SRF Ltd: Dividend Gem and Midcap Star

SRF is a multi-business group, global entity with manufacturing plants in four countries and is market leader in most of its businesses in its home market in India. SRF is also the world's 2nd largest manufacturer of both the Nylon 6 tyre cord as well as the belting fabrics.

SRF began in 1970 when its parent company DCM decided to set up a separate entity to manufacture nylon tyre cord fibres. SRF became one of the first companies in India to start manufacturing nylon tyre cords. Over the years, the company expanded its product line in technical textiles and also diversified into other businesses like Chemicals, Packaging Films and Engineering Plastics. Its one of the few manufacturing successes emerging out of India and is winning globally over the years.

Freak Trades or Flash Crash on NSE: What is it and Why?

With the complete automation of Stock Exchanges and 100% computerization of markets, there comes a added risk in form of large, unexpected Freak trades which often crashes a specific Stock, or group of Stocks or even Index for a short while, thus causing tremendous loss to market participants and dampening  the sentiments, not to mention damaging the faith of common man in stock markets.

Nifty - Breakout on the Cards!

Nifty has quietly, without telling anyone, has broken out of the wedge it was forming from past 2 months. However, it remains to be seen whether this breakout is credible and strong and give you another 1000 point move in Nifty, taking it to 6200?

REI Agro: World Leader in Basmati

As Amitabh Bachchan said in one of his old blockbuster, three key elements for survival for a human being are Roti, Kapda and Makan (Food, Clothing and Shelter). REI Agro, the company we are looking at today, is India’s biggest Basmati rice processing and marketing firm, and is the biggest company in the whole world in this humble space.

Why are FIIs stocking up on Infosys shares?

Amidst all the negative news flows and talks of changed sentiments toward bellwether IT Largecap stock Infosys Ltd, it’s a difficult statistics to believe that FII holding in this particular scrip has actually gone up from 36.66% two quarters ago, to 37.36% one quarter ago to a whooping 39.02% in the quarter gone by. 

Thus FIIs own greater pie of Infosys stock than any other entity taken individually. In the same time-period, Indian public shareholding in Infosys has continuously fallen, from 13.53% to 13.08% to 12.97%. Now, FIIs are a bunch of real pros, whose job is to analyze the market, and take buy/sell decisions after much in-depth analysis, whereas common public often buys or sells stocks based on sentiments or what’s published in broker stock reports or newspapers, which is again primarily sentiment driven.

So what’s the real story behind the scenes? Why are FIIs so bullish, whereas rest of world is negatively reacting to Infosys? Let’s look at data and analyze.

Dividend and Deep Value Gem: Shipping Corporation of India (SCI)

Shipping Corporation of India (SCI) is a dividend gem, trading at very reasonable valuations and is a Deep Value pick at today’s market prices. SCI has paid dividend twice in last financial year 2011, totaling up to 55% on its face value of Rs 10, thus delivering dividend income of Rs 5.5 on share price which is hovering around Rs 62 per share as we write this. This comes to a decent 9% annual income from dividends alone. 

IPO: It's Probably Over-priced!

Performance of recent IPO's in the Indian Stock Market has been dismal to say the least. Sample this, out of the last twenty IPO listing, only seven are in profit and thirteen stocks are in losses, six of which have lost more than 80% of their listing price.

This phenomena is going on from quite some time, where promoters of companies going for IPOs list at exorbitant prices and cash on quickly, thus leave investors holding worthless stocks which are down by 80% to 90%. The most common saying about IPO is rightly so: It's Probably Overpriced.

Camson Biotech - Bringing life Back to Mother Earth

Often it is believed that Value investing stands for analyzing boring sectors such as manufacturing, textiles etc where market is discounting good companies and you get bargains. Well, not true! Today, we cover a truly innovative Indian biotech firm which is bringing life back into earth by eco-friendly bio-products such as biocides, bio-fertilizers and hybrid seeds. 

With constant abuse of soil with pesticides, chemicals and seeds, earth loses its fertility and poison from these chemicals seeps into human bodies. Camson Biotech is innovating since 1993, to create residue free farming and have portfolio of products which have brought life back into even infertile soil and happiness into thousands of farmer families.

Elliot Waves applied on cracks in S&P 500 charts - Is this the end of US Bull?

Elliott Wave is a esoteric branch of technical analysis. Not to say that it didn't see its glory days. The theory was developed by R.N. Elliott and taken to its pinnacle by Doom Guru Robert Prechter. Using Elliott waves, Doom gurus have correctly predicted 15 of last 5 market downturns!

Today is our moment in the sun to predict one more downturn when we apply basics of Elliott Wave to S&P500 which has suddenly started cracking up. Pls look at the S&P 5 year chart below:

Short Video on Difference Between Fundamental and Technical Analysis

I am sharing a short video on the two key methodologies of analyzing Capital Markets.

Market Direction - Nifty Trend - Apr 10th

Nifty has been behaving as expected and like a very obedient child from past couple of days. Today, in addition to today's commentary, I am posting a interesting long term chart, which shows the strength of long term Trend Lines and how they give direction to prices. First lets look at the short term story below:

Dividend Warriors – Best Dividend paying Stock - HCL Infosystems

HCL Infosystems has always prospered in shadow of its more aggressive and famous sibling – HCL Technologies. But there is a hidden fact about HCL Infosystems, which most investors have no clue on. It’s simply the best Dividend paying stock on NSE and BSE. Sample this, in 2011, HCL Infosystems has paid dividend after each quarterly result – probably the only company to pay four dividends in one year. It has paid dividends to its stock holders three times a year from last eight years, every year. Not only this, HCL Infosystems is a regular dividend paying company from last 15 years. But you may ask, What is the big deal in a dividend payment, don’t we buy stocks for capital appreciation or price rise, not for paltry yearly dividends.

The Curious Case of Natural Gas!

Natural Gas is a commodity which intrigues me to no end. It is one of the commodities actively traded world-over, also at MCX Commodity Exchange, India and has good liquidity to trade. Natural Gas is perhaps the only commodity, that too from the Energy segment, that is in a strong multi-year Bear Grip. In case you bothered by Petrol prices that are going up every month, you will be shocked to know that NatGas prices have been declining from past 4 years, almost on a monthly basis. So what has gone so wrong for Natural Gas?

Market Direction - Nifty Trend - Apr 4th

Markets lost as expected after touching the upper trend line and as we mentioned in our last post yesterday . European markets are bleeding and down by 2-3% today as we write this.

However if we look at the Nifty charts today, the candle today is again forming a cross or a doji as its called in technical analysis. Two consecutive doji like formations, signal only one thing, that the market is unsure about its direction. Pl see the chart below:

Market Direction - Nifty Trend 3rd Apr

Today we had another good bullish day on Nifty, where the Nifty opened with a gap and continued with strength, only to lose some of the strength later in the day. This created a typical commonly seen candle in the form of a cross. This candle when combined with a gap opening often signals a exhaustion gap, which means that temporarily the uptrend may pause. Pls look at chart below:

Market Direction - Nifty Trend Analysis - 2 Apr

Today was a comparatively quiet day for Nifty, after the mammoth up-day on Friday, and Nifty ended the day 22 points or about 0.4% higher. Although the broader market was doing much better in comparison with several smallcaps and midcaps showing good strength.
Pl see the Nifty chart below:

Book Review – ‘The High Beta Rich’ by Robert Frank

In this blog, we would occasionally review a set of interesting books which talk about new concepts in capital markets, stock analysis or wealth creation. Robert Frank, who is also the author of Richistan, a book published in 2008 on excess wealth floating around in this new economy and spending habits of manic wealthy.