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Why net depreciation from capex for computing reinvestment rate

We recently came across a question on Quora about why Prof. Damodaran subtracts “depreciation from capex when computing the reinvestment rate of a business.” It further goes on to state the following: "In his book, [Prof. Damodaran] seems to argue that depreciation is a cash inflow that pays for a part of capex, but I don't … Continue reading Why net depreciation from capex for computing reinvestment rate

Demonetization Blues: Mutual Fund Performance during the latest Correction

What had been a fairly decent year for the equity markets till September 2016 was marred by demonetization in the last two months of the year. The markets gave up most of the gains and ended up marginally positive for the year. Nifty 500 (the index which we feel represents the broader Indian market) reached … Continue reading Demonetization Blues: Mutual Fund Performance during the latest Correction

Long term vs. short term investors – a correct distinction?

On 14 October, Samir Arora, founder of Helios Capital, posed the following question on his twitter account: It was a nice way of highlighting the apparent contradiction that a lot of market commentators fall into when categorising investors as short term and long term. In our view, there are simply investors on the one hand … Continue reading Long term vs. short term investors – a correct distinction?

The Biggest Problem with Price-to-Sales Ratio

The problem of inconsistency and how it can lead to erroneous conclusions... Ratios (or multiples) are a popular tool that many analysts employ to identify cheap stocks. Similar ratios (such as a Price-to-Earnings, Price-to-Sales, etc.) are compared across firms and a company with a lower multiple is considered cheap relative to one that has a … Continue reading The Biggest Problem with Price-to-Sales Ratio

How we earned 16.50% p.a. in a fixed income investment

In November 2013, we made a case for investing in the 20-year tax free bonds of Housing and Urban Development Corporation ("HUDCO") which paid a tax free interest of 9.01% to retail investors. Just to recap, our reasons for recommending the same included the following: Tax-free rate of 9.01% was much better than the after-tax … Continue reading How we earned 16.50% p.a. in a fixed income investment