Basant Maheshwari, our friendly neighbourhood stock wizard, is never afraid of a fight. His stocky build, razor sharp mind and fast talking ability makes him a formidable adversary as many have of his detractors have found out. However, Basant has his limits of endurance. There comes a point when Basant prefers to leave the arena with his dignity intact rather than to continue to fight his erstwhile devoted followers.
That end point has been reached in the case of Basant Top 10, a stock advisory service that Basant started with great fanfare in October 2011.
Basant has now made the formal announcement, much to the disbelief of his followers, that the service will shut its doors on 30th June 2015.
What caused this unfortunate state of affairs is the slugfest between Basant’s detractors and his followers over the alleged failure of his star stock pick, Hawkins Cookers. The fight started at MMB and spread like wildfire across various blogs, including this one. What made the situation worse is the allegation that Basant himself sold off his holding of Hawkins’ shares even while he advised the public and his subscribers to buy the stock aggressively. Basant has not clarified whether he has sold off his holding or not. However, the allegation that he behaved in a manner which lacked integrity must have hurt him deeply.
With the benefit of hindsight, we can say that Basant got his strategy wrong. The problems started in September 2014 when Basant doubled the fees for his stock advisory services from Rs. 25,000/50,000 to Rs. 50,000/1 lakh. The fee was exorbitant (in comparison to peer services) and it did not go down well with investors. It also alienated a lot of his die-hard followers. Worse, his star stock pick, Hawkins Cookers, performed poorly. His other star stock picks, HDFC Bank and Gruh Finance, remained sluggish and under-performed their peers. What compounded the frustration of the subscribers is that this under-performance was in the midst of a raging bull market when all sorts of stocks of even dubious pedigree were surging to new heights. It is no wonder that the knives were out for Basant and at the first opportunity disgruntled investors slashed him with their caustic comments.
What Basant ought to have done, in the wake of the sluggish performance of his stock picks, is to have slashed his fee or offered steep “loyalty” discounts to his subscribers. This would have won him goodwill from investors and they would have taken a benign view of the failure of his star stock picks.
If Basant had adopted the latter strategy, he could have also made a bigger packet for himself. It is common sense that lower fees attract larger numbers of subscribers. If 100 subscribers pay a fee of Rs. 25,000 each, the revenues are Rs. 25 lakh. With 1000 subscribers, the revenues surge to a hefty Rs. 2.50 crore. If you manage to garner 5000 subscribers, you are talking of a mind-blowing annual income of Rs. 12.50 crore.
With Basant’s star power and frequent appearances on TV, attracting 1000 subscribers and more ought to be a cakewalk.
But, tragically, instead of going this path, Basant went the opposite path by hiking his fee. The result is there for all of us to see.
Incidentally, this is the second time that Basant has thrown away a lucrative asset. He did the same thing earlier with ‘theequitydesk.com’, an online forum for investors. Basant carefully nurtured the forum for several years and converted it into a bustling powerhouse for discussions on stocks. You can judge the popularity of the forum from the fact that it boasts of a mammoth number of 61,864 members and 196,943 posts. However, one fine day, Basant got into a scrap with some members of the forum over the prospects of some stocks. He got so disillusioned that he stopped participating in the forum.
The result is that the equitydesk.com is today like a deserted ghost town. It’s only visitors are a few occasional spammers trying to deposit their wares there. Its posts, several of which haven’t been visited/updated for several months/ years, stand mute witness to the glory days of the past.
Anyway, two good things may happen as a result of the closure of the Basant Top 10. The first is that Basant may revive his participation in the equitydesk. This will gladden the hearts of the 61,864 members who are presently drifting aimlessly, looking for an anchor. The other is that Basant will be able to talk stocks freely, and offer stock tips, in his TV programmes, without any hindrance. Many of Basant’s fans will heartily welcome this. So, there may be a silver lining to this dark cloud.
allegations raised against him and when it was the time to answer his critics, he simply ran away. Pump and Dump ! you poor Basant, never expected this from you. I was his subscriber in 2013.
This indicates that he has sold his own hawkins to poor investors who follow him!
This is deceivology of making money. Pumping the stock on TV , magazine and exited out. Basant , Hide your self in a tiny well near hawda bridge of kolkatta.
RIP Basant corner .
And you missed 110% in 2014 on core PF. Add symphony, cera and many others.
But agree on ” when it was the time to answer his critics, he simply ran away.”
He always said that portfolio allocation is more important than stock selection , if one has followed all his principle in toto than Hawkins issue doesn’t matter, may be all this shit is written by some one jealous of sir
I subscribed to Basant’s services last November @Rs 25000. I firmly believe that once you commit to someone, the least you can do is not to malign him in the public domain. If you are unhappy, you can directly speak to him or send him an email or even stop subscribing.
Coming to Hawkins, even I felt that Basant was going overboard by giving a BUY at such a ridiculously high price, a company with absolutely zero moat, apart from an established brand name. I felt it was sort of out of character for Basant. So I did what George Soros does: disproving one’s own theory, and decided NOT to invest.
The fact is one should not blindly believe even if you have role models or just because you are paying for the services. One has to use these lists as a filter and decide for oneself and thats how ones takes responsibility for one’s decisions and thats the best way to learn.
Also where Basant possibly slipped was he wanted to get high profile by going on TV. But the flip side to this that those sexy looking female anchors managed to get a few stocks slip out, which is sort of not fair to the subscribers. Also he participates in the Business Outlook STOCK MARKET SPECIAL yearly by recommending one stock which is from his TOP 10 OR BUY list. So in a way, few of his top stocks tend to slip out to the public domain.
I strongly recommend that Basant’s book is worth its price and thats what made me subscribe to it in the first place. Basant has come a full circle after learning from his mistakes and his learnings are captured in his insightful book.
If Basant subscribers are looking for a replacement, may I recommend Anuj Mittal of KATALYST, who is a low profile but smart operator and whose specialty is to come out with HIDDEN GEMS rather than the known blue chips.
He is Ekansh Mittal of Katalyst not Anuj Mittal.
oops sorry about the name slip:) apologies!
he is ex-HBJ..so do your own research
HBJ?
Yes . Now barred by sebi, HBJ Cpital . Eknash belong to the gang of HBJ .
what did HBJ do?
just to add:
if the rumours that Basant sold off his own HAWKINS shares, while at the same time recommended a BUY to his subscribers are TRUE , that would be inexcusable and I am sure he won’t sleep peacefully at night. However, its important that this is throughly verified before maligning his name.
Personally, I was NOT planning to continue with subscription, as I found that he was leaking the STOCK BUYS on TV and he was too eager to hog attention as most of his emails to subscribers was when he was appearing in which channel! That pissed me off.
His stocks picks were good BUT where I feel he slipped was he was making the subscribers BUY the same stock which he recommended years ago at a good price like Hawkins, at ridiculously higher prices time and again, and there was no more juice to be squeezed out of Hawkins and still he continued recommending. Thats where as they say THE SHIT HIT THE ROOF. And thats what confounds me! was there more to it than meets the eye??
Also, It just goes to show how many stupid, greedy investors there are in India who don’t have the ability to think for themselves and those are the ones who are now crying hoarse.
I dropped his stock advisory services when he hiked his fees to Rs 100000.
But I will be grateful to him for my hefty gains in Asian Paints, HDFC Ltd, HDFC Bank, Gruh Finance, Repco Housing Finance, IndusInd Bank and eClerx Services.
These seven stocks were bought on his recommendation and constitute more than 50% of my portfolio.
I have never subscribed to Basant’s services but invested money on the basis of whatever information was available about Basant’s picks on public domain. All I can say is that he is quite a smart stock picker. Dozen of multibagger recommendations and then just a couple of fail recommendations and the guy is attacked and ridiculed by many of his erstwhile followers.. that’s heartbreaking. But as it is written, it may be a blessing in disguise for small investors because now he will be able to devote more time to his blog and also be able to make recommendations on TV quite freely.
There’s more to it than Hawkins. That is just an excuse. The real catalyst for this is the recent crackdown on HBJ by SEBI. Basant who is not even registered is in a more precarious position on this issue. I think he feared some regulatory action and decided to pre emptively act.
he is not having sebi registration it seems.
i think suggestion from author to slash fees seems not relevant to the issue .can a person who is investor in limited number of stocks start a advisory service that too without registration ? can he recommend same 4-5 stocks to tv shows , subscribers that he himself buying continously from fees he collects? sebi rule says that yu cannot recommend stock before one month after your own buying & cannot sell your own stocks before 5 days after ur recommendation to buy ( pls correct if wrong). but service of BM violates this as he recommend to old as well as new subscriber same 4-5 stocks that he himself buying & selling. being concentrated portfolio investor himself ,its clear that he will buy first for himself then he will advise to paid subscriber who has paid 1 lakh to BM.
Rules effective from 20th Sep 2015
Limitation on trading by Research Analyst:-
1. Independent research analysts, individuals employed as research analyst by
research entity or their associates shall not deal or trade in securities that the research analyst recommends or follows within thirty days before and five days after the publication of a research report.
2. Independent research analysts, individuals employed as research analysts by
research entity or their associates shall not deal or trade directly or indirectly in
securities that he reviews in a manner contrary to his given recommendation.
if kitex is next Page,
Basant is next HBJ
He should be behind the bars for causing loss, cheating investors and running an advisory violating laws of SEBI.
‘The intelligent investor’ turned in to ‘cunning marwadi businessman’
Ketan bhai please don’t bring caste in between. There is no connection between the deeds of a person and his caste.
ok boss. accepted.
so now, from “The thoughtful investor” to “Cunning kolkata crook”
who just flew away from the scene!
it is not prudent to call him cheat unless you find that he offloaded his holdings in hawkins …..some call may not do well and it does not mean that people point their finger at him …. as long as you keep making money … it’s fine …… i wish if he continue his services …. but he is too expensive …..
Over the years, Basant has recommended many stocks and, except for couple of them, all have turned out to be multi-bagger. Due to very nature of stock market investing, I think it is unreasonable to expect any one to get all recommendations correct. Besides, Basant has always insisted to always keep proper balance in portfolio so that even if one pick fails, overall impact will not be much and will be more than compensated , over a period of time, by other stocks in portfolio. This is golden advise, as is evident in case of Hawkins. So, what is the real issue? I believe mindset of Indian retail investor is culprit. Once paid, not a single recommendation should go wrong, irrespective of how much is made overall. Anyways, I feel he has done right thing by closing advisory to retail investors who do not have mental temperament for direct stock investing in the first place. However, his service will be missed by investors with big part of net worth held in direct equities and for whom paying 1 lac per annum is not a big deal as, on overall portfolio level, 1 lac is much less than average of 2% charged by various MF schemes.
1. Top 10 Stocks recommended by Basant, except Hawkins, are gems. Run any screener or see performance. If you leave the performance of last 5 months, no mutual fund has been able to match that.
2. Hawkins is not such a bad company. There are many at higher PE. In the last few months, many companies have gone down by 30%-50%.
3. The behaviour and aggression adopted by Basant in the last 6 months cannot be excused. He literally coerced followers to sell and buy stocks aggressively. The way he emotionally pressurized his followers and made them lose good amount of money in new picks cannot be easily forgotten or forgiven. Though I have no proof, but either he bought first and then forced others to buy or vice-versa.
4. His stock selection is best in the country. Right from professor, xyz, ……, no one can in India match him.
5. More than stocks, he encouraged his followers to believe in equity. I doubt if any other person in India has so vigorously recommended and helped in increasing net-worth of hundreds of people in a short term.
6. He must have read Ayn Rand’s “virtue of selfishness”. For him, this comes first. Nothing wrong with that.
7. Those who criticise him, even I do, should admit that they, including me, have in no way contributed better than him.
8. Finally, hats off to him, till 2014, he added to his money handsomely and his followers too, had best CAGR. Do not judge him by one stock or one quarter. I challenge if any one did better than him for their followers for the last 4 years. Still I do not like his behaviour of the last 5 months.
I think the reason for shutting down the service is not any of the reasons mentioned in the article but its clearly the HBJ effect. But I do agree with the suggestion that the subscription price shud have been less…50k/1lakh is an exhorbitant price
1 lakh pinches me too. Honestly. But it is more psychological. I saw many starting with a few lakhs becoming crorepati. For 1 crore, 1 % is not much. May he could have lowere fee for beginners.
Author has let his imagination run wild to produce this post. Comments from supposedly educated readers lack depth. Fact of the matter is despite the Hawkins recommendation not turning in investor’s favour the portfolio gives a staggering 40% + annualised return since inception. Is there any body in India who can beat that? The fees charged for such staggering return were miniscule if the capital deployed was meaningful. Those who understood BC philosophy have created wealth, those who didn’t are crying hoarse. To each his own. BC had a disclaimer before signing in, those who joined had accepted the norms, so no point in cribbing now. You can’t judge performance on a six month basis for investing in equities unless one is gambling.
I think indian retail investors are most ungrateful lot and also highly jealous and do not deserve a brilliant and honest person like basant – now that he is gone let all losers stew in their own sh*t – he taught us a lot and i owe lot of learnings to him – as for one stock hawkins just watch he said its his best stock for 2015 and there is still 6 months to go !
Basant lost more money from running this service because his hands were tied – he could not buy before recommending his stocks nor could he sell – he had to disclose his positions to his subscribers at all times – he lost all his privacy – all for what- a bunch of losers at least some of them who bite him behind his back – so he has done a good thing in closing this service – he could have made much more by opening a PMS service in 2011 but he wanted to help others too is it not ? this is what i think
I agree sir has lost more money than he earned by fees but it was really not about the money it was about the confidence in his ability and his Stockard confidence to make people financially independent. Why on earth anyone will take so much if risk and ask people to inve money and he always recommended stocks thinking safety first .
Frankly, Basant’s greed got to him and that became his nemesis reputation wise. He had just few consumer facing companies to recommend. When that lot became expensive, he ran out of ideas. To carry on getting subscription money, he resorted to all kinds of dirty tricks and publicity.
1. I am not complaining about the price fall in Hawkins.What surprises me is his silence on Hawkins. If he had indeed sold it when he was recommending, then its very bad. Other thing i noticed is that, of late he has become very arrogant.
2. I must tell that my net worth has increased several folds. And owe it to him. (not so much for his bc recommendation. i wasn’t blindly buying his recommendations. but for the knowledge gained from his answers and for the original equitydesk forum.). he is easily the best out there. look at some other so called experts like sudarshan sukhani, deepak shenoy etc coming on tv and recommending some junk stocks. about page, this guy was saying the pricing power is low to macro factors 🙂 what a joke.
This blog post and comments are in bad taste. We do not know the facts. We are not competent to judge. Why pronounce someone guilty before proven by law? And in public domain? Shame on us.
There are a few disgruntled folks but those that scream the loudest, perhaps due to FOMO (fear of missing out) on overall PF returns !?
A good life principle is to take 100% responsibility for whatever happens to you! This is as applicable during arguments with your wife, your career failures or perhaps in your choosing a particular investment service. Perhaps you should learn from this experience that you need to put in those personal development hours to become competent in investing. Choose to be a positive person, looking ahead.
God Bless.
Absolute one should be responsible for his success and failure …. After all sir is not god and he is up agst market which is as everyone should know is a different beast……
the question is not of portfolio gains of basant top 10 stocks, the question
1) did he sell own hawkins just after painting a rosy picture ?
2) was he having sebi registration ?
answer in simple yes or no or dont know.
Ketanji,
Did you care about SEBI registration when you joined the service? Why cry foul now? Take 100% responsibility for your actions! Take responsibility.
What facts do you have to establish the sale? What do you know about rules governing such sales? How do the rules apply to BC? The short answer is you do not know. So why judge in a public forum prematurely?
You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it
reflects something you love or hate about yourself.
God Bless.
Caring about SEBI Registration ?
We have to, for poor investors.
I am not a BC subscriber any more.
Basant has not denied his hawkins sell.
he has not accepted it either, he has simply RAN AWAY from the scene.
Hiding in a castle and sending the troop of his followers to fight online!
Basant is hiding now because of impending SEBI Action on him, nothing else.
Dear ketan bhai
You seem to be having an agenda spewing venom on BM. You don’t care a hoot about SEBI registration.Probably story of sour grapes
+1 to your comments Ajay ji.
Everyone must take responsibility of their own actions. I have personal experience of using another PMS who promised moon, but whose performance is only in-line with the broader market. Since I didn’t like the PMS model, I exited. I did not resort to writing blogs accusing the PMS of cheating me (though I do feel my ex-RM from hdfc mis-sold the scheme to me giving only partial information – for obvious reasons). Basant’s stocks have done well irrespective of the market situation. And the knowledge gained from interactions with him is immeasurable.
Dear Sir,
here peoples are questioning the intention of the great personality like Basant . No one can stop him from buying selling as per his wish, neither he is bound to inform anyone.
But if he is advising followers/subscribers to buy while he is selling can put a question mark on his credibility .
If he is really genuine, he should have clarified his buy/sell position and gave clear message to his followers/subscribers .
Regards
Hawkins – no top and bottom line growth from 2010 to 2015 and still basant pumped this on magazine , tv and to paid customers as his number one stock !
Did brahma vishu used to hypnotise him in agm? so that after every poor quarter of hawkins , Basant used to be ready with excuses !
In 5 years, Hawkins up 103%, Nifty 58%. . BSE Small cap – 14.82%. Performance is judged against benchmark. BSE Small cap – 14.82%. If I was a MF manager, just having Hawkins I would have a successful.
Oye Janata. If one is blind, he can be taught to read through Braille. If one is pretending to be blind, even God cannot help him. I am not happy with BM but you are such a lowly slug that I cannot but be forced to reply. Idiot. Put your name and address and phone let me deal with you.height of idiocy.
Top and bottom line growth i said and you are replying about stock price!
5 साल से आखोपे पट्टी बाँध कर hawkins के रिज़ल्ट्स पढ़ने वाले thought full investor , जनता माफ नही करेगी .
बिना लाइसेन्स के अड्वाइसरी चलानेवाले , SEBI माफ नही करेगी
Who are you?
And why the hell Arjun trying to gain popularity by allowing such comments?
Arjun – many serious investors who do come here, will have to think. Blog gets value by quality and not by controversy like TV news channels.
Arjun,
Poor quality of reporting.
Also poor moderation.
You are allowing pseudonyms to post here without any substance. A blog gets value by quality news and not by controversy like TV news channels.
As someone pointed out here, as a long term, Hawkins did better than BSE Small Cap and NIFTY in the last 5 years. I am sure it will do better again in the next 5 years compared to indices.
Why dont you put that BC core PF has performed better than any other MF/advisor in India? Even since 2014.
About selling by Basant, there are only rumours. And how does any subscriber get impacted? Even the most foolish subscriber has made more money than MFs just in last one/two/three/four years.
Those who are cribbing are having hidden agenda. If they subscribed then it was for not even 1 year.
But worst is that you are allowing any kind of comments being published here. Where is moderation?
Why dont you compare best of MFs and BC Core and put up an article? You have my email. I have been a BC subscriber since Nov 2011 and have financially independent in 4 years through learnings from BC. Doing better than many so called advisers. These people, instead of cribbing an anons, can learn from his recommendations, his book and make hell of money and be happy. But in India, once a dog sits on a nail, gets pained, gets habituated, then it will go and sit on the nail again and get pain.
Guys, wake up. Develop habits to be happy and financially free. Enjoy life. Have a crib-free, richer life style. Dont thorw shit, it will dirty your mind and hand. Look at flowers and fruits that you can get in this life. For life is short.
Regards
Regards.
I 100% agree with Anil ji. What kind of a discussion is going on here? People abusing and just talking any nonsense without any substance. Please improve moderation.
And yes, Hawkins has been an outperformer over the past few years. And those people who followed BM ”chose” to follow him and they ”chose” to subscribe to his services and they ”chose” to buy the stock. If it did’nt perform well what’s the big deal? Its an inherent risk of the stock market.
Please improve moderation and do not allow such mischevious elements to ruin the glory of this forum.
you write –
“I 100% agree with Anil ji. What kind of a discussion is going on here?”
answer : It an eye opener kind of discussion
you write –
“those people who followed BM ”chose” to follow him and they ”chose” to subscribe to his services and they ”chose” to buy the stock”
answer – you also choose to see Hawkins stock price fall from 4650 Rs to 2346 rs (current rate) that too after paying 1 Lakh Rs for this so called Number 1 stock pick!
you write –
“Please improve moderation and do not allow such mischevious elements”
answer – truth is always bitter and mischievous, i am not abusing any one, just putting the things forward”
Ketan ji,
I am wondering if you only bought Hawkins as advised by Basant…Did you also buy his other picks? And how long did you hold those? Did you follow his advice of portfolio balance also? IMHO, you will stop complaining if you answer these questions honestly. You do not need to put your comments here, just an introspection will help.
Best,
+1
Please stop this non sense. I have followed Basant Sir’s advice since 2008 through TED & BC and I have achieved 56% CAGR for my portfolio. I bought Page at 600, Hawkins at 700, Titan at 35 and so on. It is very clear that many of you are envious of the performance of his followers. Moreover, you have hurt us for no fault of ours. Shame on all those who are writing hate comments here on a honest person.
quote – “Please stop this non sense”
answer – already stopped by Basant ! 😉
Relax guys, dont fight over the issue.
have a look here
Hawkins earning per share
FY11 – 60.07
FY12 – 56.88
FY13 – 64.49
FY14 – 72.39
FY15 – 60.73
Please Dear Basant show me the Growth which is only visible to u and not me!
– Harshad Deshpande , Maharashtra
(Disc – Not holding hawkins since last 2 years)
(note – Dont answer with stock price appreciation of Hawkins, here we are talking about FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE of this company – Hope you understand)
If the dividend was more than your annual expenses? point to ponder. Moreover, that data is good in hindsight, but who said investing is of past it is of the future and the expectation of what the business could do. Considering the present environment, its competition has also not done any better. With a revival in economy it may do better else, if BM sold then the buyers would do some thumbsucking.
Keeping the contentious issues aside, I can say one thing for sure – genius is always tormented in this world. Steve Jobs was thrown out from the same company he built. And it took Steve Jobs again to make it the world’s top company. Basant has also been forced to leave TED and now BC but rest assured, he is going to do even better wherever he goes.
As for the other services mentioned in comments above, they recommend penny stocks where you cannot invest 120% of your wealth. That’s the difference in quality between Basant and others.
A happy Basant subscriber.
Steve jobs! was he running paid stock advisory service ?
unrelated post!
quote ” Basant forced to leave TED and BC”
– Joke of the day !
The biggest proof of Basant’s ability is that every single one of his long-term subscribers is with him. New subscribers need to understand that stock markets are not like FD. You cannot avoid steep corrections from time to time. And those people who are not subscribers have no business saying anything.
Hi Arjun,
this is one of the most mature post by you I have ever seen .
I wish Basant will read this post to understand the peoples sentiments .
Thanks,
Its sad to see BM being talked about this way. As a novice, I learned a lot from the discussions on TED though I did not join his paid service. When the paid service was started, a lot of the members just moved on to valuepickr and that forum is still going great guns. Hope BM clarifies his position and recovers from this mess.
my only disconnect with bm was that he was so so self centred – with a v high ego that was v uncomfortable with the least amt of dissidence or counter view = yes i agree he was not 100% transparant on hawkins – but dont say that he is a cheat or crook he is not – as a person he might have many deficiencies but all of us have also – look at his investing track record in total and see how many persons he helped to become millionaires – perhaps in that aspect he would rank no 1 in india
His endless self promotion was nauseating. When one berates others as much as Basant used to berate and ridicule others, it is only apt that one is ready to take his share of criticism. If you are not registered but charging enormous fees for a service you have to have a basic level of disclosure. If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.
@Socho, best answer ever on this subject.
My reply to a few points raised here:
1) If he recommended Hawkins at a high price, he also recommended many to buy Page at 7 K and even at 10K…which also was an exorbitant price….look at where Page is trading now
2) In both Page and Hawkins he himself bought at this high price.. Hawkins at 4k+ and page above 10k, he always risks his own money on his recommendation
3) All other stocks in his top ten have been atleast 3-4 baggers… even Hawkins is up 50% from his initial recommendation price… GRUH which is referred as sluggish here is up 5 times from his recommended price
4) Tell me a single stock picker who is correct all the time, here 9/10 have been multi baggers
5) Now coming to the point raised about fees, isn’t is 1 lac a fees a credibility in itself… bakki logon ko koi 10k nahi deta… doesn’t it shows the kind of clients he has developed over time?
Most of these comments are by new joiners who wanted quick bucks for their money and as we all know in the short term, the stock market behaves like a voting machine so is this blog and the comments here.
His stocks gave returns , that’s good, this is what is expected when one pays 1 Lakh / year !
But the Questions are –
1) “whether he sold his own hawkins after advising it as a buy for his subscribers” ? why he has kept silence on his own hawkins ? whats cooking ?
2) why Hawkins was his Number 1 pick despite no Growth in earning per share for 5 years?
Let us say there is a mutual fund service which runs multiple mutual funds in small, mid, large cap etc. If a fund manager buys a share in one of the MF but sells it in another, is that a crime? Every person has different risk profile and Hawkins may be suited for his subscribers but not him. As a subscriber, do you care for overall returns or individual stocks?
Also, in case of some investment products, people balk at the fact that the advisor is not putting his own money – only collecting fees – whatever may be the investment returns. Here the advisor is buying and selling along with you and that’s a problem too? How can you make everyone happy all the time?
Every one knows Hawkins is a stock with low liquidity.
Before exiting his big quantity Basant ensured that there will be buyers on the other end. That was the (?) motive for pumping the stock on many platforms like tv, magazine, paid subscribers.
If you know so much then please tell me at what price Basant exited and what is the price now? Also please tell us how many crores he gained and what is that gain compared to his networth. Then we will decide if someone with that kind of networth will risk his reputation for such a sum. Please answer and don’t run away now.
Why Basant is cutting the goose laying golden eggs ?
1 ) Fear of SEBI action against him
2 ) He doesnt want to open up on his own hawkins shares
In General It is so easy to argue or point that one thing which went wrong endlessly – that is a job of losers or jealous individuals who were just waiting for years for something to go wrong & keep shouting foul (Like our news anchors) and it is such individuals who scare people from stock markets by only pushing negativity down common man’s throat.
On Hawkins – It is still a much better company than many other recommended stocks by various MF or advisory services. To me strength & predictability of stock is more important to bet a good amount of money, rather than short term movements – I can bet my entire networth on BC recommendations without worrying about it – that is the quality which I doubt anyone can boast of. To top it, he not only recommends, but he teaches people on how to look at different scenario of equity markets by staying connected with them on daily basis, hence am sure after BC closes down his teachings will help majority of his subscribers to think on their own instead of falling into the jaws of MFs and other so called advisors.
Dear all
When things are good u follow and when things turn sour you disown.Not fair.Give some time for the issue to get mature.1000 times larger scams are still unearthed.why no such cribbing there.recent being NSEL.I dont know Basant personally but there must be some genius in him that he is so sought after and now for one event (even if its true..assuming) you cant write him off You cant take away his intelligence
Justifying a small fraud by showing us a bigger fraud is a silly thing to do!
Small or big , money is money and it doesn’t grow on trees!
Are subscribers getting a refund?
If you are a subscriber you would know it, if you’re not, how does it matter to you?
Enough of BB (Basant Bashing) on the occasion of shutting down of BC (Basant corner)
Invest your money wisely and don’t listen to crooks in the markets.
Its all your hard earn money.
– RIP Basant corner –
Bas ho gaya? Running away from the discussion when faced with hard facts? And you were maligning Basant? I will not let you run away. Answer my Q:
“If you know so much then please tell me at what price Basant exited and what is the price now? Also please tell us how many crores he gained and what is that gain compared to his networth. Then we will decide if someone with that kind of networth will risk his reputation for such a sum. Please answer and don’t run away now.”
I agree with Pawan. Mr.K – you owe an answer.
He will not answer now. He has nothing to say. He was here just for some random fun which he had. Muje samaj nahi aata aise logo ko itna sara time kaha se milta hai. Subah se laga hua hai BM murdabad BM murdabad karne me
i am not running.
The one who is running is already running after shutting down the shop.
if u question in Ask basant segment – Basant come on and clarify that when did u sell your own hawkins?
basants answer – i am closing down the service.
why he asked to buy hawkins at 4400 Rs and later sold his own stocks.
the best person to clarify is Basant himself. if he runs away, u know the answer.
So you are a one trick pony with an agenda for Hawkins. Did you put all your net worth in this one stock? Did BC advise you to buy only one stock?
i dont hold hawkins.
neither did i suffer any loss. i am trying to un earth the truth for my fellow small investors.
Ketan ,Looks like you are feeling very happy with BC closing. Do you have any MF distributorship or stock advisory service ya phir… begaani shaadi mein abdula deewna ?
hahahaha. Looks like he has some personal problem with BM. Aaj mauka mila hai bhadaas nilkalne ka.
I agree. He (Mr K) is writing so many responses here to save the small investor – What a joke! It is obvious he has had some personal issue which he is trying to sort out through this forum.
Yes, i agree with Pawan.
Ketan – don’t RUN away or change the topic but ANSWER the question posed by Pawan above – it will show everyone your colours.
Basant come on, come out in open, dont block people on facebook and twitter. it shows your true color.
people need answers
The way you are maligning and degrading BM since morning shows your true colours also.
What is your facebook page and twitter handle, Ketan? Let me get connected. Pl publish your mobile as well and address details of those small investors you are trying to protect.
after he sold he just refused to share anything on hawkins – it was like an abandoned baby and those subscribers who owned hawkins based on his recommendation felt very wronged since he just refused to share anything at all on the company this was bad –
I don’t knw y you say he has refused to share anything. He shared all his rational on the stock in his write-ups & responded to all the queries around it.
Kahani khatam paisa hajam
Basant charging Rs one lakh which is exorbitant. I think his followers atleast deserve an explanation from him. But when it was time to answer questions he just runs away. Not expected from such a reputed man.
I think we need to maintain dignity and not troll BM like this and also bring caste into picture. I have been with him for over 2 years and 3 out of my 4 stocks are multi-baggers. His suggested portfolio has outperformed the market by a big margin over 2 years and much better since 2011.
I think the author is making too many guesswork and using hearsay to ‘sensationalise’ the article. It sounded like a typical TOI article with masala and drama and very little investigative journalism. Noone in the stock market can 100% guarantee that the recommended stock will go up and is ludicrous to suggest that he should have lowered his fees if his stocks did not perform for 6 months. For ‘value investing’, that timeframe is peanuts and we need to assess his performance over atleast 2-5 years. I think everyone makes money with dubious stocks on the way up, but lose 99% of that money on the way down and is also not correct to compare the two.
Awesome guys, this post has more than 80 comments that suffiece to proof Basant popularity. He is a gem and tried to convince us that with investing in stock we can save our thousands hours of working life and we are trying to prove him that he is wrong. Tell me the name of one analyst which has not failed one some of his stock conviction, after all this is stock market and its not free of risk.
Basant is a very popular and great analyst there is no doubt about it. He is better than most analysts and has generated a lot of wealth for his followers. But it seems his followers are upset about the way he behaved in the last few days
Basant is spending a lot of time answering in comments here using pseudo names. Haha
Nickname is fine but one’s head should be stable.
and i assume you are Honey Singh!! oh sorry, sherlock Holmes/Byomkesh Bakshi since you can read behind the psuedo names.
http://imgur.com/1Sz66TS
So you are either a subscriber or know one of his subscribers. I simply do not understand the cause of your hatred, unless it is a revenge for something personal between you and Basant.
Most comments are not by the subscribers of theequitydesk, but by jealous equity advisors jinko Rs 100 nahi milte apni advise ke…. pehle to try to see what the value of your opinion is, then try to question someone who’s paid 1 lac for his.
All these arguments against Basant are laughable. As a subscriber, I have made enough money from all other picks to afford Hawkins even going to zero and my CAGR will still remain quite high. I have no problem in paying 1 lac as considering 2% average charges of MF schemes, I am paying peanuts compared to what I would be paying to MFs and still get better performance than MF. Those after Basant here do not have their portfolio allocated as per Basant’s advise. They are here just to pull down a great investor and doing great dis-service to fellow investors. Know that closing down BC is actually a great relief to Basant and he will be very happy following his passion. His fee of 1 lac was cheap for many investors with large investment corpus. He could have made much more money than his subscription revenue by running PMS for HNIs and big foreign endowment funds, similar to many of his league are doing. Real losers in this episodes are retail investors who will not get advise of such a quality now. These fools commenting against him have no interest in serious investing and just commenting here for the fun, damaging interests of fellow investors. If this is not the case, I challenge these people commenting against Basant to declare value of their portfolio. I bet none of them have serious money, of 8 digit variety, invested in stock market, unlike Basant and lot of his subscribers. These guys probably have only few lacs invested and can not digest how some others can happily afford to pay 1 lac and make good money. So, guys, wake up and realize the damage you have done to aspirations of lot of fellow retail investors.
okay, since he has given so much returns, is it okay to recommend a stock and sell after racking up the price. and if he has not done this, what is the fear for him to categorically deny this? You can not hide behind returns to justify a wrong act. If there is no wrong act, why not he clarify to put matter to an end?
Arjun had a lot of page views and ketan had his one day fame but, overall you’ve kept the small investor away from the stock market reducing their ability to achieve inflation beating returns, to create wealth, to achieve their dreams, to achieve financial independence. If that was the objective, you’ve achieved it, if not you would do the right thing if you have a conscience and feel the guilt.
Well, 100 + COMMENTS and still counting! Now, lets step back and look at this objectively and what lessons can we learn from this episode. Its obvious that there are lovers and haters of BM and there will be never ending ping pong matches between them.
WHAT’S THE ONE KEY THING BM SHOULD HAVE DONE, WHICH HE DID NOT?
They key issue here looks like his subscribers felt while he recommended HAWKINS at that high price , he himself had sold off his own HAWKINS shares.
This is a typical PR disaster like NESTLE, albeit of a smaller kind. And once such issues get into public domain, the victim should immediately communicate clearly without beating around the bush. All BM had to do was categorically say that he has NOT sold his hawkins shares and it is open for investigation. This is what the subscribers wanted to hear I feel. If BM was still holding to his shares, than obviously the subscribers have no right to crib. And even if BM did sell is own shares, he should have given a rationale for this. Its up to the subscribers whether to believe his story.
But that message was not clearly communicated. He could have avoided all this backlash and even if he wanted to discontinue his services, done it more gracefully.
I request you to read the disclaimer on BC website. It is self-explanatory.
Ketan,
You have single point agenda to blame BM. Your are just blaming without any facts.Bfacts. IF BM , doesn’t respond your questions, that doesn’t mean that your information are correct.
On hawkins issue, he avoided stampede in exit path as he knows what will happen with blanket sell.
Since jan 2015, he told many subscriber to exit if anybody is not comfortable to hold.
His selling ar peak is baseless allegations done by cheap craps and crooks. He never and ever does.
He indicated his selling in different in different manner to his subscribers.
Now he is closing down tge service. Subscribers are losing not him.
Subscribers are refusing to take money for refund. That is the respect he enjoys.
Earlier I have good opinion on this blog,but not now when I saw someone is recommending other services who are proven to be cheat and you are as moderator.
Yes, i Have single agenda to write about the closure of BC because this post of Arjun deals with this and not on my other moto of how to prevent world war 3 !
Basant avoided stampede in exit path! Whoa! yes, he made sure there will be buyers in the form of blind followers, that’s why he pumped the stock on tv, outlook business magazine, subscribers.
Now why the Basant is closing down the service which is close to his heart and pocket and hearts of subscribers? WHY?
He wants to remain unanswerable! he knew that this will not continue for long as SEBI is awake now (recent HBJ fiasco)
Now one can boast that how basant helped me to earn lakhs, crores and blah blah but one cant ignore the fact that Basant is closing down the service due to reasons which are not good.
you can also guess the reasons of the closure of BC , come on
Hi All,
Is not winning and loosing a part and parcel of investing. One of my friends strongly suggested Jai Corp 3 years ago, I put in 100000 which was 50% of my portfolio size, my friend is sub broker with MO, as part of his research he also visited Jai Corp’s property, today it trades at 60% of my purchase price.
After reading BM’s book I am confident that I can place bigger bets and I did, I have grown my portfolio from INR. 2 lacs to INR. 18 lacs in one year. All my investments is in BM’s stocks and apart from Hawking I am in green, even Hawkins does not scare me because it meets all the requirements of a good stock.
BM gave me the courage to dream big and take solid positions, most of us have a dream but are scared to invest.
I think everyone who is negative about BM are over reacting.
Regards,
VJ
2 lakhs to 18 lakhs in 1 year ??
I think you have grown your PF by infusing fresh capital , otherwise which ‘BM top 10’ stocks grew by 9 times in one year!
I thnk Basant now will have more “PAID DEFENDERS” rather than Paid subscribers.. this happens whn thr is some wrong doing, and u cannot defend urself..so u recruit paid defenders who will protect u…
You are a pathetic person. Work on selling your advisory better. Neither you are getting subscribers nor ideas.
Ok fine.. let me put it this way as the start and end of a wonderful journey
The Thoughtful Investor… The Fraud Advisor…. The Lonely Subscribers… And the Frustrated and Arrogant Defenders! That sums up your and your Basant’s life…
Bhai,
Tum apni life sudhaar lo. Kisi ko gaali dete ho to humein bura lagta. Hamari life pahle bhi achchi ho rahi thi. Ab bhi hogi.
(Brother Take care of your life. Going nowhere. If you insult someone unnecessarily, I feel bad. My life was better before joining BC, and God willing, does not depend on Basant to be better).
Yes Umang you are right. Now Basant will have a lot of Paid Defenders to defend him. By the way how much have you been paid by Basant’s competitors to malign and defame him?
Haa. To defame basant i dont need any money.. i can do it in free.. not like u guys.. paid agents and defenders.. and yes u r the same basant who now has no work but to defend himself.. poor urself and ur comments… i pity u defenders…
Paid by Basant? You cant even imagine net worth of some of the subscribers.Through honest means.
Won’t you like to defend your teacher ? BM always said that you should not take a position on the basis of borrowed conviction, guys who think they have lost money invested through borrowed conviction and that’s the reason for the bitterness.
Not whn my teacher turns into a fraudster…
I think Umang is the same Ketan who was passing mindless comments yesterday.
Pinku is the same BASANT who comes and barks on tv to promote himself.. who markets his nonsense book… who ran away fleaving subscribers lonely.. who is fraud and Arrogant..
This is not just about Hawkins guys. Subscribers are paying 1lac for his service and BM is openly in public disclosing his latest picks. In that sense the subscribers are fools to pay such a price to BM when names of BM’s latest picks are freely available in public media. And do not say that people do not subscribe to get only his latest picks. In the recent days the messages subscribers receive by BM are about his upcoming interviews on tv channels.
Apart from this when subscriber ask him why he disclosed his latest pick (Granules in this case) in public; his arrogant response was if you are not happy with the service then do not renew it next year. His arrogance lately made him face this kind of issues.
He does not have courage to come in public and defend himself regarding Hawkins issue. Instead he asked/begged/requested his followers and subscribers to come front and defend in his favor.
Is he a coward that he can not defend himself and depend on others? He definitely might have sold his holdings in Hawkins and might be afraid of disclosing it in public or private due to fear of SEBI rules as this is something what sebi does not allow.
The issue is not just Hawkins, apart from Hawkins it is also his lately arrogant replies to the subscribers, keeping mum on related/concerned issues, hurriedly closing BC, disclosing picks in public thus cheating subscriber yet again who are paying hefty amount for their subscription.
Yes I agree with this point. This is one thing which he used to do wrong. He used to openly share his picks in public. So the members who paid him lakh rupees fees did not have any exclusivity
This happens when success gets into one’s head ans u just see money and money… u become arrogant, block ppl on social media who question u , u share updates of ppl who praise u. Then whn u cant handle the firing u appoint paid agents to defend.. who get frustrate and defend u with no success… whn u r in advisory u got to leave ur ego away and u have to listen to peoples commentd.. good or bad… if not then u r a dirty , unprofessional individual… who just take things for granted and run away fron the problems..
now the cat is out of the box almost.
lets wish best of luck to Basant for his any new venture, lets hope it will be more transparent.
and hey, i like to say that i am not Umang mehta.
i am not ketan either. after all whats in the name.
keep investing..
Yes sir I had invested more because I was more confident
Have to say that some of the comments against BM are really amusing
I am sure there are some advisors here who are used to hearing a lot of crap from your customers when things don’t work out as expected but u have to be wiser when it is your turn to respond
As a paid subscriber of BC,wanted to provide a balanced opinion of my experience as a subscriber
Pros:As many of the opinions expressed,BC provided subscribers the confidence to invest in stocks with a large portion of their networth.this is because it has a concentrated portfolio and does not introduce a new name every month like most other services.This helps build up some knowledge and confidence on the few stocks which are in the recommended portfolio.Also all recommendations are high capital efficient and low debt companies so unlikely to lose money over a period of time (including Hawkins where the recommended price was much lower than the CMP though it was a bet which did not turn out well)
In my opinion,he is a good stock picker and helps one build confidence in investing
Cons:
Arrogance which is evident in the responses and the ability to respect probing questions or different views.Very dismissive of such questions with a constant comment that BC subscription income is a small part of his total income.As any one providing services of any kind,a basic requirement is respecting your customers and the constant suggestion that I don’t care about this income or service suggest a take it or leave it mindset.
Also the over the last few months the quality of answers were poor .
On Hawkins ,the way he has handled the situation does not help since as a subscriber who invested in the stock on his recommendation ,the information that he has sold his position was shared over an extended period of time and in a indirect manner.this raises questions on whether he acted in his self interest first ignoring the interest of his paying subscribers.
I am also a subscriber – I agree to your comment “On Hawkins ,the way he has handled the situation does not help since as a subscriber who invested in the stock on his recommendation ,the information that he has sold his position was shared over an extended period of time and in a indirect manner.this raises questions on whether he acted in his self interest first ignoring the interest of his paying subscribers ” – it would have been better if he had NOT sold and held it for gains for another year or so – if he had told us that he is going to sell then all of us would have sold that wont have helped him or us – so he must not have sold i think so even though he sold at very lower rates but still why sell a stock on which you have been so bullish till a few days back ? I think as atonment he must now buy hawkins and also speak to hawkins mgmt and take up price to 4600
Let me put things in prospective…
Whatever Money you might have made with BM’s advice, but what he has done with Hawkins (SOLD his stake & advising his PAID subscribers to BUY) is the Crime & it doen’t matter how much good things you have done before committing a CRIME..Rajat Gupta ent to Jail in US for insider trading & many MFs get warnings for Frontrunning, so what he did is a Crime & thats the precise reason he closed his service to evade any punishment from SEBI, as giving a PAID advice without SEBI license is also Crime…its like if you are of Driving AGE & doesn’t have driving license, then irrespective of your age you are liable to be caught driving WO license, so HE DID the same thing & NOW he is running Away from peoples in general & with SEBI in particular… God Save him now for his CRIME 🙁
i am still confused that how concentrated portfolio paid service work ?i raised this question earlier too, can someone put light on this — though its important to have registration to give paid stock advisory, if we put this issue aside for time being. how BM and its subscriber both manages to have concentrated stocks service. its clear that BM is also investor & has 4-5 stock portfolio , its easy to recommend 4-5 stocks repeatedly to old & new subscriber , but when it comes to exit from one stock . how BM service work ? will BM exit first to protect his own large sum of money ? if yes why someone is paying him one lakh? or will he bear loss himself & make his one lakh paid subscribers exit first? i think if someone who manages his money (BM) so well why he will bear loss, keeping in mind loss from a stock in 4-5 stock portfolio is huge
Since this blog is about closure of Basant Corner, could someone provide an advice on how should the erstwhile BC members work going forward so as to not loose their money invested in BC stocks? Whatever we say here, there is no doubt that most of the stocks suggested by Basant Sir are high quality and the question is how should we, those who have invested heavily on these stocks, work going forward so as to not loose this money when Basant sir’s guidance is no longer available
I know the typical answer would be to continuously work on following up your stocks or suggestions about some new advisory service etc etc.
But I am looking for some cooperation between the erstwhile members in terms of using collective wisdom to protect our portfolios
Ok. I have used many theories and screeners on BC stocks. Irrespective of what Basant might have done or not done, all such stocks are amongst best 25 or 30 stocks in India . Many of these, except page, have corrected heavily. If I had fresh money I would have bought these as much as I can. Gruh, Repco, Pi, Granules are good profitable, of high quality, having fantastic potential & Past performance. These 4 companies are available at heavy discounts. Call is yours. I have some exposure in these stocks so my views may be biased. Do not get influenced. Verify data by yourself.
Agree with you Jinesh.
And Ketan/Umang/Rahul/yoyo – You can chat with Basant on http://www.theequitydesk.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=4719&PN=1
all old bc subscribers must come on moneycontrol message board no one is there in hawkins pl come share anything you know regularly