Investing – Insights from an equity investor

equity investor insights - how to pick stocks

To be an equity investor is difficult. For some, it can be downright scary. The fact remains that more people lose money in equity investing than make in it. Why is that so?

You see equity investing is a science. There is a whole lot of financial analysis and valuation methodologies that enable an investor to make decisions. Interestingly, it is an art too as it is subject to ‘views’ of individuals. The simplest example of it being an art is that one company can be valued very differently by two individuals.

The real magic of investing happens at the ‘horizon’ where the ‘art’ and ‘science’ meet.

I have been on the search to find real world investors who practice this amalgamation of ‘art’ and ‘science’.

By pure chance, I came across Balaji Sridharan, an equity investor who also has a full time job as a CXO of an organisation. Balaji has generously shared his approach and thought process on equity investing.

You might be investing in direct equity or via equity mutual funds or just be getting prepared to start your journey as an equity investor, I am sure you will benefit from his ideas. I have benefited for sure.

This is Part 1 of the note. You can read Part 2 here.

So, let’s read what Balaji has to share.

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Equity Investing, as I understand it!

equity investing

For a large number of equity investors, equity investing is about what they do in the stock market – buying and selling based on ticker prices. That is where it starts, that is where it ends.

The only thing that matters to them are news items such as:

  • Stock market up by 200 points
  • Markets down by 100 points
  • Nifty up 3 days in a row
  • Sensex posts biggest fall in 6 months

and on and on and on.

The onslaught by the media adds fuel to the fire. The best picks of the day are discussed, worst picks are beaten down, target price, stock market predictions, everything that occupies your current time and attention, all leading to nothing.

How is this information helpful? I might be sounding ignorant here, but seriously, help me understand.

Constantly working with only the stock market prices and nothing else has brought us to a situation where we know the price of all stocks but the value of none.

Is this how equity investing really done?

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