditional investments such as stocks. Well not too great..
What are the arguments against equities vis a vis House?
Not safe, eh? Well do we really spend the time and energy buying equities the way we do when we buy a house? We check the builder for his reputation, the area for potential appreciation, the rates, the layout of the complex, freebies such as gym, play area etc. (No freebies those, the builder pads in onto your cost!). Not to speak of having the having the legal rigmarole vetted by an attorney! And do we buy equities with even remotely comparable diligence! The next tip from a broker, 8 best buys for 2008, web sites offering phree gyan! (Oops!)
Appreciation? Well if you had bought a crore of NSE Index funds in 2002, you’d be sitting on around 5 crores worth of the same today! And remember, no need for research, brokers, godsofgreed etc. And no property taxes and of course no capital gains tax as well! Real estate probably appreciated at the same rate through the period. People who point to the equities boom must remember, the same liquidity that drives the sensex crazy drives real estate prices too! And over longer periods of say 15-20 years, studies have shown that equities have matched or exceeded real estate returns.
Equities held for a year or more have no capital gains tax at all, thanks to PC’s budget a couple of years back. Whereas real estate carries a tax of 20% capital gains when you sell irrespective how long you hold!
And there is this concept called Fungibility. One stock of Reliance Petro is just the same and carries the same value as another one. Whereas a house in Bandra is not the same in value as an exactly similar looking adjacent apartment of the same floor area. So you get the perfect market determined price when you should decide to sell your shares. And apartment prices can be determined by the direction of the door and numerology of the door number!
Lastly the best bit about stocks is that you can set aside small bits of money at different points of time without getting caught in a EMI trap and lose out on several small indulgences. And conversely you have your heart set on a Skoda Fabia. (sigh, me too!) You can sell a bit of your portfolio to make a down payment instead of the whole house!
So, it would do well to remember what I mentioned in the earlier part of my write up, If you have your hearts set on that condo, go ahead and indulge, nothing like a cozy nest! Once that done, more houses only pull us into debt and make land sharks rich! Happy Investing!
Monday, February 25, 2008
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Greed is right, greed works.
To all people who are certainly not happy with the money they are making...
For the last one year or more I have been inflicting my investment ideas and views on the markets on a group of close chums through a mailing list! As an alternative to adding more people to my mailing list, I am moving my investment/personal finance ideas mails to a blog format today, the 14th of February. Quite an auspicious day, I must say, Sensex just closed 800 points up around 5%!
Like my mails, this would not be periodic but sporadic depending on the kind of investment ideas that I read about or get from somewhere. No idea in this post is original... Everything has been lifted from or inspired by original research done by others. And of course, I would try and give credit or better still, hyperlinks to the original source. I try and collate ideas from disparate sources and present it here...I would appreciate questions, feedback and better still fresh investment ideas! Also this blog is meant for the lay investor and hence I have tried to avoid the financial gobbledygook and kept the numbers simple!
So what is in store for equities now that the markets are listless and future seems bleak? (Despite the last two days' rise!) Well nothing at all! Equities as an asset class have never been bad! I can't imagine any other asset class where a good stock picker with discipline can average around 25+% return YOY! Remember what counts is the companies we invest in and not where the Nifty or Sensex are headed! Warren Buffet goes even further to say that equity markets are not so affected even by the performance of the country's economy as much by the interest rates! And Indian rates are probably on their way down in the next few years! Note the use of the word 'Probably'!
Moreover a period of uncertainty as is now prevalent is probably the best time to enter equities. We now have time to review companies, their performance over a couple of quarters etc without the market running away! I am sure each of us have been in a position where we had decided to buy a stock at a Rs 120 levels and see it run away to Rs 210 levels by the time we actually found the money. Well that's not going to happen in the near future! We have the luxury of time to stop and think about planning our investments before crazy things happen. I remember a similar such period in 2002 when some of the best performers of the last decade were analyzed and recommended. To name a few. UTI Bank at Rs 29. J&K Bank at Rs 11, Bajaj Auto at Rs 600 etc!
Currently I like Sanghvi Movers. (CMP 251). This company is an excellent play on India's infrastructure story and construction boom. They rent construction equipment like cranes etc to other companies. Last quarter (Q308) they clocked a growth of 111% in their profits and 65% growth in their sales! Most of their fleet of their cranes is booked for the next two years or so. It is reasonable to expect a 30-40 % growth rate over the next 3 years considering their aggressive capex plans. And thanks to the recent correction is available at a reasonable valuation. One should look to more than double his/her money in a couple of years! Not bad, eh! So you forgo an Apple I phone today, you are looking at an I phone plus a decent LCD TV two years down the line! Happy Investing!
For the last one year or more I have been inflicting my investment ideas and views on the markets on a group of close chums through a mailing list! As an alternative to adding more people to my mailing list, I am moving my investment/personal finance ideas mails to a blog format today, the 14th of February. Quite an auspicious day, I must say, Sensex just closed 800 points up around 5%!
Like my mails, this would not be periodic but sporadic depending on the kind of investment ideas that I read about or get from somewhere. No idea in this post is original... Everything has been lifted from or inspired by original research done by others. And of course, I would try and give credit or better still, hyperlinks to the original source. I try and collate ideas from disparate sources and present it here...I would appreciate questions, feedback and better still fresh investment ideas! Also this blog is meant for the lay investor and hence I have tried to avoid the financial gobbledygook and kept the numbers simple!
So what is in store for equities now that the markets are listless and future seems bleak? (Despite the last two days' rise!) Well nothing at all! Equities as an asset class have never been bad! I can't imagine any other asset class where a good stock picker with discipline can average around 25+% return YOY! Remember what counts is the companies we invest in and not where the Nifty or Sensex are headed! Warren Buffet goes even further to say that equity markets are not so affected even by the performance of the country's economy as much by the interest rates! And Indian rates are probably on their way down in the next few years! Note the use of the word 'Probably'!
Moreover a period of uncertainty as is now prevalent is probably the best time to enter equities. We now have time to review companies, their performance over a couple of quarters etc without the market running away! I am sure each of us have been in a position where we had decided to buy a stock at a Rs 120 levels and see it run away to Rs 210 levels by the time we actually found the money. Well that's not going to happen in the near future! We have the luxury of time to stop and think about planning our investments before crazy things happen. I remember a similar such period in 2002 when some of the best performers of the last decade were analyzed and recommended. To name a few. UTI Bank at Rs 29. J&K Bank at Rs 11, Bajaj Auto at Rs 600 etc!
Currently I like Sanghvi Movers. (CMP 251). This company is an excellent play on India's infrastructure story and construction boom. They rent construction equipment like cranes etc to other companies. Last quarter (Q308) they clocked a growth of 111% in their profits and 65% growth in their sales! Most of their fleet of their cranes is booked for the next two years or so. It is reasonable to expect a 30-40 % growth rate over the next 3 years considering their aggressive capex plans. And thanks to the recent correction is available at a reasonable valuation. One should look to more than double his/her money in a couple of years! Not bad, eh! So you forgo an Apple I phone today, you are looking at an I phone plus a decent LCD TV two years down the line! Happy Investing!
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