QUICKIES: Seven investment myths you should not fall for

Text: Prerna Katiyar | ET Bureau

Pick this stock, it's trading at 52-week low.' 'That stock is a multi-bagger, trading at such a low PE.' 'Penny stocks make fortunes while stocks trading below book value are a sure pick for making quick bucks.'

Haven't we all heard such statements at some point in our lives? If you are one of those who believe in such assertions, read on. For, these are among the many myths in investing.



Here we list seven of them


Myth No 1: Stocks trading below book value are cheap

Book value (BV) is the actual worth of a stock as in a company's books/balance sheet, or the cost of an asset minus accumulated depreciation.

BV depends more on historical cost and depreciation and often has little correlation to the current share price.

Shares of industries that are capital intensive trade at lower price/ book ratios, as they generate lower earnings. On the other hand, those business models that have more human capital will fetch higher earnings and will trade at higher price/book ratios.

"Price/book (ratio) of below 1 may be cheap but one should see other aspects such as earnings forecast, guidance, management and debt on the books of the company ," says Angel Broking's equity derivatives head Siddarth Bhamre.


Myth No 2: Stocks trading at low P/E are under-valued

Price to earning ratio (P/E) is one of the most talked about ratios in the market. This is based on the theory that stocks with low P/Es are cheap.

However, P/E alone doesn't tell much about the stock price. P/E multiples may be a quick way to value a stock but one should look at this in correlation with expected growth earnings, the risk factors involved, company's performance and growth potential .

"This is surely a myth. It is also an indication of uncertain future earning of the stock concerned," says Birla Sunlife Mutual Fund CEO A Balasubramanian.

The idea behind dividing price with earnings is to create a levelplaying field where some kind of comparison can be made between high- and low-priced stocks.

Since P/E ratios vary across sectors, with growth stocks consistently trading at higher P/E, one can only compare the P/E ratio of a stock to the average P/E ratio of stocks in that sector.


Myth No. 3: Penny stocks make good fortunes

Penny stocks by nature are lowpriced , speculative and risky because of their limited liquidity, following and disclosure.

If it's easy to invest in penny stocks - as here you shell out much less money per share than you would require for a blue-chip firm - it's also easy to lose.

Says Bhamre, "Fortune can be made by high-denomination stocks also. Denomination has nothing to do with the rationale for picking a stock. Generally , retail investors are fond of stocks that are at sub- Rs 100 levels. But there may be stocks that may be trading in Rs 1,000-plus price but may well be cheap. Clarity on earnings is more important here. Anytime, I would be more comfortable buying an ICICI Bank (currently trading at Rs 1,038) than an IFCI at Rs 45. One should look at earnings visibility."


Myth No. 4: The worst is over in the stock market

Timing the market, a common strategy among investors, means forecasting and that should best be left to astrologers and tarot readers.

If one has done one's valuation studies, one shouldn't worry about timing the market. No one had predicted the bull run would take the Sensex from a level of 10,000 in February 2006 to over 21,000 in January 2008 - just as no one had any idea of the following crash, which saw the same index plummeting to 9,000 in March 2009.

"Timing the market is more of a gut feeling. It's more on the basis of perception, as there is no such thing (that the worst is over) when the future is uncertain. One can never surely time the market. The worst is over is more of a probability than a certainty. Timing the market is very difficult as market is driven not just by earnings but also by sentiments ," says Balasubramanian.


Myth No 5: Stocks that give high dividends are the best bet

This comes from the notion that regular dividends are extra income in the shareholder's hand. This may not always be true.

While a company may be making decent payouts every year, the share price appreciation may not be comparatively high. Before investing in companies paying high dividends, it's important to analyse if the company is reinvesting enough profit to grow its earnings consistently.

Says Brics Securities' research VP Sonam Udasi: "It's not dividend that matters but the yield. For eg, a company may pay a 100% or even a 300% dividend on a stock with face value of Rs 10.

So, the investor may receive Rs 10 or Rs 30 per share when the stock may be currently trading at Rs 800 or Rs 1000. This would translate into an yield of 1% or 3% only. Also, such companies may not necessarily be reinvesting their earnings in the business to generate future earnings and so there may be no stock movement. The dividend may be high but the EPS and growth per se may be constant."



Myth N0 6: Index stocks are the best stocks

If this was true, most investors would safely park their money in such stocks in anticipation of maximum profit without looking out for other value stocks.

Most indices are a collection of stocks with the highest market cap. Take, for eg, the Sensex.

Companies that make up the index are some of the largest, with stocks that are highly traded based on their free-float.

"Index stocks may not necessarily be the best stocks as they are mostly based on market-cap or free-float of the company and not earnings. This doesn't mean that all stocks of the Sensex are highearning stocks. One must take a stock-by-stock call," says Balasubramanian of Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund.

The stock price of a company depends on its earnings. One can find high-earning stocks outside the key indices as well, he says. The risk is certainly less with index stocks as they are well researched and leaders in their respective sectors, but, again, the margins may not be very high. So it's better to keep your eyes open to other stocks, too.



Myth No 7: Stocks trading at 52-week low are cheap

Says Udasi: "There may be a time in the economic cycle when a blue-chip stock may hit a 52-week low.

But the first thing that should come to one's mind is why did the stock hit the 52-week low.

There must be something fundamentally wrong with the stock if it has hit a 52-week low, and chances are they may hit a new 52-week low.

52-week low in itself guarantees nothing. If at all one is picking stocks at 52-week lows, they should have a long-term horizon so that when the economic cycle turns, the stock is able to recover."

Needless to say, quality matters most while buying any stock.


http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/seven-investment-myths-you-should-not-fall-for/quickiearticleshow/9438662.cms

Warren Buffet's strategy on technical analysis

Warren Buffet's strategy on technical analysis
Apr 05 '00

After much research and experience in investing I've discovered a simple strategy which works very well for profitable investing. It's a composite of Charles Schwab's and Warren Buffet's strategy. As you may know, Warren Buffet started with a little investment decades ago and now he's the third richest man in the world with over $30,000,000,000 in stock in the company he built. Charles Schwab is the genius who began the most successful off-price brokerage in the world. Here's what they say about investing and technical analysis:

Rule number one: Buy a company you'd be willing to hold for a lifetime.

When you put your money in a stock, you become an owner of that firm. You're essentially buying part of it and you reap the profit from the shares you buy in terms of earnings per share. Then the company may pay out those earnings per share in dividends or invest back into the company for growth. Make sure that you're buying a firm that you can depend on, even when the market is down. Investing isn't about the quick in-and-out schemes that lose most day-traders money. That's called gambling. Investing is putting your trust and your resources into a firm which you're willing to commit your hard-earned money to. This leads to my next point.

Rule number two: Ignore technical analysis.

Technical analysis is used to predict whether or not a stock will go up or down in the short term. Some people think that they can ignore the fundamentals of the companies they buy based on technical analysis and end up losing large amounts of money. Yet, no responsible financial advisor would recommend or practice buying based solely or largely on technical analysis. That practice is used for what I defined to be gambling. Essentially relying on technical analysis involves looking at the volume of trading, advances/declines in the share price, and trying to determine whether or not the price will continue upward or reverse. For example, a lot of people buy or sell based on momentum. They jump on the bandwagon or abandon ship with the rest of the crowd. Yet, these fluctuations based on the herd mentality do less for those playing on technical analysis and more for the investor who looks for good value in shares. For, often people selling on technical analysis overshoot and cause a stock's value to be worth less than its fair value. Thanks to people who get burned on these losses, investors find unique opportunities to snatch up great comanies at bargain-basement prices.

Rule number three: Focus on the Fundamentals.

You cannot accurately predict the short term price fluctuations of stocks. Let me repeat myself: You CANNOT accurately predict the short term price fluctuations of stocks. If you could, those stock experts working at Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs wouldn't be working. Believe me: they've got a lot more experience than you or I do, and they're not gambling. So, instead of "investing on luck" or momentum, take control and do your research. Find out whether the company is consistantly outpacing the industry. See what the price to earnings ratio is and whether it's being undervalued. Find out whether earnings per share has been increasing or decreasing. See what the financial community thinks by examining analyst opinions covering the firm. All this information is easily accessable over the internet and free of charge. IF you do your homework your gains will be all but certain OVER TIME and you'll feel satisfied and proud with your investment choices. You may even become attached to your company and become well acquainted with it.

Rule number four: Buy long term

Besides your liklihood of making money going up, there are tax advantages to holding stocks long term. For one thing, if you simply hold onto your stock, you won't be taxed until you pull out and your investment can continue to compound, without erosion, until you sell. But, if you constantly buy and sell, then you're taxed on all your gains and you don't get to pay the lower capital gains tax. Instead, it's taxed as regular income, which is a higher tax rate. For most daytraders, tax erosion is one of the biggest problems with making any profit. But, if you do sell make sure it's because your company has been consistently underperforming. This leads to the next point:

Rule number five: Buy low sell high.

Lots of people buy stocks and when the price dips they get scared and sell. Other people see the price of their stock go up and buy more. But, this seems like reverse logic, right? If you own a good company, short-cited investors can drive down a stock price temporarily because of one below-expected earnings report or a bit of bad news. Let these be times for you to take advantage of other people's hysteria and buy at an attractive price.


Be smart in your investment decisions. Warren Buffet didn't find himself where he is today by buying on momentum or following technical analysis. Instead, it took research, patience, and commitment. If you can commit yourself to these same principles, you too will enjoy financial success.

http://www.epinions.com/finc-review-1935-D65AB19-38EAE41E-prod2

It is not a sin when you buy LOW

Use fundamental analysis to pick the good quality stocks.
Use technical analysis to buy into the stocks.

Technical analysis versus Fundamental Analysis
Malaysian Personal Finance

New Study Reveals World's Greatest Investment Strategy

New Study Reveals World's Greatest Investment Strategy

By Dan Ferris 

Thursday, February 18, 2010 

It's official: Buying the cheapest assets you can find is where you make the biggest, safest, easiest money as an investor. 

What made it "official" to me was a just-completed study by one of the greatest living investors. The investor is Jeremy Grantham. His firm Grantham, Mayo, Van Otterloo, manages over $100 billion. 


Grantham recently published the results of a 10-year forecast he made for the period from December 31, 1999, to December 31, 2009. In 1999, Grantham predicted the rank and return for 11 different asset classes. The actual rankings wound up correlating 93% with Grantham's forecast.The probability of equaling or besting such a performance is about one in 550,000. 


How did he do it? As he wrote in his latest investor letter, "We forecast [back in 1999] that the egregiously overpriced S&P would underperform cash and everything else – what should you expect starting at 33 times earnings? – and we assumed that emerging equities would do extremely well despite a 0.7 correlation with the S&P, because they were cheap." (Italics added.) 


Grantham's forecasting feat confirms a thesis I've believed in for a long time: If you wait for asset prices to reach extremes of valuation, you have an excellent chance of outperforming most investors. It's difficult to wait for these extremes to come around, but it's crucial to your success as an investor. 

Grantham's track record for spotting valuation extremes goes beyond a single 10-year period. He and his clients successfully avoided every bubble of the last two decades (Japan in the '80s, tech stocks in the '90s, financials and housing in the '00s). He was bearish at the top of the most recent bubble, in 2007, and super bullish at the bottom, in late 2008/early 2009. 

Again, Grantham's secret is being bullish on cheap, unpopular assets and avoiding expensive, popular assets. 

Today, Grantham says only the higher-quality large-cap stocks are attractive. I say the same and recommend World Dominator stocks like ExxonMobil, Microsoft, and Procter & Gamble. You can read more about this idea here and here. 


As for the broader market, Grantham says the S&P 500's fair value is around 850, 20% below its current level. 


Grantham expects seven years of "below-average GDP growth" and "more than our share of below-average profit margins and P/E ratios." Falling average price-to-earnings ratios are an important aspect of the sideways market I've been telling people about since November 2009. 

Grantham's lessons are powerful and easy to understand. Avoid what's expensive. Buy what's cheap. 

Stocks were incredibly popular in 1999, when Grantham made his prediction. They crashed three months later. Emerging markets were very cheap. They produced excellent returns. In both cases, extremes of valuation trumped all else.

If you're buying and selling businesses without knowing how to value them, and how to spot extremes of valuation in them, you can't possibly hope to make a dime in the stock market. If you fancy yourself a "trend follower," be careful you don't follow your beloved trend straight off a cliff. 
Grantham's forecasting success proves waiting for extremes of value to arrive makes long-term investing success much, much easier to achieve. 

And while I normally don't pay a bit of attention to predictions, it's great to see such a common sense forecast prove the case for value investing once again. 
Good investing, 


Dan Ferris 


http://www.dailywealth.com/427/New-Study-Reveals-World-s-Greatest-Investment-Strategy

The most important determinants of your success in investing

The most important determinants of your success in investing are QVM:

QUALITY - the quality of the company you own,

VALUE - the price you paid for your stock, and,

MANAGEMENT - the integrity of its management.

Are You Paying Too Much For Stocks? Market Value is Not Equal to Actual Value

Are You Paying Too Much For Stocks?

Market Value Not Equal to Actual Value
A small loan can help you if you are short of cash until your next payday, but if you invest in the stock market and follow the crowd in their buying and selling habits, you may end up with many more liabilities than assets. Why? Have you noticed how much the stock market fluctuates in a day, and also the ups and downs of prices? Does that mean that the companies’ values goes up and down as much as the share price, or does that mean that there may be some other force at work here? As you can see, market value of a share doesn’t equal ACTUAL value of the same share, in terms of the value of a company.

Market Price Based on Emotions, Not Logic
One of the pioneers in value investing, Benjamin Graham, believed that many people rely too much on their emotions when investing rather than their logic. This explains the fluctuations of the market, and also why a lot of people think it’s risky to invest in it. What makes it risky is the constant buying and selling that goes on day after day, hour after hour. This constant buying and selling is what either drives the share price up or down, and it’s what creates the risk.

Ben Graham suggested in his book “The Intelligent Investor” that if you want to build your wealth from the stock market, you need to use a “dollar cost averaging” technique, meaning to consistently buy more shares at a lower price over time. As inflation and company values grow over time, your investments will be worth more in the long run. It’s also called “buy low and sell high” which you might have heard about. Unfortunately, most people tend to bring their emotions into their investing, and will panic and sell when the price is going down, because they are afraid to lose any more money on their investments, leaving them open to take out a small loan to survive.

Beyond the Smoke and Mirrors
The stock market is riddled with confusing terms, acronyms and policies, making it very difficult for the average investor to understand. All this is just smoke and mirrors designed to keep most people in the dark and dependent on high-priced brokers to navigate the investing maze for them. However, if you were to peek behind the curtain, you would see that all the confusion is just smoke and mirrors.

Inflated Price? Inflated Value!
In an effort to control the market prices, brokers and fund managers will either buy or sell enough shares to drive the price back up or down, depending on where the prices are going. Perhaps it’s due to a company that got good news or bad, and investors are trying to position themselves to not lose a lot of money, or make some. This tends to skew the value of a share price, and unbalances the market. Thus, a share price that has risen too quickly will have many shares sold off by fund managers or brokers to drive the price back down. Similarly, if a share price is dropping too fast, they’ll buy as many shares to even up. So if there are inflated prices, don’t go believing it’s actually worth that much. In fact, they may not be worth much at all!

P/E Ratio Tells it All
There is a very simple way to determine if a certain share price is on target or not—look at the Price per Earnings ratio. This is a valuation method that takes the company’s current share price on the market divided by the per-share earnings over a certain time frame, usually one year. If the price of shares in a company are $ 24 per share, and the earnings over the previous year were $ 2, the ratio of P/E is 12.

• Typically, the higher the P/E ratio is, the higher the expectations investors will have for company growth. This means that you will be able to see higher earnings within the next year with this company.
• However, the lower the ratio, the slower the growth regardless of what the market is doing.

Buy Low, Sell High
When you can learn how to find the correct value of a company or share, you will know when the share price is at its lowest, and when you can buy. After share prices crest, you can sell your shares and pocket the rest without needing a small loan. If you do this, you will be able to make money on the stock market when everyone else is losing money.

http://www.401kinformationblog.com/are-you-paying-too-much-for-stocks/

Now that the price has fallen ....

"I buy cheap stocks."

Identifying "cheap" means comparing price with value.

What attracts your attention is that the price has fallen. 

Scrutinize the new lows list to find stocks that have come down in price. 

If the price is at a two or three-year low, so much the better.

Some brokers may call with suggestions.  These tend to be at the opposite end of the spectrum from the momentum stocks that most brokers are peddling.

Be especially attracted to stocks that have gapped down in price - stocks where the price decline has been precipitous.

Stock prices sink when investors have been disappointed, either

• by a recent event such as an earnings announcement below expectations, or
• by continued unsatisfactory performance that ultimately induces even patient investors to throw in the towel. 

Some investors put money in

• these companies with shares that have plummeted in price, and
• in those that have slid downward gradually but persistently. 

These companies can be in different industries, and maybe large, medium and small companies. The unifying them is that the stuff they buy is on sale.

Buy low, improve your chances

The most common investing mistake is throwing good money after bad. (This refers to buying a lousy company.)

The second most common investing mistake is finding and buying a great company (with growth, intrinsic value, supporting fundamentals, and intangibles all there), but paying too much for it.


http://myinvestingnotes.blogspot.com/search/label/buy%20low

Buy low, improve your chances

Buy low, improve your chances


Value investors buy cheap. Why? Two reasons:

1. Provide a margin of safety.
2. Allow for proportionally better returns on dollars invested.

The most common investing mistake is throwing good money after bad. (This refers to buying a lousy company.)

The second most common investing mistake is finding and buying a great company (with growth, intrinsic value, supporting fundamentals, and intangibles all there), but paying too much for it.

Paying too much simultaneously creates downside vulnerability and limits upside potential.

The mathematics of underperformance should be reason enough to buy cheap and provide oneself with that safety margin.