THE GREAT INDIAN BULL RUN

It seems that I am destined to miss the excitements of stock market during any of my hiatus from the blog to attend other engagements. The Sensex remained there at tantalizingly near 20,000 when I shined off, then it slided by around 2000 points for lack of cues. It made a resounding recovery of 924 points in a biggest single day rally to be there at its very correct place near 20,000. It reconfirmed my standing (my earlier popular blog: Should we buy stock now?) that there is still some time left for Bears to set in. For now it is the “Great Indian Bull Run”.

Market pundits always maintain, “bull markets don’t just die of old age, historically only one factor has terminated bull runs: rapidly rising interest rates. Bear markets occur when earnings collapse due to an economic recession, which in turn is brought about when real intereat rates cross the threshold of pain”. (Ruchir Sharma: The Sky Isn’t Falling –Yet, November 5, 2007, Newsweek)

To go by the above referred article there are still some way to go before the Indian Stock Market enters into the “bubble” territory. History shows the bubbles peaks when average stock price reach the level of 50-60 times projected earnings for the coming year. Some examples of bigger bubbles are NASDAQ in 1989 and Hong Kong market back in 1973, when the P/E ratio peaked at 55. The bubbles were busted by respective central banks by tightening measures.

Any tightening measure will result in slowing of overall economics of our country which the government will very reluctantly opt for, in all possibilities.

There are some theories floating around like “look beyond the index stocks”. This is a dangerous proposition to small investors as most of the small investors only look at the stock price movement, not beyond that. Some penny stocks are good bait for those unsuspecting small investors by those big great white sharks lurking in the deep blues of uncertainties. They should always value the fundamentals rather than unwanted tips from those uncertain sources.

A few issues back Outlook Money (15th October, 07) came up with nine good mid cap infrastructure stocks which seem to fit the bill for small investors. For small investors these stocks may be kept in their radar for picking up when the stock price and market allows picking (refer my earlier very popular blog: Waiting forever to be discovered by world). For our benefit let me note them down below:

Bharat Bijlee: Good order book and earning visibility.
Bharati Shipyard: Cost competitiveness results in better standings.
Era Infra Engg: Good project execution.
Hercules Hoists: Diverse Product Range in a modern manufacturing facility.
India Cement: Biggest cement manufacturer in South India.
Indo Tech Transformer: Impressive growth potential.
International combustion: Niche product range.
Paramount communication: May be the growth story to come next.
Voltamp Transformers: Should ride the infrastructure growth story.

In the mean time let us bask in the glory of Sensex Sun and as old adage says: make hey while the sun shines.

WAITING FOREVER TO BE DISCOVERED BY WORLD

Recently I have gone through a profile of Ramesh Damani (ET, 8th September,2007), the wily fox of Indian stock market. His conviction on the value of a stock impressed me. He is successful by any industry standard. His portfolio shows some unfancied stocks (like VST) which are giving a slow and steady run. His ability to identify the undervalued stocks has made him some fortune. Examples SBI (last market correction) and TISCO (after Corus deal), he picked them up not so long ago.
There are many undervalued stocks if you look into the market; they are also featured by any finance periodicals. The Outlook Money in their one of the August issue has identified six such stocks which are not fancied by the market though their valuations are very attractive. The author lacked conviction to suggest those stocks and recommended caution while investing in them. For our benefit let me list those stocks:

ANSAL HOUSING & CONSTRUCTION
FCS SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS
GIC HOUSING SOLUTIONS
SANGHI INDUSTRIES
SREI INFRASTRUCTURE FINANCE
TELEDATA INFORMATICS

Except Teledata and SREI all the other stocks were showing negative trends though on paper they have excellent credentials in them. They all have the potential to become multibaggers. But still they are unfancied by the market, they are waiting to be discovered for a long time. One will agree one year is a long time in a Bull Market like ours.
What matters is the visibility of a stock to be successful in the market. To me the stock should be visible to big players and which they can manipulate if required.
What is best for a small investor: to invest in a value stock like Mr. Ramesh Damani or in a visible fancied stock which has already started its run?
In the first case the investor may have to wait for some really long time because his thousands and lakhs will not impress other small investors.
In the second case he will make some quick bucks if he is careful and exit the stock well ahead of time. (Remember the greed and fear theory?)

The choice is on the Small Investors.