Market Watch

Friday, January 28, 2011

Investment Philosophy of Rakesh Juhunjuhunwala

Although he claims to put only a minuscule of his networth on the table for trading activity, he has often leveraged his own capital and managed to make a fortune from his calls, more often than not. His stock picking strategy is influenced by the lessons from Mr George Soros's trading strategies and Dr Marc Faber's analysis of economic history. He endorses the thumb rule of 'trend is my best friend'.

He is the poster boy of the Indian bull run but admits to have been a bear in the Harshad Mehta days and believes that a person in the market should be like a chameleon. He calls the markets as temples of capitalism and believes that they are the ultimate arbitrators.

Much like Mr Warren Buffet, he buys into the business model of a company and for judging the longevity and growth potential, he gives top priority to 'competitive ability', 'scalability' and 'management quality' of the enterprise. The 'entrepreneur', according to Jhunjhunwala is what makes an invaluable difference to his expected investment returns. According to Jhunjhunwala, believing in the vision and the beliefs of the entrepreneur and validating the risks that may not be perceived by the entrepreneur are the key success factors for an investor.

Jhunjhunwala has managed to identify numerous multi-baggers in the past decade, notable being Karur Vysya Bank, Praj Industries, Crisil, Titan, Nagarjuna, HOEL and PSUs like BEML and Bharat Electronics, among others. The typical traits to look for while identifying potential multi-baggers, according to Jhunjhunwala are - low institutional holding, under-researched and general pessimism about the stock.

A good time to sell a stock, according to Jhunjhunwala, is not based on any 'price' targets, but when the 'earnings' expectations have peaked or the business model has peaked or the valuations appear ridiculously unreasonable.