An Introduction

Welcome,

A joint effort of Abhinav Mansinghka and Niren Parekh this blog will focus on thoughts & investment opportunities in the Indian equity market. “Manufactured Luck” as the name suggests is the basis of our investment philosophy.

Asked whether he would prefer courageous generals or brilliant generals in his army, Napolean replied; "I would rather have lucky generals"

God be with those who do not think that luck has a large role to play with investment success. While all of us like to be lucky especially so with investments, we believe that there is a process, which employed diligently can increase the odds of getting lucky over the longer term. A river with lots of fish might be your best chance at fishing success as compared to the pond at which some bloke got lucky yesterday.

Some pointers to our thought process: (we’ll keep exploring details of the same via posts later on)

• Rather than trying to be great value investors we aspire to be professional opportunists (as Sam Zell said). We try to go where there is a money making opportunity with minimal downside risk.
• We use multiple frameworks including Graham’s statistical cheapness, Buffett’s economic moat oriented businesses, Phil Fischer’s scuttlebutt approach, Munger’s multi-disciplinary approach etc. etc.
• We are not obsessed about finding the next super multi-bagger, virgin stocks which no one has tracked till date, micro cap or small cap ideas. Rather we think liquidity serves as a good risk mitigation tool against your mistakes of evaluating ideas.
• We strongly believe in “Shit Happens” and hence believe in diversification for building a portfolio.

Why this blog?

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• Having some experience in both the buy and the sell side, we think the most abused word in the equity markets is “Maine bola tha” (i.e. I told u so). To guard ourselves from this hindsight bias, we think the simplest solution is to documents your thoughts at a particular point in time. This blog is mainly to serve as an aide memoir to us for improving our thinking process over a period of time.
• There will be no TIPS here. We have no expertise and can’t guarantee magic in the art of making money and hence the ideas discussed in this blog should not be taken as an investment advice. It is your own hard earned money and hence only you should be responsible for all decisions regarding it. It can be safely assumed that we have a vested interest in the ideas we have discussed on the blog.
• Lastly and most importantly, we seek counter arguments, constructive criticisms and different perspectives on our ideas and thoughts. As Daniel Kahnemann , puts it seeking “disconfirming evidence”. We thank you in advance for letting us know your views.

Who are we?

Abhinav has spent more than a decade in various functions in the Indian mutual fund industry. He now works as an independent equity analyst and advisor and is also an avid corporate trainer.

Email: mansinghka.abhinav@gmail.com

Niren is a Chartered Accountant by profession and a PGDBM from MDI, Gurgaon. Had the fortune of studying under Prof. Sanjay Bakshi and working with Mr. Raamdeo Agarwal. The last engagement was with the investments team of an AMC. Currently managing own funds, he aspires to known as one of the greatest common sense investors.

Email: nirenparekh@gmail.com