Saturday, November 17, 2007

Fortune 2007 Index : Analysis

Two Fortune India Index was created by using two different methods. One was by using equal weights for all the 39 companies that were selected. Click here to read more about the original Index. The second method gave weights equal to the market cap of each individual share on the particular day. In other words the second portfolio was assumed to be dynamically adjusted to have weights depending upon the market cap of the shares.




The returns calculated was the log return for the entire period starting from beginning of year to end of October. Similarly Beta was calculated by using the daily log returns.

It was found that the returns were as high as 80% in case of equal weights compared to only 23% and 26% for Sensex and Nifty. At the same time what was more interesting was that the Beta of the Index was very low around 0.82. If Beta is taken as the measure of risk (CAPM) then the alpha, or the excess return created for the level of risk taken (beta) would be very high.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Bull Everywhere !

Globally almost all asset classes are again touching new highs. Just recently few days ago there were talks of crude oil staying above the $100 per barrel mark. Gold is also heading towards its all time high of $850, last time I checked it was around $830 per ounce. India being the largest consumer of Gold in the world is the major source of the increasing demand for this metal.

The price of gold in India per 10 gram is clearly above Rs. 10,000. The market analysts earlier had predicted that the gold will not touch the 10,000 level because the consumers would move away from gold due to the high price. Infact it was speculated that the gold prices will stay below Rs. 9,700 when the prices were touching the levels of Rs. 9,300.

Another main reason for the increase in the Gold and crude oil is due to depreciation of US dollar. The dollar has weakened in terms of Euro from the June levels of 1.34 to the levels of 1.45 now.


Year on year gold as an investment in India has not done extremely well with returns below 10%. But in the last few months it has made good return of close to 25% to 30%. Infact it makes more sense to invest in the gold overseas in dollar terms particularly in order to best capture the depreciation of dollar. The Gold ETF’s that were recently started in the county were a good example of this. Gold ETF’s have gone up by almost close to 30% in the last six months.

Saturday, November 10, 2007

Steel Analysis

The crude iron costs around the world are increasing. The main reason for this is the increase in the freight cost of these goods. The laded cost for the crude iron in India is around $200 per ton for the crude that is coming from Brazil and FOB is around $150. The freight costs for China is also very high reaching levels of around $180 laded cost for a ton of crude iron.

What does this high crude iron cost mean for the producers of steel? Crude iron being a significant raw material input for the steel producers would mean that the prices of steel must rise to meet the increase in the prices of crude iron. If this is not the case then the producer of steel would see a reduction in the margin that they generate.

According to Essar steel the prices of steel have not gone up significantly in the last one year but still their margins have not taken a huge hit. The prices for the crude iron have doubled but the steel prices have gone up only by around 16%. Essar is attributing the healthy margins that they are generating to the captive mines facility that they are having. This means that the captive mines that the steel companies are after does gives the companies a lot of stability in margins. No wonder why steel companies are running after the iron ores in India.

Friday, November 09, 2007

Divali Investor

Towards Divali of every year investors expect the market to do well. It is one of those end year phenomenon which cannot be easily explained by common rationality. In fact from 1998 every single year market has gone up during Divali.

During this Divali the Investment Pundits in India have become very cautious. Ever optimistic star investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala could be easily quoted on CNBC that the inevitable correction in the market is near. He still believes in the long term future of the Indian market, saying that we are still in the initial phase of the long term India Growth story.

The markets are showing signs of being overheated. This is clearly evident from the stocks that are doubling in very short period of time.

We have seen many level wise correction in the market in the past one year or so. That is every time the market touches a particular psychological landmark level it goes for a correction. But we are yet to see good time-wise correction, which is not necessarily level dependent. For example a correction with a bear phase that lasts for many months to a year.

The long term market gurus say that these bear phases are not something to worry about. The markets may decline to levels that might be painful for people who rely on stock markets for their income. But this would provide the investors an opportunity to purchase the shares of companies at even better valuations.