Will Sandip Sabharwal, The Newest Stock Advisor In Town, Help Us Find Multi-Bagger Stocks?

In my last piece, I had referred to the various entities in the stock advisory service and what their performance has been.

Sandip Sabharwal is the newest entrant in the field. He has had a brilliant academic career. After a B Tech from IIT, Delhi, he did his PGDM from IIM Bangalore.

Sandip tasted his first success when he was appointed fund manager by SBI Mutual Fund. His stock picks created great wealth for investors and the assets of the fund grew from Rs 300 crore to nearly Rs 6000 crore. Then, he joined JM Financial AMC as CIO from late 2006 till March 2009. Here again, his success continued unabated and delirious investors poured in money, taking the AUM from Rs 200 crore to Rs 5000 crore in the short period from December 2006 to February 2008.

Then, Sandip joined the PMS division of Prabhudas Liladher. The details of his performance there are not available. He quit about a year ago and started on his own.

In his new avatar as a SEBI registered Investment Adviser, Sandip offers investors a variety of services through his website “asksandipsabharwal.com”. There is a ‘stock advisory’ offer on plan where, for a fee ranging from Rs. 10,000 to Rs. 50,000, you can seek advice on the state of your portfolio and what stocks you should buy, based on your risk profile. A similar service is available for mutual fund investors. You can also opt for a “one question” service for a fee of Rs. 1000. This is useful if you are stuck in a trading position and don’t know what to do.

The advantage (or disadvantage, depending on how you look at it) is that Sandip mixes long-term stock calls with short-term punts. In the “Gold Plan”, for instance, for a fee of Rs. 15,000, you can expect to receive recommendations for “5 to 10 strong long-term return stocks and a minimum of 10 trading calls per quarter”.

So, if you have the inclination to be both, an investor and a trader, this may be the service for you.

In his latest interview to CNBC-TV18, Sandip appeared cautious and opined that the market is likely to some downside. “The correction in global equity markets is not over and I see a second round of sell-off coming through” he said in an ominous tone.

Among sectors, Sandip opined that Telecom, OMC and Banking stocks were quoting at attractive valuations and would benefit from the expected reforms while export-oriented stocks in the Pharma and Technology sector would face headwinds owing to the adverse movement in the currency.