BL Portfolio – The year that was

As another year draws to a close for ‘Portfolio’, we can confidently say that we have given our readers only the best this year. In the same breath, we also recognize that there is always room at the top and promise to continue adding value in any way we can in the years to come. Here’s a look back at the year that will soon go by and what we’ve done to stay relevant to you.

How we do with stocks

Equity ideas have been the cornerstone of “Portfolio” since today “Investment World”. And in a year when the markets were for the most part booming and IPOs were a dozen cents, we’ve been working to separate the wheat from the chaff for our investors.

Two things have defined our stock market recommendations this year (period July 2020 – June 2021 considered because we allow a period of at least six months before judging the success / failure of our calls on the secondary market). First, given how the market has risen from the March 2020 lows, we have tried to be safe, giving “Accumulate” calls rather than “Buy” calls whenever possible. An “accumulate” call is usually given when there is a positive view on the stock, but when we believe the margin of safety can be higher at a lower price. “Build up” recommendations that have worked well include L&T Infotech (up 262%), Tata Steel (up 163%), ABB (up 136%) and Adani Ports (up 129%). Given the ups and downs in the market, opportunities have presented themselves at lower prices in some stocks such as Tata Steel and ABB. But that may not have been the case, in others, given the general mood of exuberance.

Second, some high valuation-based “accounting earnings” calls have worked, yielding lower returns than the flagship index as well as the broader Nifty 500 in the time since the call. Examples include TCS (January 24, 2021), Berger Paints (February 28, 2021), JSW Steel (April 11, 2021). Calls to “sell” to Indigo, SpiceJet, Ashoka Buildcon and LIC Housing Finance, as sector headwinds / deteriorating fundamentals also proved correct. ‘Buy’ calls that have done wonders include Sobha (up 181% from the first call on November 24, 2020, 86% on a repeat on June 24, 2021), Fiem Industries (up 99%) and Tech Mahindra (up 78 percent). But enthusiasm for real estate stocks has not spread to REITs, as recommended stocks (Embassy, ​​Mindspace) have not budged since our call to buy. Calls from FMCGs such as Britannia, Jyothy Labs and Zydus Wellness given in the second half of 2020 also fell flat, as defensive bets were no longer of interest to investors.

When it comes to IPOs, we have to admit that we have been very careful. Of the many calls that we have asked investors not to subscribe to, only the calls to Chemcon Specialty Chemicals, Kalyan Jewelers and Shyam Metalliks worked. Our call to “Invest” in the IPO of Gland Pharma (up 160% of price bracket) and the Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences (up 63%) was right. . With many new age IPOs arriving after our June 30, 2021 deadline, we reserve our comments on those actions, although more high profile calls to skip such as One97 Communications have so far worked.

Fixed income and personal finance

Since interest rates on debt products were nothing out of the ordinary this year, we identified investment oases of options for risk averse investors that offered a combination of safety and superior returns. . Postal programs such as PPF, SCSS, RBI Floating Rate Bonds, FD of some banks and NBFC, short term funds and target maturity funds were recommended. With FDs, we have limited ourselves to a time horizon of 1 to 2 years, as rate hikes can occur sooner rather than later. Ditto was the thought process when recommending floating rate funds that could benefit from a rate hike. In 2022, rate hikes are indeed expected sooner rather than later.

Investor protection has been a major backbone of our personal finance coverage this year. We started the year warning readers about the murky world of digital lending applications and towards the end of the year, as RBI released its report on the same topic, we wrote about proposed measures to make them more secure. . As the popularity of crypto investing grew, we wrote about the loopholes in the crypto investing back-end as well as the alluring crypto investing programs offered by various players, warning readers to traps. Likewise, the implementation of the Risk-o-Meter rules and the introduction of the matrix of potential risk classes for debt funds to help mutual fund investors assess the risks as well as the need to consider before embarking on P2P loans have been discussed in detail.

New initiatives

With the relaunch of Portfolio on December 6, 2020, we made several value additions. A key introduction has been the coverage of international investment. It also proved to be timely, as Indian investors turned to international investing like never before, thanks to bullish sentiments in the market. In international markets, direct investment in US equities has taken off strongly, thanks to robust regulations, the depreciation of the currency (rupee) benefits in addition to access to equities in sectors with little presence in India. Mutual fund houses have also brought international funds with a new fervor, with themes ranging from NASDAQ investing and global real estate to climate change and emerging markets. We did not pass up the opportunity. We have featured articles on international investing on multiple pages / online sections – Big Story, Your Money / Personal Finance, Mutual Funds, Taking Stock / Stock Fundamentals, as well as news pages.

Another of our initiatives focused on the new generation of DIY (Do-It-Yourself) investors who flocked to the market during the last bull run. To address this audience, we’ve posted reviews of several fintech apps used by new age investors. We’ve also posted some filter-based action ideas that they could use as a springboard for further research and investment. Some of the very useful stock filters include those based on PEG, Dividend masters, DuPont Analysis, Fed Model, Altman Z-score, and Promoter Pledge.

The introduction of detailed derivatives hedging, with useful market data, M&O strategy calls and an investor masterclass is another highlight, apart from a “Simply put” column to address n any financial market jargon.

Connected reader

At Portfolio, we’ve always delivered topical and topical content week after week, going beyond the news. Being in the industry for over 25 years has also given us a fair idea of ​​what type of content will be most relevant and actionable for investors. Moving forward, we’ve taken conscious steps to improve reader engagement over the past year. This was done in three ways. First, we have encouraged readers to actively comment on our content by mail, in the comments area of ​​our site, on social media as well as through SMS / Whatsapp and QR code modes. We have started to feature your thoughts / comments and our responses on a regular basis, via a dedicated reader comments area in our editions from last year. Secondly, we have also been following more closely what interests our readers online and this has provided us with valuable information, which we have used to improve our offering as well as our readership. Third, we instituted two reader surveys on key personal finance questions – one on the impact of Covid on your finances and two, on financial freedom and your plans to achieve it (in the context of our 75th year independence). These surveys saw the enthusiastic participation of hundreds of readers whose responses were then aggregated to weave a human interest story filled with anecdotes and statistics, and presented in the “Big Story” section.

A finger on the pulse of our readers puts us firmly in the spotlight as we move into 2022. A weekly newsletter and more multimedia content are just some of the plans for the next year.

Read on and write to us. Good year!