Share Dilution: The Silent Way Your Slice of a Company Keeps Shrinking
Imagine four friends open a small tea stall near a busy railway station. To keep it fair, they print 100 paper slips that say “I own…
Blog · Page 5
Daily lessons in long-term investing
Plain-English lessons on judging businesses, reading annual reports and staying patient — 370 articles and counting, a new one most mornings. Educational only: none of these is a research report or a recommendation.
Value investing
Value investing
Rule Number One: Why Not Losing Money Is the Real Secret to Getting Rich
Imagine two neighbours in the same colony. Both start with ₹10 lakh of savings. The first one keeps it simple. He puts his money into a…
Value investing
The Farmer Who Never Asked the Price: What Warren Buffett’s Little Farm Teaches Us About Owning Shares
Imagine you save for years and buy a small flat in Pune. You give it out on rent. From that day, what do you check? You…
Value investing
Diworsification: Peter Lynch’s Funny Word for a Serious Mistake — When Good Companies Wander From What They Do Best
Peter Lynch warned that when companies spread into businesses they do not understand, diversification becomes 'diworsification'. A plain-English lesson with the Coca-Cola and Kingfisher stories, and…
Value investing
Cheaper Because Bigger: The Hidden Wheel That Turns a Low-Cost Shop Into a Great Business
Think of the last time you walked into a big discount store like DMart with a small shopping list. The same one-kilo packet of toor dal,…
Value investing
Drop by Drop: The Quiet Power of Investing a Fixed Sum Every Month
There is an old Hindi saying that every Indian grandmother seems to know: boond boond se sagar bharta hai — drop by drop, the ocean fills.…
Value investing
Never Ask a Barber If You Need a Haircut: Charlie Munger’s Simple Lesson on the Power of Incentives
Why does every salesman believe his own pitch? Charlie Munger's most practical idea — the power of incentives — explained in plain words, with the FedEx…
Value investing
What Pulak Prasad Learned from Darwin: Three Simple Rules for Owning Great Businesses for a Very Long Time
In nature, lasting success is mostly about not dying — not about being the fastest. One India-focused fund manager built a remarkable record by applying that…
Value investing
The Secret Hiding Places: Joel Greenblatt’s 1997 Special-Situations Framework and Why the Long-Term Equity Investor Should Hunt Where the Forced Seller, Not the Forecast, Sets the Price
Joel Greenblatt's 1997 framework finds mispricing not in better forecasts but in forced sellers — corporate events that hand orphaned securities to holders mandated to dump…
Behavioural finance
The Auditor’s Opinion Hierarchy: How Unqualified, Qualified, Adverse & Disclaimer Reports Reveal Whether the Numbers Deserve Your Trust
India’s registered investor base has nearly quadrupled — from roughly 3 crore to more than 11 crore unique investors on the NSE in just a few…
Behavioural finance
Price-to-Operating-Cash-Flow (P/CFO) Ratio: The Valuation Multiple That Refuses to Trust Profits Until the Cash Arrives
Every valuation multiple is a fraction. The numerator — price — is set by the market every second and is always honest about what you are…
Behavioural finance
Cash Flow From Operations to Total Debt Ratio: The Credit-Analyst’s 60-Second Solvency Test That Separates Self-Liquidating Balance Sheets From Slow-Bleed Leverage Time Bombs
Every credit analyst at every rating agency on the planet — CRISIL, ICRA, CARE, Moody’s, S&P — runs one calculation before they bother with a single…
Behavioural finance
Cash & Equivalents as a Percentage of Market Cap: The Graham-Era Deep-Value Forensic Test That Reveals How Much You’re Actually Paying for the Operating Business
The Cash & Equivalents-to-Market-Cap ratio is the simplest forensic ratio in fundamental analysis — and one of the most misunderstood. It asks a single, almost child-like…
Behavioural finance
Goodwill-to-Net-Worth Ratio: The Forensic Balance-Sheet Test That Reveals Whether Indian Companies Bought Their Earnings Or Built Them Organically
How one balance-sheet line — Goodwill on Consolidation — reveals whether Indian companies grew their earnings organically or simply purchased them at a premium. A forensic…
Behavioural finance
Days Payable Outstanding: The Working-Capital Ratio That Reveals Negotiating Power or Hidden Liquidity Stress
Indian retail participation on NSE crossed 11 crore unique investors by early 2026, up from 3 crore in 2019. Yet the same SEBI study on the…
Behavioural finance
Borrowings-to-Equity Ratio: How One Balance-Sheet Line Separates Capital-Disciplined Compounders From Leverage-Driven Time Bombs
SEBI’s most recent investor-protection study found that nearly nine out of ten individual traders in the equity Futures & Options segment lost money in FY24 —…
Behavioural finance
Incremental Return on Invested Capital: The Mauboussin-Greenwald Compounder Test That Reveals Whether Every New Rupee of Capital Earns Its Keep
Headline RoIC describes legacy capital; Incremental RoIC describes the most recent rupees deployed. The Mauboussin-Greenwald compounder test, explained step-by-step with audited Indian disclosures.
Behavioural finance
Sloan’s Accrual Anomaly: The 1996 Accounting Review Discovery That High-Accrual Stocks Underperform — And Why the Cash-Backed Earnings Test Is the Single Most Powerful Forensic Filter for Indian Long-Term Investors
Richard Sloan 1996 Accounting Review discovery on high-accrual underperformance and the cash-backed earnings test for Indian long-term investors.
Behavioural finance
Defensive Interval Ratio: The Forensic Liquidity Metric That Reveals How Many Days a Business Can Survive Without Selling Inventory or Receiving New Revenue
Every Indian retail investor knows the headline risk — a company runs out of cash and the stock collapses. What very few investors know is that…
Behavioural finance
10-Year PAT CAGR: The Bottom-Line Compounding Test Every Indian Long-Term Investor Must Master
India crossed 11 crore unique demat accounts in 2025 — almost a 4x jump from the 3 crore investor base we had as recently as January…
Behavioural finance
Subsequent Events Disclosure (Ind AS 10): What ‘Events After the Reporting Period’ Reveal About Corporate Transparency, Investor Risk, and Management’s Willingness to Share Bad News on Time
India's investing universe has grown to over 11 crore investors, but few know how to read the most under-appreciated paragraph in any audited annual report. Ind…
Behavioural finance
The House Money Effect: Thaler & Johnson’s 1990 Discovery on Why Prior Gains Make Indian Long-Term Investors Take Reckless Risks With ‘Profit Money’
Thaler and Johnson 1990 documented the House Money Effect — investors take riskier bets with prior gains. Indian retail F&O data shows the pattern at population…
Behavioural finance
Depreciation-to-Gross-Block Ratio: How One Schedule II Disclosure Reveals Asset Newness, Implied Useful Life & Capital-Intensity Discipline
Indian retail participation on the NSE has expanded from roughly 3 crore unique investors in 2019 to more than 11 crore in 2026 — a 3.6x…
Behavioural finance
Wonderful Business at a Fair Price: The See’s Candies Pivot That Reshaped Buffett’s Mind in 1972 – and Why It Justifies Owning Quality Indian Compounders Today
In January 1972 Buffett wrote a $25 million cheque for See's Candies - the single most consequential trade of his career. Here is why Indian value…
The securities quoted in these articles are for illustration only and are not recommendatory. Investment in securities market are subject to market risks. Read all the related documents carefully before investing.