Investment philosophy Prof. Sanjay Bakshi, in his interview to SafalNiveshak.com said “What I tell my students is that they should get exposure to a variety of value investing styles.” John Templeton had many times spoken about "Importance to look for new ways to select stocks." I am deeply influenced by these words. So over the next few years I will try to explore various themes and pen down my thoughts over various investment ideas and themes through this blog. Till few months back, I restricted myself to out of favor stocks which were available at low single digit PE/PB. But posts by Prof Bakshi on quality stocks here and here, convinced me that its best to focus on high quality stocks, which can continue to grow for a LONG TIME. Currently my focus is on two kinds of situations 1) High quality stocks which I will be comfortable in holding for next 5-10 years and maintaining a concentrated portfolio of 8-10 such stocks. 2) Hold 3-4 stocks in expansion bucket or any other situation, which can give 3-5x in 3-5 years. I have written about expansion bucket here, under heading ‘Basket approach’ I have written repeatedly in the past that I am following time diversification to reduce the impact of my immaturity on my portfolio. Rather than keeping the entire surplus in debt mutual funds, I allocate a part of it to 1) Special situations comprising open offers, delisting and buy backs and 2) Place-holders - where I am VIRTUALLY CERTAIN of return at par with fixed deposit and probability of PERMANENT LOSS OF CAPITAL is VERY LESS. In special situations, my strategy is to buy into uncertainty on favorable terms. I fully agree that Return Per Unit of Stress in special situations is far lower compared to high quality stocks. I am trying to reduce stress by being very selective and investing only when I am comfortable in taking an initial position of atleast 5%. Other thing which I do is to exit the position before tendering begins in open offer and delisting. Over the last two years I have read a lot and am particularly influenced by investment philosophy of Howard Mark, Tweedy Browne partnership firm, Martin Whitman, Seth Klarman, John Templeton, Benjamin Graham, Irving Kahn, Warren Buffet and Prof. Sanjay Bakshi. Below are few of the core principles which I picked up from these great investors:

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Companies with strong entry barriers/moats. It should be a company which you are ready to hold on, if markets closes down for five years. [Warren Buffet].

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Strong financial position: The company ought to have a strong financial position that is measured not so much by the presence of assets as by the absence of significant encumbrances [Martin Whitman].

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Instead of setting target rates of return, focus on reducing losses: Setting a goal, unfortunately, does not make that return achievable. Avoiding losses is the most important prerequisite to investment success. Future is unpredictable, so be prepared for the worst event, even if they occur once in a century. [Seth Klarman].

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Diversification: No matter how confident you are, you shouldn’t have more than 10% of your net-worth in a single stock. It’s an insurance policy against over-confidence [Prof Sanjay Bakshi]

My journey from Sell side Analyst to Value investor Equity Investment has always been my passion. I always aspired either a sell side or a buy side analyst. To achieve my goal I joined a captive KPO in 2006. After my role was made redundant in Nov 2011, I decided not to take up job anymore. I got courage to take up my passion of full time investment after reading inspiring story of Prof. Sanjay Bakshi here. After going through Prof. Sanjay Bakshi blog and his lectures slides, I realized that I need to unlearn lot of things and learn the new world of value investing.