Subra I heard you are the best person in Cynical Personal Finance training…so I chose to meet you…Let me ask you a few questions Sir:

Subra will you please tell me what is Value Investing?

Subra: Well, well. “Value investing is the art of picking up shares at a low price, knowing it has value, having the patience to nurture the share during a tough period, hold it for real long periods, know how the value will be unlocked, have the brains to see the Quarterly results and the wisdom to know whether the direction is correct. One day sell it at an obscene multiple of purchase price – however the holding period could be in multiples of the number 3650”

Sir this is too damn complicated. Can you give some examples?

Yes, if Warren Buffet does it, it is called Value investing.

A couple of good guys who do it are I Pru’s Naren Sankaran, and theoretically Mark Mobious in Templeton.  However I heard that Chetan is better than MM, but that is my view, and may be wrong. My broker is also from the same school as these guys as is Chetan Parekh of Jeetay and Parag Parikh too. However like Vallabh Bhansali…these 3 people do not have a public track record you can only guess from a distance.

Sir: Is it easy

Subra: Of course it is easy. Advisers tell you all the while ‘Buy Low and Sell High’

But sir my family believes that they always Buy Low and sell Lower what to do?

Subra: Hmm I know people who invested in RIM, Reliance Power, Reliance Communication and of course Crest Animation. All these people believed in Value Investing.

For some of them Value investing is the art of picking up the stocks in the Pump and Dump game. Such guys have fantastic advisers who have all value in the brokerage statement and Not in the portfolio statement.

So your family is a Value Investment for your broker.

Thank you. Tomorrows class we will talk of something as intersting