The Shopkeeper’s Cut
The trade margin is the slice of the printed price that never comes back to the company. What it reveals about brand strength — and the four things it cannot tell you.
Blog
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.
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18 core lessons
The essentials first: how to judge a business, what a share price can and cannot tell you, and how to stay patient. Most come with a short explainer video.
Business quality
How to tell a durable business from a busy one.
Business quality
Business quality
Work Already Won
An order book is a diary of promises, not a bank balance. Five plain questions that turn a big headline number into real information.
Business quality
The Toll Booth Business
Some companies collect a small fee from a huge crowd, year after year. The four marks of a genuine toll booth — and the traps that imitate one.
Business quality
Boring Is Beautiful
Dull, overlooked businesses with steady profits can quietly reward patient owners. Why boring helps — but only when the business is strong.
Business quality
Turnarounds Seldom Turn
A crashed price tempts you to bet on a recovery. Why broken businesses rarely heal, and the signs of one that is already working.
Business quality
Recurring Revenue
A business that gets paid again and again is calmer and sturdier. How to spot recurring revenue in a company’s numbers.
Price and value
What a share price can and cannot tell you.
Price and value
The Share-Price Illusion
Why a ₹10 share is not cheap and a ₹1,00,000 share is not costly — and what to look at instead of the price tag.
Price and value
The Cube of Gold That Cannot Grow
All the gold ever mined would fit in one cube that will never grow. Buffett’s lesson on assets that work and assets that just sit.
Price and value
The Voting Machine and the Weighing Machine
In the short run the market counts votes; in the long run it weighs profits. Graham’s lesson on why popularity fades and earnings win.
Price and value
Know What You Own
Peter Lynch’s two-minute test: if you cannot explain why you own a business in plain words, you are holding a price, not a company.
Price and value
Forget the Forecast
Interest rates, elections and the next market move are almost impossible to predict. What you can study instead: the business.
Price and value
Investing or Speculating? The Most Important Difference Every Indian Investor Must Understand
The same screen can host two different games. Graham’s test for telling an investment from a bet — and why the difference matters so much.
Risk and temperament
Staying solvent, patient and calm when markets are not.
Risk and temperament
Never Invest with Borrowed Money
Leverage creates nothing of its own — it only multiplies. Why borrowed money can turn an ordinary fall into a permanent loss.
Risk and temperament
The Investor Who Never Has to Sell
A market price is an offer, not an order. Graham’s safety-cushion rule, and three arrangements that keep a crash from forcing your hand.
Risk and temperament
Only When the Tide Goes Out
Easy money hides weak companies. Five signs of a business that can survive a bad year — to check before the tide turns.
Risk and temperament
Temperament Beats IQ
Markets test behaviour more than intelligence. Why the calm investor tends to outlast the clever, anxious one — and how to build calm.
Risk and temperament
Volatility Is Not Risk
A falling price is not the same as losing money. The difference between a temporary dip and a permanent loss — and how to avoid the second.
Risk and temperament
Time in the Market Beats Timing the Market
The market’s best days sit right next to its worst. Why staying invested usually matters more than picking the moment.
All lessons, newest first
Value investing
The EMI Test: Why a Business Whose Customers Buy on Loan Rises and Falls With the Cost of Borrowing
A sweet shop and a flat builder can stand on the same street and feel the same news very differently. Here is a simple test for…
Value investing
The Shop in Someone Else’s Mall: How to Judge a Business That Depends on One Platform
Some businesses reach their customers through their own front door. Others reach them through a door that belongs to someone else. Here is how to tell…
Value investing
From Rs 200 to Rs 10: Why a Business That Cannot Set Its Own Price Must Win on Cost
Some businesses decide their own price. Others are simply told the price every morning. Here is how to tell the two apart, and why the second…
Value investing
The One-Man Shop: Why a Business That Cannot Run Without One Person Is Fragile
Some businesses are really one remarkable person with a shop around them. Here is why that is a hidden weakness, how great businesses plan for the…
Value investing
The Glossy Brochure: Why the Tone of a Company’s Annual Report Is Not Evidence
Philip Fisher warned in 1958 against falling for the tone of a company’s annual report. Here is what that means, why glossy words prove nothing, and…
Value investing
Don’t Buy the Poorer Cousins: Why the Leader and the Also-Ran in the Same Growing Field Rarely Share the Same Fate
When a whole field starts to grow, every business in it seems to ride the same wave. Basant Maheshwari says it does not work that way.…
Value investing
The Signboard Says Since 1952: Why a Business That Has Lasted Long Is Telling You Something
Every old shop in your town has already passed a test that no analyst can run for it. Here is how to read the age of…
Value investing
The Red Queen’s Race: Why Some Businesses Must Keep Running Just to Stay Where They Are
Some businesses spend big every single year and end up exactly where they began. Others spend a little and keep what they earn. Learning to tell…
Value investing
The Second Ledger: Why the Money You Never Made Can Teach You More Than the Money You Lost
Your broker's statement records every mistake that lost you money. It records nothing about the great opportunities you sold too early or never studied. Indian value…
Value investing
The Dog That Did Not Bark: What a Company Leaves Out Can Tell You as Much as What It Says
In a famous Sherlock Holmes story, the clue that solved the case was something that did not happen. The same habit, noticing what is missing, can…
Value investing
The Pilot’s Checklist: Why Even Experts Need a Short List Before They Act
In 1935 the best pilots in America crashed a brand-new bomber because of one forgotten step. The fix was not more training. It was a short…
Value investing
The Cheapest Money in Town: Why What a Bank Pays for Its Money Decides How Good the Bank Can Be
A bank is a shop that sells money, and the price it pays for the money it buys matters as much as the price it charges.…
Value investing
The Owner Eats Last: Who Gets Paid First When a Business Earns a Rupee
Suppliers, workers, lenders and the tax collector all take their share of a business's money before the owner sees a paisa. Seeing that queue shows why…
Value investing
Why, Why, Why, Why, Why: How to Get Past a Company’s First Explanation
When a company's profit falls, the first explanation is rarely the real one. A habit from a Japanese car factory shows how to keep asking why…
Value investing
Water and Diamonds: Why Something the World Cannot Do Without Can Still Be a Hard Business
Water keeps us alive, yet it sells for almost nothing. A diamond keeps nobody alive, yet it sells for a fortune. Here is what that old…
Value investing
The Month the Money Runs Short: What Families Never Stop Buying, and Why It Matters to a Business
When money runs short, a family stops buying some things at once and other things never. A business that sells the second kind has steadier sales.…
Value investing
The Three Sieves: How Chandrakant Sampat, India’s Original Value Investor, Narrowed a Whole Market to a Handful
A grandmother sifts flour through a sieve so that only the fine part passes. Chandrakant Sampat did the same with the stock market, using three plain…
Value investing
The Slowest Step in the Kitchen: Why a Business Can Only Move as Fast as Its Bottleneck
Every business is a chain of steps, and the whole chain can only run as fast as its slowest one. Knowing where that step is, and…
Value investing
Fix the Roof While the Sun Shines: What a Business Does With Its Best-Ever Year
Any business looks wonderful in a bumper year. The more useful question is what its owners do with the extra money: strengthen the business, or stretch…
Value investing
Who Is Standing at the Counter? How to Judge the Quality of the People a Business Sells To
Two pickle makers can report the same sales and the same profit, and still be very different businesses. The difference is who is standing at the…
Value investing
The Milkman’s Map: Why Customers Packed Close Together Make a Business Cheaper to Run
Two milk rounds, the same milk, the same price, the same forty customers. One earns a living and the other loses money. The difference is route…
Value investing
The Copy Test: Could a Rich Rival With Unlimited Money Copy This Business?
A simple question separates a strong business from one that only looks strong: if a rich rival tried to copy it tomorrow, what could the money…
Value investing
The Tiffin Lady’s Arithmetic: What It Costs a Business to Win a Customer, and What That Customer Is Worth Over the Years
Every business pays something to win a new customer. The quiet question is how long that customer stays and what they bring while they are there.…
Value investing
The Umbrella in the Cupboard: Why Spare Cash Lets a Strong Business Go Shopping When Everyone Else Is Panicking
Every household keeps an umbrella for the day it rains. A business keeps spare cash for the same reason. But the best businesses use that cash…
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.