Investing: Rishi Nathany

Readers' Corner

With market crossing 19, 000, is it a good time to enter? Or, should I wait for a correction?
Investing in the stock markets depends on many factors, not index levels alone. Primarily, it is your age, stage, risk profile and time horizon that matter most. Equities have historically delivered superior returns, albeit with interim volatility. If you are up to that, then only should you consider investing in equities. More, despite indices rising, there are a lot of quality stocks available at attractive valuations, which could be bought into. Please understand that time in the market is more important than timing the market. Therefore, if you are a long-term investor, it should not bother you whether the indices are at a particular level, as long as you find value in the stocks you buy, since it is very difficult to predict whether indices will rise or see a correction in the near future.

Public sector banks have not been doing well. Many are available quite cheap as well. Should I go for these or private banks (which are already looking quite expensive)?
PSU banks have not performed well on the markets recently, due to their rising non-performing assets (NPA) levels, given the current economic downturn. Moreover, their results have also been lower than market expectations. Most private banks on the other hand have done quite well, and have also been able to manage their NPA’s better. That is why this valuation gap is there. Despite this, we are still in favour of private banks over the PSU ones at present. We would like to wait and watch for concrete signs of economic recovery and falling interest rates, before buying PSU bank stocks.

I had invested Rs 4 lakh in stocks. My portfolio is down 30 per cent. Should I buy more of these stocks to bring down my buying cost or exit them?
Portfolio rebalancing depends on what stocks make up that portfolio. In case you have well researched quality stocks in your portfolio, which have good future prospects, but have been beaten down in markets, average them by all means. In case you have bought stocks based on news or tips and are not sure how they would do in the future, then you should do some research on them to decide whether to hold, sell or average them.

With gold touching an all-time high, do ETFs still make sense?
Gold ETF’s are one of the most investor friendly ways of investing. It is always advisable to keep a certain percentage of your overall investment portfolio invested in gold, along with other asset classes, depending on your age, life stage and risk profile.

 

Today, Dalmia Securities’ CEO Rishi Nathany answers your questions