Into the unknown world of investing

I have tried blog writing in the past, but am still unsure of writing on 'Áppa's' blog. But I believe that I don't have a choice :-)

So, here is the first one.

Appa had a conversation with me a few days back and told me that he is gifting me some money. I thought it must be a few hundred rupees so I almost missed a beat when he told me that it's approx 1,00,000/-. That's 3 extra zeroes than my assumption.

He told me that he wanted me to invest this in the stock market, and then monitor its movement over the next few years. I have a sinister feeling that he is using this as an opportunity to 'educate' me.

But I have no idea of investment, stock market, stocks etc. Appa assured me that he will guide me through the process. He gave me a list of companies (he used the companies that Saurabh Mukherjea uncle talks about all the time!). I have met him a couple of times in the promenade area in Hiranandani Gardens Powai and he came across as a nice person.

So, Appa asked me to look at this list, and then do some analysis using google. He asked me to look at their share prices and asked me to look at how it looks. I started with Asian Paints and this is what I saw. It was very confusing.

Appa asked me to click on the next tab, which said '5 days'. It appeared even more confusing!!

Appa saw my expression and grinned. I asked him to stop grinning and threatened him to explain otherwise I would like to get back to my BTS videos on YouTube. He grinned even MORE and asked me to then click on the max tab. Suddenly, the graph changed. 




He said ''does this look better?'' It did appear better and organized, but I still did not understand it fully except that it seemed to go UP like a snake.

He told me that the price of Asian Paints appears confusing if you look at it for a day or 5 days or even a month but changes when you look at it for a longer period like more than 10 years.

Appa then said that the list is stocks that he gave me consists of stocks which are like Asian Paints. They were HDFC Bank (Appa's salary comes in this bank, so you got to love them), Relaxo Footwear (they make chappals, you know!!). The list also had ITC. I asked as to what they do. When I heard that they also made cigarettes, I removed it from my list. Nope. Never. Appa was okay with my thought process.

Once I did my analysis, which consisted of looking at the Google data and looking at how the graphs looked like, and whether I liked what business they did, I went to the next step, which was to allocate money to the stocks. I had to pick and choose because I had limited money.

Once I was done, I tentatively showed it to Appa who looked at my allocation and said ''we are ready to roll...''

So, here is my list:

1  Asian Paints

2  Pidilite 

3  Relaxo Footwear

4  Page industries (they make underwear for men, hee hee)

5  Nestle (Maggi Maggi Maggi!!!)

6  HDFC Bank

7  Bajaj Finance (Jennifer aunty works there)

I will update you on how my 'portfolio' is doing, in the next post. 

BTW, I don't know how this going to turn out. So, wish me luck!

Aarushi aka Pihu (or Ace, I love that name :p)