Posts in category All News
YatraGenie raises funds in Series-A round (12-09-2015)
NGL Fine Chem-Re Rating Possible? (12-09-2015)
Hello All,
I attended the AGM of NGL Fine y'day and here are my key takeaways,
- The co. is not looking to add products aggressively,will commercialise two products its been working on for almost a year,one each in Human API and Vet API.
- End-use of Vet APIs is targeted towards Cattle.
- The co. is focused on products that've a small market size,it doesn't want to focus on areas where biggies would enter. It's happy to have 15-20-25% type market share in products with market size of 15-20-25 or roughly 50 crs. One of its products contributed 20-22.5 cr sales out of total sales in fy15 and the rest was from other 10-12 products. It has maximum 6-7 competitors in each product category and the market size along with competitive structure has remained static.
- New products are also selected on the basis of small size that would discourage biggies to enter and that belong to chemical family of existing products,not on the basis of opportunity size or scope for higher margins.
- The co. faces competition from China in Animal API space apart from Sequent (Alivira) and Omkar (Lasa) in India and a couple of other small players. The co. is unfazed about yuan devaluation.
- Pricing for some products is done on contractual basis and some products are priced as per prevailing prices in the market. Margins would be in the range of 13%-18%,the range indicating worst and best times.
- Top 10 customers contribute around 40% of the revenues,Top 5 contribute around 25%. All sales of co.'s products are to non-regulated markets directly or may be routed through a distributor based in another country. LatAm,Africa,SEA and neighbouring Indian countries are main end-user markets,the co. exports to 35 odd countries in total. Co. sells to 4/10 top Animal Health formulations cos. Majority of sales done in India are for Human APIs.
- The co. plans to do a CAPEX of 20 crs. in 1-2 years to install an R&D facility and expand capacity by 40%. Current R&D facility has 10 employees,2 PhDs,needs new facility to do more work.
- Management doesn't like to think in terms of long-term vision or goals,thinks in terms of 1-2-3 year time-frame. It expects to grow at around 15-18% types rate at best. The co. became big in last 10 years due to expansion in market size of its products which were very tiny at that point in time. Further,growth will not come from expansion in market size of existing products significantly but by addition of new products,which the co. plans to do slow and steady.
Overall,I found the Management quite conservative,looking to maintain existing position more than growing.
P.S. - The management also intends to develop a new product for paints industry,its entered into a tripartite agreement with two British cos,the product is just a gamble on some regulatory change envisaged in near future,will be a new line of business if things work and will put up separate capacity for the same but at the moment its just a wild bet. Missed knowing if the product is being developed for international or local market.
Disc. - No investments in the co.
Prof. Sanjay Bakshi’s Lecture link (12-09-2015)
I have learnt a helluva lot from Prof Bakshi, and for free
I viewed through this talk and there is something striking about this, not only from an investment learning perspective but also on how various propositions are made. It often occurs to me that there are many ways one gets convinced about various propositions or arguments.
There are of course deductive arguments which if sound and valid are true beyond doubt. The field of mathematics works only on deductive arguments with some starting axioms.
Then there are inductive arguments where the conclusion does not always follow from the premises but is by and large true. Inductive arguments are risky because while they do a job of making a lot of sense, acting on inductive validated arguments can fail at times, under certain circumstances and in fact fail even randomly. For instance when a grocer runs a firesale of yesterday's oranges, you pick an orange or two from the heap and then decide whether it is worth buying at the price or not. If you decide either to buy or to discard the heap your conclusion may or may not be true. And you know that.
Most of life including investing (even including physical sciences) is driven by inductive based judgements, if you will. The art therefore is to know which to believe and which to discard. For instance if I always get-up before sun rise I can claim the sun rises only because I get up. You know it is absurd but then unless you can set-up an experiment to falsify it you will have to accept what I say because you cannot disprove it. (BTW charlatans work that way)
So can we learn the art, so we may know what to believe and what not to? The answer is an 'inductive' yes Broadly the inductive arguments can be strong or weak; based on valid evidence, generalization, application, from analogy, an inference to the best explanation and so forth. There are also fallacies or common flaws that weaken an inductive argument. Some of them include what are called ad-hominem arguments - attack the person instead of the argument, and what is relevant here - which is "appeals to authority" . An 'appeals to authority' argument makes the case that a so-and-so has said it, so the argument must be valid.
Now, coming to the point, what I found striking about the talk was that nearly all the propositions were based on 'appeals to authority'. Either Charlie or Buffett or an author or Ben G etc have said it so it must be valid.
Warm regards,
Sources on arguments:
- Coursera.org course on: Think again: How to reason and argue.
- Probability and inductive logic by Ian Hacking
Wall Street climbs, SP 500 posts best week since July (12-09-2015)
![Wall Street climbs, SP 500 posts best week since July Wall Street climbs, SP 500 posts best week since July](http://www.moneycontrol.com/news_image_files/2014/w/WALL_ST_200.jpg)
Vivek Gautam Portfolio (12-09-2015)
Great going @Vivek_6954.
Thanks for sharing your PF details.
Your PF has large number of stocks and is well diversified. Core stocks seems like good long term compounders. I think last few yrs has been really good for your PF. Its a good strategy to diversify for wealth preservation and grow steadily with limited down side as PF size grows.
I have a very concentrated PF. I am very much interested in your PF returns, YTD, Jan to Sept, this is just for academic purpose, if you can share , also 1 yr return, as I wish to evaluate conc vs diversified PF strategy both in good and bad times of market.
I think you can reduce no of stocks going forward, Gareware seems to be a great pick, but you can reduce TCS and Mayur, kaveri.
Let’s revive Air India’s lost glory: CMD to employees (12-09-2015)
Weekly review: Sensex gains 408.31 points on value buying (12-09-2015)
![Sensex and Nifty](http://images.financialexpress.com/2015/07/sensex-l-reuters1.jpg)
BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty snapped four week losing streak as PM Narendra Modi’s meeting with the India Inc, short coverings, value buying amid key decisions taken by the Cabinet supported market sentiments for the week ended September 11. (Reuters)
The BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty snapped four week losing streak as PM Narendra Modi’s meeting with the India Inc, short coverings, value buying amid key decisions taken by the Cabinet supported market sentiments for the week ended September 11. During Sept 4 and Sept 11, Sensex gained 408.31 points, or 1.62 per cent, at 25,610.21 while Nifty closed the week 134.25 points, or 1.75 per cent, higher at 7,789.30.
Barring the Consumer Durables index (down 1.31 per cent), BSE FMCG index (down 1.30 per cent) and BSE Healthcare index (down 1.26 per cent), all other sectoral indices on the Bombay Stock Exchange ended in green. The BSE Auto index surged the most — 3.91 per cent at 17,647.98, followed by BSE Realty index (up 3.75 per cent at 1,288.86), BSE Capital Goods index (up 3.36 per cent at 1,5951.38) and BSE Power index (up 3.23 per cent at 1,785.80).
Vinita Mahnot, equity research analyst, Hem Securities, said, “Prime Minister meeting with industrialists, low level buying and short covering helped markets to jump over 1.5 per cent during the week.”
Dipen Shah, head of private client group research, Kotak Securities, said, “Markets ended the week with gains of around 2 per cent on benchmark indices. The gains came on the back of stability in global markets, especially China. The Chinese Premier calmed sentiments during the week, which helped stabilise markets. The postponement of GST was taken in the stride.”
According to National Security Depository Ltd (NDSL) data, foreign institutional investors remained net sellers in the equity markets last week as they sold shares worth Rs 3,010.65 crore during the period.
In the BSE 100 index, Power Grid Corporation of India, IDFC, Crompton Greaves, Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services, ICICI Bank, Mahindra & Mahindra, Hindalco, Tata Power and State Bank of India were some the companies which touched their new 52-week low during the week.
During the week gone by, Director General Safeguards (DGS) recommended 20 per cent safeguard duty on steel imports, which gave much needed relief to the entire steel sector to safe guard against cheap imports from China, South Korea and Japan. Handsome growth of 36 per cent in the month of August in Indirect Tax collection growth raised the hopes for 7 per cent plus growth rate for the year. Factory output figures (IIP data) which came after market hours on Friday grew 4.2 per cent in July against 0.9 per cent a year ago.
On the IIP data, Debopam Chaudhuri, chief economist, ZyFin Research, said, “This is a positive surprise with the general expectations being around 3.5 per cent.”
The major event next week is the US Fed meeting. There is uncertainty in global market on whether the US Federal Reserve’s first interest rate hike in a decade will come at Fed’s monetary policy meeting next week. According to market experts, a hike in interest rate in the US is likely to drain liquidity from emerging markets like India and redirect it to developed economies.
For the next week, Jimeet Modi, CEO, SAMCO Securities, said, “The coming week shall be volatile due to Fed meeting and traders can remain on the sidelines and wait till the outcome is discounted.”
Weekly review: Sensex gains 408.31 points on value buying (12-09-2015)
![Sensex and Nifty](http://images.financialexpress.com/2015/07/sensex-l-reuters1.jpg)
BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty snapped four week losing streak as PM Narendra Modi’s meeting with the India Inc, short coverings, value buying amid key decisions taken by the Cabinet supported market sentiments for the week ended September 11. (Reuters)
The BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty snapped four week losing streak as PM Narendra Modi’s meeting with the India Inc, short coverings, value buying amid key decisions taken by the Cabinet supported market sentiments for the week ended September 11. During Sept 4 and Sept 11, Sensex gained 408.31 points, or 1.62 per cent, at 25,610.21 while Nifty closed the week 134.25 points, or 1.75 per cent, higher at 7,789.30.
Barring the Consumer Durables index (down 1.31 per cent), BSE FMCG index (down 1.30 per cent) and BSE Healthcare index (down 1.26 per cent), all other sectoral indices on the Bombay Stock Exchange ended in green. The BSE Auto index surged the most — 3.91 per cent at 17,647.98, followed by BSE Realty index (up 3.75 per cent at 1,288.86), BSE Capital Goods index (up 3.36 per cent at 1,5951.38) and BSE Power index (up 3.23 per cent at 1,785.80).
Vinita Mahnot, equity research analyst, Hem Securities, said, “Prime Minister meeting with industrialists, low level buying and short covering helped markets to jump over 1.5 per cent during the week.”
Dipen Shah, head of private client group research, Kotak Securities, said, “Markets ended the week with gains of around 2 per cent on benchmark indices. The gains came on the back of stability in global markets, especially China. The Chinese Premier calmed sentiments during the week, which helped stabilise markets. The postponement of GST was taken in the stride.”
According to National Security Depository Ltd (NDSL) data, foreign institutional investors remained net sellers in the equity markets last week as they sold shares worth Rs 3,010.65 crore during the period.
In the BSE 100 index, Power Grid Corporation of India, IDFC, Crompton Greaves, Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services, ICICI Bank, Mahindra & Mahindra, Hindalco, Tata Power and State Bank of India were some the companies which touched their new 52-week low during the week.
During the week gone by, Director General Safeguards (DGS) recommended 20 per cent safeguard duty on steel imports, which gave much needed relief to the entire steel sector to safe guard against cheap imports from China, South Korea and Japan. Handsome growth of 36 per cent in the month of August in Indirect Tax collection growth raised the hopes for 7 per cent plus growth rate for the year. Factory output figures (IIP data) which came after market hours on Friday grew 4.2 per cent in July against 0.9 per cent a year ago.
On the IIP data, Debopam Chaudhuri, chief economist, ZyFin Research, said, “This is a positive surprise with the general expectations being around 3.5 per cent.”
The major event next week is the US Fed meeting. There is uncertainty in global market on whether the US Federal Reserve’s first interest rate hike in a decade will come at Fed’s monetary policy meeting next week. According to market experts, a hike in interest rate in the US is likely to drain liquidity from emerging markets like India and redirect it to developed economies.
For the next week, Jimeet Modi, CEO, SAMCO Securities, said, “The coming week shall be volatile due to Fed meeting and traders can remain on the sidelines and wait till the outcome is discounted.”