Dear Patrons,

Jimmy and his tennis elbow

Jimmy paid Rs.1,00,000 to an indoor tennis club that entitled him to play once a week for the indoor season. After two months he developed tennis elbow, which made playing painful. He continued to play in pain for three more months because he did not want to waste the membership fee. He only stopped playing when the pain became unbearable.

When an amount of money has been spent and the money cannot be retrieved, the money is said to be sunk, meaning gone. Expressions such as “don’t cry over spilt milk” and “let bygones be bygones” are another way of putting economist’s advice to ignore sunk costs. But this is hard advice to follow, for example, leaving a boring movie in between or selling non-performing assets.

To make things clear, let’s stipulate that if a friend invited Jimmy to play tennis (for free) at another club, Jimmy would say no because of his painful elbow. For him, the utility of playing tennis with painful elbow is negative. But having paid Rs.1,00,000, he continues to play, seemingly making himself worse off every time he does so.

There are dozens of examples of people paying attention to sunk costs. One involved a friend, who was in argument with his son who wants to play cricket while he wanted his son to play football. That friend already bought football kit for his son. If the son continues to play cricket than football kit goes to the waste. To save what he spent for the kit, he wants his son to change interest of the game. This is falling for sunk cost.

Investors fall for sunk costs many often. Anyone who trades in stock market has portfolio with Sunk Costs. Many stocks / funds are in the portfolio with comparatively less yield than others. But it is not easy to get rid of them. Investors still keep holding them with view that it will someday regain its glory which never happens. Portfolio review and reshuffling has to be the priority for investors. Investing and Reinvesting is two sides of a coin and equally important.

Dear Patrons,

Saving for a Rainy Day or Spending for Sunny Weekend?

One of my friend went shopping for a quilt to use as a comforter on a double bed. Interestingly, the majority items of the store was on sale. The regular prices were Rs.3000 for a king size, Rs.2500 for a queen size, and Rs.2000 for a double. In the sale time, all sizes were priced at Rs.2000. My friend could not resist but bought 2 quilt of king size bed.

Everything you buy is associated with an opportunity cost. For example, someone bought ticket of Cricket World Cup Final in advance for 1000 bucks and now sells it for 5000. It does not matter who sells and who buys. First person saw profit of Rs.4000 in his transaction while second person saw profit of being at world’s biggest cricket stadium. Both paid opportunity cost in different ways.

Mental accounting helps to understand the basic economic theory of the consumer. Sale, free offers, vouchers etc are different ways to attract more consumers in order to expect them to purchase from high value inventory. To that friend who went to buy a quilt, he could have easily settled for 1 quilt in Rs.2000 but failed in Mental Accounting so he bought 2 quilt and eventually spent more.

Daily we go through many opportunity costs such as cost of dining out or a new released movie or buying expensive lifestyle items, we fail in mental accounting. The world is moving from “Saving the money for a Rainy Day” to “Spend money for a Sunny Weekend”.

The problem of Mental Accounting is too complex for anyone to solve. Not every penny has to be saved for future or not every penny has to be spent for present comforts.

Follow very basic principle for young investor who are starting their investment journey. Step up / Top up investments. Topping up SIPs is very effective and automatic tool to cater Rainy Days while you enjoy Sunny Weekends.

Dear Patrons,

Safe Landing is very important

On September 24, 1972, a Japan Airlines flight landed at Juhu Aerodrome near Bombay instead of the much larger Santacruz Airport (now Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport) and overran the runway.

As the plane was nearing Bombay, the crew planned to make landing approach to Santacruz Airport (BOM). When speaking with Bombay Air Traffic Control, the controller asked the plane if it had a “visual on the runway?” The pilots replied, “yes, we can see it.” the ATC controller asked the pilots to make a visual approach.

Following these instructions, the pilots flew over Runway 09 and executed a 360-degree turn to approach again from the west. But after doing this 360-degree manoeuvre when the plane touched down on Runway 8, the pilot found it was Juhu Aerodrome 2.3 miles west of (BOM) and used only by small aircraft.

The captain immediately realized the mistake and activated the spoilers and maximum power to the brakes. With not enough runway left, an overrun was unavoidable. As the plane overshot the runway, both engines on the port wing broke off, damaging the main landing gear, which caused the nose of the aircraft to dive into the ground. At the time of the accident, there were 14 crew and 108 passengers on board.

The Airline Company and ATC have blamed each other for this fiasco. However, there is important investing lesson from this incident.

Equity Investors continuously look for better returns scenarios but at the same time some volatile events also arise when their investment land on unknown terrain. Investment journey is not always smooth ride. It often pass through rough situation and investors have to have the ability to land investment properly.

At Shalibhadra, we believe to hand hold investors when the investment pass through rough patch. Investment journey is not always keep on flying but also to land it safely whenever required and again fly high when winds are favorable.

Nishit Siddharth Shah

Dear Patrons,

Follow the Owner, Not the Dog

On a Sunday morning, fund manager based in New York, Ralph Wanger takes his excited dog for a stroll. He follows the same path for the stroll which he followed for years. Starting at Columbus Circle, Through Central Park, ending at Metropolitan Museum. All the years he has been doing this exercise without noticing one thing which he noticed on one fine day.

In his fitness tracking device, he has walked around 1.5 miles on average while the dog has walked more than 2.5 miles. Later that day he realized the reason that the dog was darting randomly in every direction. Both the owner and the dog headed the same direction but the dog had multiple focus at one time while owner had one focus, Metropolitan Museum.

What is astonishing in investment psychology term is that almost all of the market players, big and small, have their eye on the dog (markets), and not the owner (businesses). Investors gets distracted by secondary or peripheral factors while emphasize should be on to focus on the source of information.

For example, in today’s world, many investors have their investment ongoing as well as EMIs ongoing for various expenditures. If the focus of investor shifts to get debt free within certain period and he is firm on that than he might cut down his expense, pay the debt from surpluses or even withdraw some investments to reduce debt. Now that is ‘Following the Owner’s strategy.

While there are also set of investors who are continuously in debt. They consume latest market trends, have expensive lifestyle. Their focus continuously shift to please their own selves. Now this is somewhat ‘Following the Dog’ strategy where they follow random direction as market changes.

As Shalibhadra, we make sure that every investor follow the owner and remain focused on building enough corpus to sustain good lifestyle not just for present but for future as well.

Nishit Siddharth Shah

Dear Patrons,

A story on ‘Trust’.

At a time, Tightrope Walking was widely famous and was practiced by many as adventure.

A similar tightrope walker started to walk on a rope tied between two tall towers at several hundred feet above the ground. He wanted a point to prove to the audience. He was slowly walking & balancing a long stick in his hands. The most dangerous thing was he had his son sitting on his shoulders.
Everyone down were watching him in bated breath and were tensed. He slowly reached the second tower. Everyone clapped, whistled and welcomed him. They shook hands and took selfies.

He asked the crowd, “Do you all think I can walk back on the same rope now from this side to that side?”

Crowd shouted, “Yes, yes, you can.”

“Do you trust me?”, He asked. They said, “Yes, yes we are ready to bet on you.”

He said, “Okay, can anyone of you sit on my shoulder? I will take you to the other side safely.”

Everyone became quite. There was stunned silence.

Belief is different & Trust is different. For Trust you need total surrender. Trust is what we are lacking towards investment opportunities in today’s world.

Instead of betting here and there, we have to trust on our own homeland. To  special message to all NRIs,  India is the Fastest Growing countries in the world. NRIs have easy investment opportunity to invest in India which is not available to other foreigners.

Just like tightrope walker philosophy, don’t just BELIEVE in India’s growth Stories. But TRUST in it and PARTICIPATE in it.

Even Harvard Business Review has recently published article on India’s growth story.

https://bit.ly/HBR23ind

We at SHALIBHADRA storngly believe, trust and participate in India’s growth story.

Nishit Siddharth Shah

Dear Patrons,

‘Misbehaving’

Lets assume a group of students appearing for exams.

There are three basic groups of students in exams: those who mastered the syllabus (Grade A), those who grasped the basic concepts (Grade B), and those who just did not understand it (Grade C). Those above 70 marks will get A, marks between 50 to 70 will get B and marks less than 50 will get C. In a hard examination situation, the average score of the students was 72 out of 100. Despite having generous grading system, the students were unhappy with their results and the dissatisfaction was escalated.

Hence the professor came up with a solution to make the exams out of 137 marks instead of 100 marks. This made the average score of 72 to 96, and the students were happier, even though their actual grades were not affected. There were two outcomes. First, it produced an average score well into the 90s, with some students even getting scores above 100, generating a reaction extra delight. Second, because dividing one’s score by 137 was not easy to do in one’s head, most students did not seem to bother to convert their scores into percentages.

The professor reflects on this experience and concludes that his students were “misbehaving” in the sense that their behaviour was inconsistent with the idealized model of behaviour used in economic theory.

Here is how we relate it to Investments.

In investment behavior class, investors are often unhappy with their current investment returns. In some instances, investors tend to transact even more in expectation to increase the returns. But resultant remains the same. The core behavior theory is that investor choose to optimize and make choices based on rational expectations. In this zest, they ‘misbehave’ with their investments.

Investors also come in sweet talk with number crunching just like the professor did. Financial Salesmen are often in search of opportunities to dump their financial products by committing fixed returns, assuring fixed cash flow or guaranteed NAV products. Unfortunately, it is sometimes not easy for investors to understand the numerical gimmicks of such salesmen.

At Shalibhadra, we avoid numerical gimmicks and set the expectations only at right place which is realistic and achievable.

Nishit Siddharth Shah

Dear Patrons,

I don’t know is its good news or Bad news.

Let me tell you an old story of Indian Farmer.

There is a Farmer and he lives with his Son and they have one horse. The horse runs away. Everyone from the town comes to that farmer that night and says ‘Your horse ran away. OH, NO Terrible News’. The farmer said ‘I don’t know if it’s good news or Bad news. We don’t know yet.’

The next day horse come back with two other horses. Everyone from the village came back and says, ‘What a great news now you have three horses’. The farmer says ‘Well, I don’t know if it’s good news or bad news.’

Then next day his son went out and trains one of the new horses and fell and breaks his back. Everyone comes back and says ’OH, NO, What terrible news.’ And the farmer says, ‘I don’t know if it’s good or bad news.’

The next day the constable from the military comes and says we are taking all able bodied young men to join the military. But the farmer’s son broke his back so he can’t go to the army. Everyone comes that night and says, ‘OH, Good news. Your Son don’t have to go to the army. He will be staying with you.’ The farmer says, ‘I don’t know if it’s good or bad news.’

The idea of this could on and on and on.

All Investors go with same idea of wishing for things to happen in Favour of their investments. But that’s not true always. Market moves either ways. Profit and loss have probability of 50-50 percent.

At Shalibhadra, we subscribe to the idea of the farmer about ‘Who knows!!!’  of good news or bad news. When you invest on both sides, you detach yourself from daily volatility. That is what SIP stands for.

Nishit Siddharth Shah

Dear Patrons,

THINKING PROCESS VERSUS OUTCOME

Lot of Indian cricket fans remember the Hero Cup match between India and South Africa on November 24, 1993 at Eden Gardens in Kolkata. South Africa needed 6 six runs off the last over to win the match. There was an intense discussion between the players and the captain about who should bowl the last over.

All the regular bowlers Kapil Dev, Srinath, Prabhakar and Ankola, had some overs left to bowl. After consultations, the Captain decided to hand over the ball to the 21-year-old Sachin Tendulkar. Sachin was a star batsman, but the whole Eden Gardens was shocked as he came out to bowl the last over. That overturned out to be magical! Sachin got a run out and restricted the batsmen to only 3 runs resulting in India’s victory by 2 runs.

Let’s imagine what if… South Africa had scored quickly and won the game easily. What would be the reaction of the crowd, the media and the experts? Would anyone have spared the captain of severe criticism for such a bold decision that went wrong? Even the captain give any justification, would people care to listen to or believe the justification?

We tend to focus on the outcome to judge whether the decision was right or wrong. However, the decision-making process becomes more important. In the context of equity investing, stock market is always volatile and uncertain but investors only chase the certain outcome and in that process is forgotten.

INVESTORS DON’T NEED TO GET IT RIGHT ALL THE TIME.

No one can get it right all the time. Investment decision-making is about considering the payoffs and their probabilities. The right investment process will provide the right combination of both the factors in a way that brings higher upside when you are right and lower downside when you go wrong.

Following Process >>>> Chasing certain outcome

Nishit Siddharth Shah