A primer on Indian Stock Market


Jun 10, 2021 See all posts

Notes from a stock market course I took in 2020. Supplement them with google.

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Dividend payout rules :-

– Do not judge dividend by absolute value but by _Dividend yield% aka dividend amount/share price. _
– some crook companies pay dividend by debt. This is the way to shot up stock price as that owner can DUMP.
– avoid companies inconsistent in paying dividends. Check their histories when, when they have paid dividends.
– Check payout ratio
– payout ratio = dividend per share / EPS
– when it is >70% (for example $1 EPS and DPS 80 cents) this ratio is unsustainable. If it is over 100%, just wait for it to tank the dividend program.

Algorithmic Trading Steps -:

Quantinsti has lot of free and paid resources to learn. Even their software, blueshift is very good as well.

  1. Formulate the plan or algorithm. C or C++ in high frequency trading and Python, MATLAB used in other cases.

  2. Backtest the strategy on historical data where your metrics could be -

  3. Dollar P&L or %age of profitable trades.

  4. Sharpe ratio ( a measure of risk-adjusted returns)

  5. maximum drawdown - maximum observed loss from a peak to a trough of a portfolio, before a new peak is attained. Maximum drawdown is an indicator of downside risk over a specified time period.

  6. If backtesting successful, then forward testing is done, if not you will optimize your strategy. Means you will test your strategy on current datat on a simulator. AKA Paper trading.

  7. If successful then you will come to live execution. Here you have to manage certain things.

    1. market risk
    2. operational risk
    3. regime changes
    4. regulatory aspects
  8. Since, it is a very competitive industry, your strategies will not last for long. Thus, you have to make a pipeline of feasible strategies.
    Impact Cost - It is not the fixed txn costs but costs incurred due to liquidity issues in market. Example - You want to sell 1000 shares at Rs 100, best bid availble is 99 for that amount. Impact cost will be 1%.
    Calculation of impact cost -:
    Ideal Price = (Best Buy Price + Best Sell Price)/2
    Impact Cost = (Actual Buy Price – Ideal Price)/ Ideal cost *100


Types of Risks

  1. Commodity price risk - aka raw material price risk. Those using will be +ve correlated, those not will be -ve correlated.

  2. Headline risk

  3. Rating risk - based on what rating agencies rate.

  4. Obsolence risk - Therefore it is important to check the profit growth as well. If profit is declining, then the company may have peaked and now you should exit.

  5. Detection risk

  6. Legislative risk

  7. Inflation risk - matters to company with high debt. So if there is huge inflation in the country then RBI will push up interest rate and company will have problem.


Interpreting book value

Book value market cap = Market cap/(share price/book value)

By the above formula, you will get an actual idea how much capital has been employed by the company. Then you go and check the returns.

Net profit/BVMC => This formula gives the %age money has earned.

When you have this calculation then you know how much above the book value you can afford to buy.

Eg. - when you do this calculation for ABcapital, that’s 7%. You are better off investing in kisan vikas patra. Just an example. Company might improve as well, KVP cannot.

most of the nifty ETFs, mimics the nifty return or their underlying index return. You just have to check, which ETF has lowest expense fee. It can go as low as 0.05%. NEVER invest in mutual funds, they charge very high. 2-3%. If 10% return is being averaged, you are getting only 7-8%. So be careful about expense charges.

Promoters pledge shares to raise money. If promoters are diluting their shares continuously, it is a red flag. Means they do not have trust in the company that’s why they are dumping ownership. Same is the problem with pledging shares. It is very much important they do something productive with the money received from pledging shares.

How to do industry analysis?

Go to ibef.org

– Let’s try to learn the hidden meaning of the data mentioned on the website.

In the IT industry section, it is mentioned that “Expanding the economy to propel growth in local demand”. Now let’s understand its meaning so that it will help you in your investments. We know that clients of IT industries are generally from western countries. You should know that Indian companies and organizations are also growing which means the Indian IT sector is in demand locally also, apart from western countries. Indian IT companies were mostly dependant on foreign revenue, as we know that many go abroad as the clientele of the IT companies is abroad.

Second-line is written that “Strong growth in demand for exports from new verticals”. It means that the IT industries main clients are BFSI segment because they took IT services in early-stage as they had a lot of transaction that is to be reported and stored in the database. So the very first sector that used the IT services was the BFSI sector(Banking and Financial Services Industry). Now IT services are required even in Retail. We even know that IT services are also needed in new vertical and existing industries.

This is one way to read and understand the terms mentioned. When you do this continuously you will start interpreting the sectors. For people who are new to this field, you need to put individual effort to understand the industry. This website will help you in Industry analysis. There are different sections in the Industry, and you must read and understand what this means. I cannot read the whole website for you. To understand the underlying meaning, you need consistency and practice.

There are various options like snapshots, showcase, reports, an infographic on opening a sector. The showcase option gives you the complete history of the company and the top 3 companies in that sector which can help a novice investor.

In similar ways, you can understand the Market size, Investment & development, Total revenue, Government initiatives, Achievements, Road Ahead, etc. about different sectors and act accordingly. If you want to know about any industry this website is enough to give you a good background of it.

Also, the trends section will show you about the recent happenings in the businesses. You can download the reports by creating your account. You can understand how subsidies are given by the government that impact businesses. So knowing the government plans about each sector is also equally important.

There are various e-books available on this platform ibef.org which is a pure gem. If you are so much interested in knowing the Indian economy, you must cultivate the habit of reading these e-books.

Apart from that, you will also get various case studies which will help you identify good sectors. A lot of reports are also available which is worth reading line by line as it gives a detailed understanding of sectors and helps in sector analysis. One can even go state-wise sector analysis which tells us which sector is dominant in which state of India. States have their GDP and they have different weightage to different sectors.


Handy tools to analyze

Porter’s five forces

Goal of PFF = to set up profitability expectations. Therefore competitive analysis is important as comp increases profit decreases.

Potential of new entrants into the industry.

Competition in the industry.

Threat of substitute products.

Power of suppliers like presence of few suppliers means profitability will take a hit at 1st jerk.

Bargaining power of customers means how easy for customers to go to other players if discount not given.

NOTE - Use NPV,IRR. It can be used almost anywhere.

SWOT

S = strength which separates from others.

W = areas where improvement is needed,

O = avenues for growth, horizontal as well as vertical. It can be due to external as well as internal factors.

T = where they can have existential crisis.


Competitive advantage for a company -:

  1. MOAT - like moat around the castle. It refers to a business’s ability to maintain competitive advantages over its competitors to protect its long-term profits and market share from competing firms. It talks about a distinctive advantage.
  2. Brand power/awareness - This can be a moat in fact.
  3. Pricing power - means they have the ability to change prices unlike firms in perfect competition. Like Apple has great pricing power. People will buy it no matter the change in price.
  4. Network - We should consider the network of people, a network of distributors, a network of salespeople of a company. For example, we should check whether the company has a good network of distributors if they are planning to launch a new product in the market. So we should check how easily they have access to the market.
  5. Economies of scale
  6. Corporate Governance - Bylaws and policies followed by management and employees to remain ethical and transparent. It also talks about giving equal rights internally or externally and should follow fair practices as per law. It ensures that companies are following certain guidelines to ensure shareholder’s interests are put foremost in its dealings. We should listen to management commentary of the companies to check for transparency. If it is not clear to the common man, we can rate them low.
  7. But this is very hard to find out. If you have good contacts then it becomes easy.
  8. Business model - It too can serve as a moat when a company is agile enought o change when things go south.

Don’t make assumptions based on your gut. There is enough data to find out, PLEASE use it.


Rajesh Exports Case study

Let us understand the business of Rajesh Export. The sales in December 2019 quarter have dropped as compared to September 2019 quarter. Also, December 2019 sales are lesser than December 2018 sales. This represents that sales have gone down in December 2019. However, we would be focusing on the Qualitative side. Even though the sales are going down their profits are increasing which is a great thing to see in a balance sheet.

They work on a very low margin and still showing a good profit. If we open the website of Rajesh Exports, we will see that they have world’s largest jewelry manufacturing unit in Bangalore, they have world’s largest gold refinery at Balerna, they have SHUBH Jewellers retails showroom at Bangalore, they manufacture LBMA accredited & globally accepted gold bars and they also manufacture world-class jewelry. They are the suppliers of big brands.

The main business that they own is the largest gold refinery. They must be having a lot of competitive advantage, but we need to understand the gold refining & manufacturing business. Most of you may not understand this or may not know about other gold manufacturing businesses. In qualitative analysis, we must have a qualitative understanding of such a business.

India is still a country where you have small retailers who have the maximum connection with the common people of India. Now those kinds of people look for a company like Rajesh exports who are manufacturing gold and can sell to them. Gold manufacturing is one business that can be visualized, and we can understand that with some little margin they are doing this for the smaller players.

When we know this, we must be able to visualize some threats and some opportunities here. Small jewelers’ numbers might get reduced and big jewelers may come into existence and their business may grow. The biggest threat may be slower consumption due to rising inflation. The final product of gold refine will be that they must come out with 24K Bar which will be further given to people who are going to use it for making jewelry.

The second business that can be visualized is manufacturing in which they might be giving supply to small jewelers. Now looking at the change in the shift from small gold jewelers to big gold jewelers they might see a slower demand. There exist Shubh jewelers that are going to compete with other brands like Tanishq and PC jewelers etc. They have planned to open around 3000 stores globally.

We must look at the Business Model to understand the company better. After combining all three things i.e. Gold mining, Manufacturing of Jewellery & Retail of Jewellery, we must look that where the market is going and how much this industry is going to increase keeping in mind that India is the largest consumer of Gold Jewellery.

Don’t take decisions based on gut feeling, instead go for exact numbers that are available easily over the Internet. Always look at Trend and try to analyze the trend. Focus on Sales number of the companies you want to invest in. Try to look at Consumer behavior before taking any investment decision.


Quick Notes

First check about the company, promoters their business then jump to the numbers.

Check profit posted by companies on their net worth, so as to get a clear picture of their growth.

Options Trading

INDIA VIX is the volatility index of NSE. It means how many total %age change could be there in a year. (If value is 30, it means NSE nifty could go up till 30% more and drop to 30% less). The average vix for use is 20.It is important to know volatility of the market to make decisions.


How to become a trader?

If you want to become a trader, try to become fast, sharp, and practice a lot.

“1000 hour golden rule”- if you keep doing something for 1000 hours you become good at it.

I failed miserably in the beginning years and it is very painful when you lose in the market. I started identifying what are the things, which make me emotionally weak and what are those things where I am more into the skin of the trader. I identified a few things, which will explain why and how I made returns on these trades. I identified about one thing that even after understanding the charts well, every time I tried to get the direction of any instrument. There is a very high probability the trading strategies are screwed up even after predicting the direction of the market. I simply cut down the part of the prediction of the market. It means that I will not predict the market and stay always neutral. I will create only market neutral strategies.

Trading rules from a seasoned trader

Rule 1: Even I know 10 strategies, I picked one strategy and mastered over it.

Rule 2: I defined the life of the trade

Before that, I was an Options trader who would believe in decay in pricing for the right options and wait for that day. I cut that part from my strategy and concluded that the market behaves differently in four different sessions. So, I divided my trade into 4 sessions and accordingly place the trade

**Rule 3: I will book my losses ** If my trade has gone wrong from a certain degree. Simply I will book my losses and wait for the next trade that would help me in cutting my losses to a limited amount Rule 4: I would never try to squeeze out more than the expected profit If I wait for more profit and in such a scenario, there is a high probability my profit will turn into losses. I will predefine my overall profit. Last and not the least thing is the selection of the instruments. I would trade into one instrument and it could be nifty, bank nifty, stock options, etc for that day.

This is my experience in trading as an options trader and wanted to share with you as a friend that what are the hidden secrets. On a very bad day, as a trader, you would also face losses. The only suggestion I would advise that until the time you come into the skin of the game do not lose money in the market. If you are planning to become a professional trader, the moment you start losing money in the market you will leave the market. If you want to stay in the market for a very long time, make sure that you are trading only in the excel sheet or on a piece of paper and not by applying your money for initial days.


Option Trading Strategies

Strategies work when instructions are followed with discipline.. If you want to experiment, you must be comfortable with the loss.

  1. Covered call - In which an investor selling call options will also own the stocks. So if price appreciates and he books loss in options, he gains through stock appreciation. And if nothing dramatic happens then a steady stream of income by premiums.

    1. It is good for your owned stocks in which you expect no movements.But underlying asset must be good, that you have researched, not just any stock.
    2. And calculate, when you will start booking loss, like something dramatic happens like that of Reliance and you should be comfortable as it is very risky.
  2. Married Put - When you buy at the money put option for your stock. This is bullish but trader wants to protect himself against sharp decline.

    1. Break even = Stock price + premium paid
    2. this is more like momentum trade where you just take a risk in anticipation for a bull run say due to JB being POTUS. But if you wait for long momentum of market dies. Therefore traders don’t carry forward this usually. Come, book a profit (defined) and close the trade. So, see for yourself.
    3. So, always have predetermined profit and fixed duration.
  3. Bull call spread - Used only when you are extremely certain about the bull rally but try to limit the loss if things go wrong.

    1. Buy call at strike (what you calculated) and sell call at a higher strike so if stock does not reach your strike price, your premium will be lost but loss will be limited as you have collected the premium.
    2. In this profit as well as loss both are limited.
    3. Bull call are generally used only in indexes because indexes generally don’t rally. These are not used in stocks as stocks rally limit profit is not a good strategy.
    4. Max Gain = High strike -low strike - net premium paid
    5. Max loss = net premium paid
  4. Bear put spread - Same as bull call but here you are bearish so you deal with put.

    1. So, Buy put at strike (what you calculated) and sell put at a lower strike so if stock does not reach your strike price, your premium will be lost but loss will be limited as you have collected the premium.
    2. Unlike in bull call, you can use bear put for blue chip stocks because there will always be a limit for their fall.
    3. In Bull call and bear put, expiration should be SAME
  5. Protective Collar - It is used when you expect a little profit but worried about the loss due to fall in stock price.

    1. sell a call option and buy a put option with the same expiration so you have a collar (range). Like when you are bullish for a stock of $10 and sell call at $12 (wanted $2 profit) and buy put at $8.
    2. Put premium financed by given financed by sell premium received.
  6. Long straddle - when you have no idea to either be bull or bear, then this is used.

    1. Here you are sure that volatility is going to be high so you want to profit from it.
    2. You buy both call and put at same strike price and same expiration. Ig market moves up and down strike price +- total premium paid for call and put, you will profit. Else premium paid will be loss.
  7. Short Straddle - You sell when you think market is going to be stable. It comprises of selling both a call option and a put option with the same strike price and expiration date.

  8. Long strangle - same as long straddle but you are sure of the volatility thus you will but OTM call and put. So, it will be cheaper than straddle to implement.

  9. Short strangle - When you sell call and put as you believe market is going to be stable during the life of the option.

    1. For strangle and straddle, you have to be very very sure about the volatility. And you need not to wait till expiry when you take long positions.
    2. NOTE - TEST YOUR IDEAS ON PAPER FIRST. IF YOU ARE PROFITABLE ON PAPER, YOU WILL BE PROFITABLE IN MARKET AS WELL.
  10. Iron Condor - It is to minimise loss which can happen due to short strangle so that your options are not open ended.

    1. So here, you buy call at a higher strike and put at a lower strike than your short positions, thus, your loss will always be limited.
  11. Iron butterfly - The Iron Butterfly Option strategy, also called Ironfly, is a combination of four different kinds of option contracts, which together make one bull Call spread and bear Put spread. Together these spreads make a range to earn some profit with limited loss.

    1. Example - Sell call and put at say 12000 nifty, buy call at 12300, put at 11700.
    2. ? test in excel, how much is going to be the profit loss, when nifty starts moving.
  12. Open Interest means total no. of contracts done. If option contract settles, open interest will decrease. In simple words just the interested parties for that option with active contracts.

  13. PCR or Put call ratio = Open interest of put options/ OI of call options.

    1. Can also be found directly on NSE website under market snapshot.
    2. 0.5 to 1 is regular trading activity
    3. As it goes from 0.7 to 1 means bearish sentiments are building. Simply, people buying more put that’s why
    4. 0.7 to 0.5 means bullish sentiments are building. means call option are increasing
    5. Contrarian bet through PCR - If pcr goes to 1.5, cont will think put has been overbought so market will reverse and have a bull run.
    6. If pcr goes to 0.5 means call has been overbought, so market will have a bear run.
    7. Of course you should have analysed previous years of data to decide whether market starts a bull run when pcr reaches 1.5 or 1.7 and it applies even to the bear run.
    8. When you carefully check, it is not contrarian bet but common sensical. When something is very high, it is supposed to reverse. But market always deceives ,check with the previous data ALWAYS and hedge your bets.
    9. 90% option DO NOT expire worthless as people square off, book their limited losses and look for new positions.

    Technical Analysis

    1. Dow theory is very important to know and apply.
    2. Chartlink is free charting software. You can also check if zerodha provides free software.

    Dow Theory

    1. Stock market discounts everything - means market has all information and reduces value of everything to bare minimum.
    2. 3 trends - primary, secondary and minor.
    3. Primary trend has 3 phases - accumulation , participation and distribution
    4. Volume must confirm the trend.
    5. All market indices must confirm each other - means all indices should confirm a trend if it is actually there.
    6. A trend is assumed continuous until clear reversal occurs.

    Here, I am writing different patterns and strategies used. If you want to use those learn it from other sources. You have to test your strategies by backtesting your decisions. These patters come with a warning - they are correct at best 65-75%

    1. 7-day, 21-day moving average and crossover in excel.

    2. Candle stick charts

      1. 3 strike line - means bull/bear trend for 3 candles then followed by big opposite candle, it indicates trend reversal.
      2. 2 black gapping
      3. 3 black crows
      4. Evening star Doji
      5. abandoned baby
      6. Continuation trend
      7. price channel - In price channel, two parallel lines are there and in which it is safe to buy/sell between the channel.
      8. Gap - Blank space in which no trading takes place. It is common gap, runaway gap, breakaway gap, exhaustion gap.
      9. Head and shoulder pattern - It is a trend reversal pattern.
      10. Triangle - Ascending (bull), Descending (bear), symmetric triangle. It means continuation of the trend.
      11. Flag pattern
      12. Pennants
    3. MACD

    4. RSI

    5. Bollinger Bands

      1. Mean reversion - means prices will move towards historical mean prices. If there is fluctuation in a stock price, you know where it will move towards.
      2. Bollinger band is nothing but a range upto 2 st dev (95%) and using mean reversion to generate signals.

    Common Biases in humans :

    1. Over confidence
    2. Herd mentality
    3. Loss aversion
    4. Confirmation bias
    5. Narrative fallacy
    6. Self serving

    That is why systemizing decisions are so important because these biases can kill you in the market.


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