My Stock Picks

Chambal Fertilisers has been one of my favourite stocks and I was delighted when it finally crossed 40. The way the promoters have been buying for the past one year, I had expected a higher price since long. But it has never made big jumps during the recent bull run. Of course, everybody who has interests in the Indian stocks knows that Chambal has been a very good dividend yielding stock. Hopefully, it will remain above 40 and touch new highs.

Biocon and Tata Teleservices are my other top picks for long-term, that is at least for the next few years.

Biocon has a charismatic leader, and biotechnology is considered to be the next big thing. Also, the share price is drastically down as compared to the prices during the initial hype. There have no changes in the fundamentals of the company since then. Only the shares are cheaper now - that itself is a strong argument to buy.

Tatas do not like to remain in any spot other than number one or two and they have started making huge plans for Tata Teleservices. The publicly held TTML will be merged with Tata Teleservices when it goes public and it will go public when Tatas become number one or two in the Indian telecom industry. I know that seems a wishful thinking with the other players in the market but you have the examples of TCS, Tata Motors, Tata Steel or Tata Tea.

I also have had high hopes from iGate. I have been patient enough to hold it for the last three years while it had remained range bound when all the other stocks were having a great time. Anyway, I have decided to hold it till Phaneesh quits.

The share picking logic that I follow is to find ones which are fundamentally sound companies and those which have not had huge run ups in their share price recently. The downside of this logic has been that these shares don't participate in the frenzied rallies and are thus termed as market laggards. But I have been reading Warren Buffet and Benjamin Graham and I believe that investment is for a lifetime. I have been part of the stock market scene only for the last 3-4 years and I don't want to judge my investment decisions in such a small timeframe (doesn't mean that there were no spectacular gains).

Investment has not been totally risk-averse though. I believe that animation and special effects outsourcing might become the next big thing after software in India. And I have picked Color Chips in this area. Also need to study something in the ready food products area. Agro Tech might be a good choice.

But I would agree that having a few good index shares might have been a good idea.