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Start Investing Today PDF
Start Investing Today PDF
Start Investing Today PDF
Introduction
It is historically proven that long term returns on investment in Equity
is overvalued or undervalued .This lesson aims to show how to combine
Nifty PE ranges from 15 to 22
Many smart investors watch the Nifty PE (Price Earnings Ratio) for timing
their investment in the stock market. The average P/E of the
broad-based Nifty Index over last 20 years is ~18. Nifty is said to be
trading in an undervalued zone if the PE at which it trades at around 10 to
15. On the other hand, Nifty is said to be trading at overvalued zone if it
trades at around 20-25. And if Nifty trades at P/E ranging between 15 and
20, then it is said to be trading in its normal range. Obviously, the best
time to invest is when Nifty is undervalued because it means that it will
soon rise to reach a normal PE range. On the other hand, if it is
overvalued already, the wise investor waits for existing investors to book
their profits ie. sell off their Nifty shares and thereby earn a profit. The law
of demand and supply tells us that when there are a higher number of
shares available in the market available for purchase, the sellers will be
willing to sell them at a lower price and that is where the wise investor
will buy and therefore enter the market for a subsequent round of PE
moving to the overvalued zone. What is the mechanism by which it
enters the overvalued zone. Well, again as per the law of Demand and
Supply, when there are more people looking for a higher rate of return,
they will be willing to bid higher than the others thereby driving up the
share price leading to a point when the formula for calculating PE shows
that it has become overvalued.
Which PE to adopt- Trailing PE or Forward PE?
A refined method of assessing the prospects of earning is to be guided
by a particular type of PE. There’s Trailing PE and Forward PE. To get clarity
on this, let us first understand what PE means. PE ratio is computed by
dividing the market price with the company’s Earnings Per Share (EPS).
Earnings Per Share of a company is the portion of a company’s profit
that is allocated to every individual share of the stock.
Earnings Per share = Net Profit after Tax / Total Number of Outstanding
Shares
PE = Prevailing Market Price of one Share of the company / Earnings Per
Share
In the case of computing PE of Index, an Index value is divided by
weighted average earning per share of Index constituents. A PE is usually
looked from two perspectives – the Trailing PE and the Forward PE.
Trailing PE implies earning per share in last four quarters while
computation of Forward PE requires expected earnings per share in next
four quarters. When we talk about investment for future it’s more
scientific to look at Forward PE that to look at Trailing PE of the Index.The
Average Forward PE of last 17 years that comes out to be 17 is considered
as fair value Forward PE of the Market for forecasting purpose.
For arriving at what the Forward PE of the index would be, it is necessary
to calculate the Forward EPS of the index. And that requires anticipating
the growth in EPS of Nifty (detailed computation needs to anticipate the
growth rightly in EPS of all the Nifty constituents). So, the NIFTY Forward
EPS is historical EPS plus expected growth EPS in next one year. And as
historical EPS is already a known variable, what remains critical here is
what will be our growth assumption for next one year.
Getting the Historical EPS
The NSE website posts historical PE data on a daily basis on its website.
The PE calculated by NSE is based on standalone results of the Nifty50
constituents. Companies like Tata Motors & ICICI Bank have highly
profitable subsidiaries whose profits are not captured by the standalone
number used by NSE. In order to compute a True Historical PE it is
necessary to use the Total Consolidated Profit of all the Nifty
constituents. Empirically over the last few years it has been seen that the
ratio of Consolidated Profit to Standalone Profit for all the Nifty
constituents put together varies from 1.1 to 1.15.
Figure 2: Nifty forward PE computation for various levels of forward growth assumption
Investment Horizon
Investment horizon is the total length of time that an investor expects to
hold a security or a portfolio. The investment horizon determines the
investor's income needs and desired risk exposure, which aid in
selecting the type of instrument we want to invest in. Establishing an
investment horizon should be one of the first steps to for creating a
portfolio. As investment horizons get prolonged, equities represent a
higher risk-adjusted return than fixed-income securities and cash.
Across shorter investment horizons, equities become the riskier asset
class because they carry higher levels of volatility. For example, a young
professional should be mostly invested in equities because this person's
time horizon could be 30 years or more. For someone nearing retirement,
however, preservation of capital becomes much more important, so
fixed-income investments become more attractive. Typically, long-term
investment horizon portfolios should have a range of 70 to 100% in
equities with the rest in fixed income. As the horizon reduces, the portfolio
should be adjusted accordingly; more of the portfolio should move from
equities into fixed income. Fixed income provides less return over the
long run but increases stability of principal in the portfolio. Mid-term
horizon portfolios should have an allocation of 40 to 70% in equities with
the remainder in fixed income. When approaching the end of the
investment horizon, the portfolio should be allocated to mostly
fixed-income investments to minimize risk. This protects the portfolio
from a major pullback in the equity markets and maintains the principal
amount. Short-term investment horizon portfolios should maintain an
asset allocation of 70 to 100% in fixed income and the rest in equities.
Franklin Templeton India Bluechip fund is one of the oldest mutual funds
in existence. It was launched on 1st Dec 1993. An investor who had bought
into the Franklin Bluechip NFO in 1993 has enjoyed a compounded return
of 20% since inception. In Table 3, we have looked at various market
bubbles and peaks in India over the last three decades and tabulated
the returns of a strategy of buying the Franklin Bluechip fund at the peak
of the bubble and holding for the next ten years. In our markets we have
yet to witness the mania that engulfed the entire nation during the
Harshad Mehta – FII liberalisation bubble. What the table below
demonstrates that even if an investor has been unlucky enough to buy
the peak mania ever witnessed in the Indian markets, he has still
managed to earn handsome returns by simply holding on to his
investment in Franklin Bluechip fund for the a period of ten years. The
worst case scenario is indeed not so scary after all! if you can spend
‘time in the market’ i.e. remain invested for a sufficiently long period of
time!
Conclusion
India as an investment destination is an unique case study since it is
perhaps the only major economy where the where bulk of the actively
managed mutual funds have managed to beat the Sensex return over a
three year timeframe. In fact the dismal performance and high costs of
actively managed funds in mature markets like the U.S.A has led to a
massive shift of retail investment to the tune of hundreds of billions of
dollars out of actively managed funds into passively managed Index
Funds & ETFs. In India even the most mediocre mutual funds have
managed to beat the Sensex returns over a 3-5 Yr. timeframe. In Table 4,
we present the outperformance statistics of some of the most widely
held mutual funds in the country w.r.t. the Sensex since the peak of the
financial crisis in 2008. The Sensex has managed a Total Return
(including dividends) of approximately 80% during that time. As the table
shows all the most popular and widely held funds have managed to
outperform the Sensex during that time period.