Author: Naveen

  • Three years as shareholder of Nerolac

    Three years as shareholder of Nerolac

    Three years ago after my thorough research I decided to invest in Nerolac. My research was so thorough that it was only on trying to buy the share I realised it is not Nerolac, its Kansai Nerolac. I have invested only thrice over these three years. Below is how the returns have been for me.

    Return

    Profit

    XIRR

    NOTE: XIRR for initial months varies wildly and is not useful for any analysis. But once the investments complete minimum of 1 year, XIRR gives me a much better picture. So I calculate ‘XIRR (>1 year)’ which calculates XIRR only for the investments which have completed minimum of one year while ‘XIRR’ continues to calculate for all the investments irrespective of how much time has been completed. There are some periods where ‘XIRR’ and ‘XIRR (>1 year)’ calculate to the same amount as for that time all my investments had completed minimum of 1 year.

  • When to sell stocks?

    Probably the most practical set of examples on when to sell stocks from your portfolio by R Venkataraman writing for Economic Times.

    I have many stocks, which I am holding for years. I don’t look to optimise every stock, and I don’t think it is worth the time and effort. I am not a professional fund manager, and retail investors should ideally not waste time trying to optimise a portfolio. There will be duds and some stars and vice versa. The key is to emerge fine on an overall portfolio basis.

    I have sold shares when I need money to do something in the real world, which in my case, was real estate. If you don’t need to break the portfolio, please don’t.

    I have sold shares when I needed to sell X to buy Y. At that time, I evaluated all stocks, and picked the ones to sell, which in my opinion, would not do as well as the new entrant. I am not an active churner; this exercise happens rarely.

    I have sold shares when stocks were giving returns beyond my imagination, which happened this year. This is a new feeling for me because most stocks in my portfolio usually move slowly. This year, some of my stocks have risen vertically. So I have booked profits. I use a mental model, which is not very scientific. So don’t waste time trying to poke holes in it.

    Develop your own rule of thumb that makes you happy. I tell myself, sell 50% of the stocks, so that remaining stocks are free. This I learnt from my friend HM, who used an acronym SHAD – sell half at double – and let the rest run.

    Selling stocks? To do it or not to do is indeed a big question

  • What’s in a name?

    It’s often said that the stock market’s main oxygen comes from sentiments and the share price has hit the roof for a company that has the word ‘Oxygen’ in its name despite its business having nothing to do with the life-saving gas — something in high demand due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

    The share price of Bombay Oxygen Investments Ltd hit its upper circuit limit ₹ 24,574.85 apiece at the BSE on Monday, with the maximum permissible gain of 5 per cent due to the stock being under surveillance. The same is the case with some other little-known stocks with ‘gas’ or ‘oxygen’ in their new or old names and all of them are being probed for any possible foul play.

    What’s in a name? A lot for stock market, if it’s ‘Oxygen’ in Covid-era!

    I mean… I can’t even… Kaun hain ye log? Kahan se aate gain ye log?

  • Four years as shareholder of Motherson Sumi System Limited

    Four years as shareholder of Motherson Sumi System Limited

    Four years ago I didn’t know what Motherson Sumi System Limited was and what it did. The only reason I invested in it was that 100+ other mutual funds had invested in it. If so many mutual funds have invested in it, then the company must be good. That was the only research I did. 

    After learning about some thing called as “dollar cost averaging”, I invested more amount when the price fell. After the price fell even more I stopped investing as I learned something called as “don’t try to catch a falling knife”. 

    It has been a roller coaster ride on this one. In the crash of Mar-Jun 2020 the worth of my investment was just 30%. And in the subsequent months it recovered and returned to positive value after almost 3 years. 

    Return

    Profit

    XIRR

    NOTE: XIRR for initial months varies wildly and is not useful for any analysis. But once the investments complete minimum of 1 year, XIRR gives me a much better picture. So I calculate ‘XIRR (>1 year)’ which calculates XIRR only for the investments which have completed minimum of one year while ‘XIRR’ continues to calculate for all the investments irrespective of how much time has been completed. There are some periods where ‘XIRR’ and ‘XIRR (>1 year)’ calculate to the same amount as for that time all my investments had completed more minimum of 1 year.

  • Embrace the Grind

    An article worthy of putting on a refrigerator magnet so that I can read it every day.

    I often have people newer to the tech industry ask me for secrets to success. There aren’t many, really, but this secret — being willing to do something so terrifically tedious that it appears to be magic — works in tech too.

    We’re an industry obsessed with automation, with streamlining, with efficiency. One of the foundational texts of our engineering culture, Larry Wall’s virtues of the programmer, includes laziness:

    Laziness: The quality that makes you go to great effort to reduce overall energy expenditure. It makes you write labor-saving programs that other people will find useful and document what you wrote so you don’t have to answer so many questions about it.

    I don’t disagree: being able to offload repetitive tasks to a program is one of the best things about knowing how to code. However, sometimes problems can’t be solved by automation. If you’re willing to embrace the grind you’ll look like a magician.

    Embrace the Grind

    Read on for some amazing examples.

  • Three years with Motilal Oswal Long Term Equity Fund

    Three years with Motilal Oswal Long Term Equity Fund

    Three years ago I went on a quest to save taxes by investing in something other than PPF. I invested in three ELSS funds and soon realised that it was too many. I have already blogged about my experience with DSP Tax Saver and L&T Tax Advantage. Here I will talk about Motilal Oswal Long Term Equity Fund, where I invested only for one year via monthly SIP.

    One significant activity during my SIP was that – this fund had invested in Manpasand Beverages and in May 2018, the auditor for Manpasand Beverages resigned sending the stock price into a free fall. I remember Motilal Oswal Fund sending an email explaining the situation.

    SIP Return

    I think, I think, the underperformance that started from Oct 2018 was a direct result of Manpasand Beverages fiasco.

    Profit

    XIRR

    I plan to sell off my entire holding in this fund by next year when all my units have completed 3 years and hope by that time the XIRR will have improved from current level of 12%.

    NOTE: XIRR for initial months varies wildly and is not useful for any analysis. But once the investments complete minimum of 1 year, XIRR gives me a much better picture. So I calculate ‘XIRR (>1 year)’ which calculates XIRR only for the investments which have completed minimum of one year while ‘XIRR’ continues to calculate for all the investments irrespective of how much time has been completed. There are some periods where ‘XIRR’ and ‘XIRR (>1 year)’ calculate to the same amount as for that time all my investments had completed more minimum of 1 year.

  • 3 years as shareholder of Supreme Industries

    3 years as shareholder of Supreme Industries

    3 years ago I invested in Supreme Industries after my thorough research (I bought a plastic chair made by Supreme Industries and I liked it). After that I invested just two more times in the stock. Below is how the stock has performed for me over these 3 years.

    Return

    For first two years, the returns were pretty average. It was only during the uptick post Jun 2020, the stock has risen sharply and delivered good returns.

    Profit

    XIRR

    XIRR for initial months varies wildly and is not useful for any analysis. But once the investments complete minimum of 1 year, XIRR gives me a much better picture. So I calculate ‘XIRR (>1 year)’ which calculates XIRR only for the investments which have completed minimum of one year while ‘XIRR’ continues to calculate for all the investments irrespective of how much time has been completed. There are some periods where ‘XIRR’ and ‘XIRR (>1 year)’ calculate to the same amount as for that time all my investments had completed more minimum of 1 year.

  • 4 years as shareholder of Greenply Industries

    4 years as shareholder of Greenply Industries

    4 years ago I invested in Greenply Industries after my thorough research (and I can’t remember what that research was). Over these 4 years I invested only two times. The result were underwhelming until Greenply spun off the medium density fibreboard (MDF) business into Greenpanel Industries and gave me Greenpanel shares in the ratio 1:1. Last one year of rise is all thanks to Greenpanel’s share price rally.

    Return

    The sharp uptick in Oct 2019 is due to me getting Greenpanel shares in 1:1 ratio.

    Profit

    After Jun 2018, I was able to see the worth of my investment in green only after Jan 2021.

    XIRR

    I think there is some problem with my XIRR formula, seems like if the worth of my investment goes down below a certain mark the XIRR simply calculates to zero.

    Update 5-Apr-2021: I was able to figure out the problem with my XIRR and fix it.

  • 4 years as shareholder of IDFC First Bank

    4 years as shareholder of IDFC First Bank

    4 years ago I invested in IDFC First Bank after my thorough research (raj_king on MoneyControl.com forum told that IDFC Bank will become the next HDFC Bank. I am now hoping that HDFC Bank will rename itself to HDFC First Bank).

    Over these 4 years I invested only three times. For the majority of time, the worth of my investment has been less than the amount invested. It is only from Jan 2021 I have seen profit. And I don’t know how long will that sustain.

    Return

    Profit

    XIRR

  • Accordion in Fluent UI / Office UI Fabric

    Accordion in Fluent UI / Office UI Fabric

    Fluent UI / Office UI Fabric does not provide any Accordion control. But you can create your Accordion using the Fluent UI controls itself. Below is the code for Accordion control that I have created in React. You can also see it action on CodeSandbox.

    import * as React from "react";
    import {
      DefaultPalette,
      AnimationClassNames
    } from "office-ui-fabric-react/lib/Styling";
    import {
      IconButton,
      initializeIcons,
      Stack,
      IStackItemStyles,
      IStackStyles
    } from "office-ui-fabric-react";
    
    initializeIcons();
    
    export class Accordion extends React.Component<IAccordionProps, {}> {
      private accordionHeader: IStackItemStyles = {
        root: {
          background: DefaultPalette.neutralLighter,
          padding: 5,
          cursor: "pointer"
        }
      };
      private accordion: IStackStyles = {
        root: {
          borderStyle: "solid",
          borderWidth: 1,
          borderColor: DefaultPalette.neutralTertiary
        }
      };
      private accordionConent: IStackStyles = {
        root: {
          padding: 10
        }
      };
    
      constructor(props: IAccordionProps, public state: any) {
        super(props);
    
        this.state = {
          content: false
        };
      }
    
      private showContent = (e) => {
        this.setState({
          content: !this.state.content
        });
      };
    
      public componentDidMount() {}
    
      public render(): React.ReactElement<IAccordionProps> {
        return (
          <>
            <Stack horizontal={false} styles={this.accordion}>
              <Stack.Item styles={this.accordionHeader}>
                <Stack horizontal={true} onClick={this.showContent}>
                  <Stack.Item>
                    <IconButton
                      iconProps={{
                        iconName: this.state.content
                          ? "ChevronDown"
                          : "ChevronRight"
                      }}
                    />
                  </Stack.Item>
                  <Stack.Item align="center">{this.props.header}</Stack.Item>
                </Stack>
              </Stack.Item>
              {this.state.content && (
                <Stack.Item
                  className={AnimationClassNames.slideDownIn20}
                  styles={this.accordionConent}
                >
                  {this.props.children}
                </Stack.Item>
              )}
            </Stack>
          </>
        );
      }
    }
    
    interface IAccordionProps {
      header: string;
    }

    You can use the control in your code with below sample code.

    <Accordion header="Lorem Ipsum">
          Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod
          tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim
          veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea
          commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate
          velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat
          cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id
          est laborum.
        </Accordion>