Sweden is Going Cashless

I was reading an interesting piece on how Sweden is expected to go cashless by 2023. Some interesting snippets from it are below:

This is possible in Sweden because even though cash is a legal tender, contract laws have a higher precedence than banking and payment laws here. If a store puts up a sign that it does not accept cash, then you, as a customer, have entered a contract or an agreement with that store that they don’t accept cash. But in other countries, like Denmark for instance, payment laws have higher precedence than contract laws. In those countries, if something is a legal tender, then according to the law a store must accept it. This is one of the key reasons why Sweden is more cashless than other countries — because of its legal framework.

... in the early 2000s, the central bank decided to outsource its printing and distribution of cash. The central bank said it didn’t see cash as its core business.

Something unique to Sweden was a spate of robberies which resulted in the unions of various organizations like bank employees, bus drivers, cab drivers and others pushing for a cash-free society in order to protect their members. In 2007, in an effort to transform black-market work to white-market work, the government introduced tax deductions for domestic services like home repairs, baby-sitting, laundry and so on. This meant that people did not need to keep cash to pay for these services. It led to a dramatic drop in the need for cash. 

In 2015 to 2017, Sweden replaced its existing notes and coins with new ones. When this happened, cash was deposited into accounts but not all of it was taken out. 

An advantage of a cashless society is that it will be easier to trace criminal activities and we might be able to block some of them. The disadvantage is that everyone can be traced. We will be more traced than we are today. We will lose our privacy.

Read the full article here - http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/going-cashless-can-learn-swedens-experience/

Weekly Reading: Some Interesting Stuff

A sneak peak into Elliot Management, the company which came to the notice of Indian investors, because of their activism in Cognizant Technology Services.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/08/27/paul-singer-doomsday-investor

A very useful article on the different aspects of taking notes.
https://www.lifehack.org/794683/note-taking-tips

An interview of Joel Greenblatt
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4201803-joel-greenblatt-interview-magic-formula-stock-market-investing

The risk of China in steel sector
https://www.livemint.com/Money/4OJl6hqGXjrRkH5gwK7EwL/The-steel-industry-is-on-top-but-China-is-a-risk-in-waiting.html

A little bit of learning from and about David Einhorn. First an interview, followed by the problems that he faces these days.
https://acquirersmultiple.com/2017/12/david-einhorn-theres-one-rule-of-investing-that-has-served-us-well/
https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/b1875gtp13qqyq/what-exactly-happened-to-david-einhorn

Stock Review - WPIL

Wpil by abhishekbasumallick on Scribd

Weekend podcast in ET Markets titled "How you can spot multibagger stocks"

You can listen to my latest weekend podcast in ET Markets titled "How you can spot multibagger stocks"

According to you, what is the definition of multibagger?

I think the term multibagger was made famous by Peter Lynch in his book One Up On Wall Street. He called stocks which doubled as 2-baggers and those that went up say 10 times as 10-baggers. To me, a multibagger is a misnomer. People assume multibagger with quick gains in the market, which is not really the case. People ignore the time element. Even a bank FD is a 2-bagger in 8-10 years! So, an absolute return value is meaningless without the element of time. To me, multibaggers are those which generate very good compounded returns for long periods of time. For example, stocks like Asian Paints, HDFC Bank, which have delivered superb returns over 20+ years to people who have held on to them over the entire duration.


How one can spot big compounders on D-Street?

There is no magic formula. Otherwise, everyone would be able to identify them. But if you think about it, what are the key ingredients required. For generating good revenue and profit growth over a long period of time, you need a stable industry, very large opportunity size, large profit pool and companies with a differentiated product or service which are able to take market share from its competitors. 

The second aspect you need to think about is the price you pay while buying. You will need the valuation, for example, the PE multiple to be at the same level or higher when you want to exit as compared to when you are buying. So, it makes sense to buy when the PE is low. That way you have a buffer for the possibility of you being wrong, what we call a margin of safety.

You also need to ensure the basic hygiene factors like low debt, high ROCE, good management are in place. Management needs to be a minority shareholder friendly. Remember the quality of management matters the most when the investment horizon is very long. 

Another misconception which I see a lot of people have is that only unknown and obscure small caps can be multibaggers. Like the examples of Asian Paints or HDFC Bank that I gave earlier, they were known stories even twenty years back. But importantly, they have been able to continue to execute well and outperform. So for good compounders, you need not look only at small caps and unknown names.


What kind of study one needs to spot such stocks?

As I mentioned earlier, to spot good compounders, you need to understand the industry in operates in quite well. You need to have a view on the longevity of the business and the absolute level of profit the company can generate. For example, ask yourself if the company can grow to 10 times its current profits? What is required to happen for it to grow that much? Who are the major competitors? Is the company able to take market share from its competitors? Is there any global example in another country that can be used as a reference point for this kind of growth? 

An interesting approach is to make a list of some great businesses. Then study them thoroughly. Make notes. Do a valuation. Then wait for the time when the overall market corrects, to buy the company, if it gets close to your valuation. My experience is that the market gives an opportunity at least once a year or once every other year when there is a steep correction. That is the time to load up on the stocks which are part of your Great Companies list.


As a value investors, where do you see opportunities right now?

It continues to be a struggle to find good compounders in the market today. Valuations for most good companies are still quite elevated, even after the fall in the broader markets. Having said that, I believe that there are still pockets of opportunity, especially in sectors like Pharma, Chemicals, Real Estate and IT. I think as an investor you need to spend time in understanding individual businesses and industries and always be on the lookout for great companies available at reasonable prices. As Peter Lynch said, "The person that turns over the most rocks wins the game." And finally, be patient till you find the right business to invest in, at the valuation where you are comfortable holding for the long term.

ET Markets Article - The value investor’s checklist: What does it really contain?

You can read my latest article in ET Markets titled "The value investor’s checklist: What does it really contain?"

Preventing mistakes has always been more important to me than getting a stock pick right. I had limited capital when I started investing, so preventing a permanent capital loss has always been of paramount importance to me. When I sat back and realized that I had the propensity of making the same mistakes repeatedly, I stumbled upon the idea of having checklists, to prevent myself from self-destruction.

My first brush with something like a checklist came from Phil Fisher’s classic Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits. In the book, the appendix covers Fisher’s thoughts on the Key Factors in Evaluating Promising Firms – which is akin to a checklist. Fisher categorizes the key factors into

i)                    Functional Factors like lowest-cost producer, customer orientation and focus on R&D amongst others,

ii)                   People Factors like growth mindset, entrepreneurial spirit and treatment of staff and

iii)                 Business Characteristics like margins, efficiency of operations, competitive positioning and industry leadership.

Then I came across Atul Gawande’s The Checklist Manifesto. Here the author talks mainly about using checklists for minimizing errors, which reinforced my view of using a checklist.

Then I chanced upon a very nice book written by Micheal Shearn called The Investment Checklist. This book delves systematically into how to build a checklist and comes up with a fairly good one at the end. It covers business quality, management quality and competence, financial health of the company and growth opportunities. Any investor wanting to start building their own checklist could use this book as a starting point.

I have two main types of questions in my own checklist relating mainly to

i)                    adherence to process steps and

ii)                   delving deeper into the company or industry.

Process adherence type of questions could be as simple as have I read the last 10 years annual report or conference call transcripts. Delving deeper questions could be like if I know how many times independent directors have resigned from the board in the past or the quality of independent directors on the board.

What I have personally realized, beyond what is written in books is that an investment checklist should try and capture all aspects of investing – qualitative, quantitative and, most importantly, behavioral. It should also capture my own past mistakes to ensure they are not repeated. The behavioral and past mistakes is not addressed in most investment literature but is the most crucial in my opinion.

Just for illustrative puposes, some of the behavioral or mistakes related questions that I have on my checklist are

i)                    Am I price anchoring to a previous price at which I had either bought or sold,

ii)                  Am I being unduly optimistic (optimistic bias) and not looking at disconfirming evidence? and

iii)                Does the company have a large foreign currency borrowing in a overseas subsidiary?

The most important aspect to remember is that a checklist is a living document. One that needs to be updated with new or better questions and newer mistakes!

ValuePickr 2018 - Annual Meet Takeaways

This was the 4th year we had the VP Annual Meet. The standard keeps going up each year. Personally, for me, I missed Donald during the meet. Hope he is there next year. His enthusiasm and prodding on working harder on a stock story have always egged me on in the last 8-10 years.

This year Prof Bakshi and Sumeet Nagar (Malabar Investments) were the special guests. Special thanks to them for spending so much time with us and sharing their experiences.

Every year, we have some new faces who make the cut. And every year, when I hear their presentations, I feel that I need to work harder to keep pace with them. This year was no different!

I personally was very impressed by Sumeet Nagar’s deliberate and thoughtful process of business evaluation and stock selection. It has encouraged me to do a lot deeper work than I used to do earlier.

As usual, learning from the fellow VP members has always been the greatest. When you have stalwarts like Hitesh Patel, Ayush Mittal, Anant Jain, Dhwanil Desai, Sandeep Kapadia and others all in one place, talking about businesses all the time, then it is par for the course that you will absorb a lot of different styles of investing. 

All the new entrants are great in their respective areas and helped me explore completely new facets of investing. Vivek Mashrani, Kumar Saurabh with their ability to look at numbers at a big scale, Jiten Parmar with his on the ground feel for cyclicals and overall market sense, Deepak Venkatesh with his domain knowledge on fintech and Rupesh Tatiya with his uncanny skill of adhering to his process to generate alpha in an overall down year for most.

I try to learn something new every year. This year, I spent some time exploring technical analysis and quantitative investing to increase my breadth of knowledge. My presentation is attached.

What to look for in quarterly results - ET Markets Special Podcast

My thoughts on quarterly numbers on ETMarkets Special Weekend Podcast: Do quarterly results hide more than what they reveal?

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/etnews.cms?active=64996415