Portfolio Update

Being a value investor is fun!! It gives one a leeway for being lazy and inactive while putting on a facade of being intellectually stimulated. 

The above is a disclaimer for delaying updating my portfolio at the end of July and doing it a month late :-)

The updated portfolio is on the Portfolio page of the blog.

The performance of the portfolio has been extremely satisfying to me. Luck does indeed catch up sometimes. For the first half of the year:
Portfolio - 89.3% 
Sensex - 21% 
HDFC Equity Fund - 40% 

HDFC Equity Fund is my benchmark mutal fund. My thesis is that if one can't perform better than a good fund over a period of time, then better invest in the fund and pursue other passions.

This time the returns were distributed and came from many of the portfolio stocks - Mayur contributed the most with a stellar rise, taking the price to an uncomfortable territory. Astral also has gone to a level which is making me uncomfortable, but not yet to the point of selling. Finolex Cables, Balkrishna, Ajanta, Alembic, PI Industries all contributed their fair share in the performance.

In the first half, I added Bajaj Finance, PTC India Financial Services, Kitex Garments and Selan Exploration and booked profits from Page & Atul Auto. 

I believe Bajaj Finance is on a very strong wicket and will do very well for a long period and is available at reasonable valuations (more I suspect due to the fact that they did not get a banking license). PTC Finance is also doing extremely well and has good visibility of earnings in the short and medium term though longer term is hazy. I need to do more due diligence on Kitex and Selan. 

Currently, I am relooking at some of my old favourites like Sintex, Shriram Transport and some others like Persistent Systems, Symphony Coolers to see if they fit into the portfolio.

In my opinion, we have just started a bull-market and we have a long, long way to go. So, good stock selection and portfolio weightage can give outsized returns even from these levels.

Happy Investing!