The Coin

Keeping pace with terminology in the world of investing can be daunting for most investors, so before we dive right in, let’s spare a few moments to grasp the backdrop and context that have led to the emergence of the term ‘smart beta’, after a quick look at what it is. In a nutshell, smart beta sits at the intersection of active and passive investing. While active investing is an ideology that advocates cherry picking and monitoring investments, passive investing most commonly involves investing in a portfolio of securities that replicates an index, without trying to take advantage of ‘mispricing’. For those unfamiliar with these terms, the following sections should help. The reality of active investing – it’s a mixed bag While both – active and passive – approaches have their merits, they also have drawbacks, and to understand this in a bit more detail, let’s start with active investing, the older and more traditional style of investing, with a focu...

Some of us (investors) have lost our pants, and some of us have lost our socks, but all of us have lost something this week, betting on stocks. Some stocks have fallen by 50-60%, maybe more, but even the best of the best have fallen a fair bit from their 12-month highs. So, is it time to go shopping yet? Everybody loves a discount sale... A little under a fortnight ago, this felt like one of those annual online shopping sales. Stocks were available at a discount to their 52 week highs, and while benchmark indices, the NSE Nifty 50 (Nifty) and S&P BSE Sensex (Sensex), hadn't corrected by all that much, several individual names were looking fairly attractive. Even the likes of HDFC and HDFC Bank were available at ~10% lower than they were earlier in the year -- an offer I'd grab almost any time of the year. Let's throw in some data here. Here's how things looked as on the 19th of September 2018. The broader market was even more battered, with the NSE Midca...

It's not uncommon for retail investors to feel left out of a discussion on multibagger stocks -- but that doesn't have to be the case. In reality, investing is simpler than many would think. Most investors feel compelled to discover "hidden gems" in their pursuit of the often illusive and elusive multibagger. However, investing -- much like every other aspect of life -- is as much (if not more) about doing the simple things right as it is about finding obscure names that are virtually unheard of. And as it turns out, chasing the obvious is often a great starting point. Not so little basics -- don't underestimate the obvious A lot of us don't associate large cap stocks with great investment ideas, largely due to the perception that large caps generate limited gains, at least when compared to lesser-known small companies. While that may be true, it does't mean that large caps don't generate impressive or sizeable returns -- and there are several exam...

“Only 1 company on earth can buy grocery chain, be rumored to buy enterprise software company & in both cases be lauded for strategic vision.” That’s how LinkedIn CEO, Jeff Weiner, summed up Amazon’s recent acquisition of Whole Foods. And few could have put it better. It is this brand of strategic vision that has propelled Amazon past the valuations its brick and mortar rivals command, despite their huge lead which spans several decades in some cases. Arguably, it is what recently powered Amazon’s stock price past the $1,000 mark. And it’s this very brand of strategic vision that looks set to take Amazon past the $1 trillion market cap milestone by 2020. Read the whole post on Seeking Alpha .

Snap Inc's early days as a publicly listed company have been a mixed bag. If stock returns are the barometer of success, you'd have to say Snap's IPO has arguably been a success. The stock trades at just over $20.2 a share, implying a near 19% return for investors who bought into the IPO. Annualized, these returns look even better, given that Snap debuted on the NYSE just about three months ago, in early March. For most investors, these are returns you can't complain about. However, for those who bought shares of the company at levels closer to $30 a piece, the experience hasn't been as pleasant, with buyers at the peak now down by over 31%. And as things stand, the narrative doesn't look great for the company, even after such a big correction. To be fair, a big part of the correction took place prior to Snap's disappointing earnings release, and you could put that down to profit booking. However, poor quarterly results have played their part as well,...

There has been a lot of talk about Amazon’s ad-business lately, and for good reason. For Amazon, which can do with some margin expansion, the digital advertising space represents a big opportunity. According to estimates, Amazon’s advertising business raked in $1.2 billion in revenue last year. While the number seems rather small compared to Amazon’s way bigger e-commerce and AWS segments, this segment is growing at a fast clip. Morgan Stanley’s Brian Nowak expects Amazon’s ad-revenue to grow to $7 billion by 2020. However, the opportunity could be even bigger. Exactly how big? Read the whole post on Yahoo Finance .