@Iamsamirarora Even if one had invested when Infosys valuations' were at its peak, one would have still made index-par returns in hindsight

when a stock you own becomes expensive, you rationalize holding on by calling it a compounder. base rate says v v few stocks are real compounders , rest are just pigs with lipstick.

MF : investors must not time the market

Same MF coming with 5 NFOs in bull mkt. best timing decision?

@Bapu__Mishra hardly. 30-40 stocks is fine

Paying 50-100x earnings for 'blue ocean' sectors has become normalized with promise of changing trends and immense future opportunity. Stock markets look forward, if the future opportunity is great, in most cases that 100x valuation already factors a 30x valuation in 3 years.

For investors, the question of where the buck stops is difficult to answer, because the goal post keeps changing. 30x is reasonable for one business, for another 70x is acceptable. So why not everything in between too?

Not every business captures the opportunity available. There is many a slip between the cup and the lip, as my English teacher used to say. When investors have seen valuations creep from 20x to 100x in a matter of a year or two, it is easy to to keep dancing to the same music.

But like we used to play musical chairs in childhood, someone will be left standing too. And here the rules aren't that 1 person gets eliminated at a time, hundreds get crushed at the same time. In childhood, we had a 1/X chance of being caught standing when the music stopped.

The margin of safety was high till you got down to the last 3-4 people playing the game. Similarly, your margin of safety reduces dramatically when valuation becomes irrelevant. A few months of underperformance and suddenly things don't look so rosy any more.

@Gautam__Baid He laid down very similar principles a decade ago in his 1976 letter (Source: https://t.co/6Z5v0qEaIg)

What's amazing is how consistent he's been in following his philosophy even after nearly 5

As investors, we need to qualify the companies in our portfolio.

If they don't meet our cut, we don't invest in them.

Apart from the eventual/current profitability and strong balance sheet, growth is my top requirement.

Here's why:

1/ If a business does not grow, its share price will not grow.

In a corporate lifecycle, a company experiences most growth during its expansion phase. That's where most returns are being created.

This is why high growth companies deliver huge returns.

source: Ravi Kumar

2/ The compounding of growth rates is often underestimated.

It can do wonders for your company.

Growing at 30% turns $1 to $13.79 by Y10.

Growing at 10% turns $1 to $2.59 by Y10.

The share price returns a company can generate based on this is significant.

3/ Here's an example: Crowdstrike $CRWD

It grew its ARR from $71 million in 1Q 2018 to $1,731 million in 4Q 2022.

The magic of compounding.

4/ Simple Back Test

I used my Capital IQ to find out what are the stocks that delivered more than 10x returns in the past 5 years and have at least a market cap of $600m USD.

There are 13 companies.

$APPS $XPEL $TSLA

Here's a fun fact for all the proponents of buying 'Quality companies at any price':

Wipro is a 'Quality Company' and a part of Nifty 50 for most part of the last 20 years

Between 2000-2021, Sales went up 22x while profits went up 33x

Stock returns were basically almost ZERO

@hindsightcapllp @mjmauboussin It still has some life, but will go extinct on the day you see "Adjusted Book Value" in Qtrly Con Calls :)