10 Jun 2009, 0807 hrs IST, Shailesh Menon & Rajesh Mascarenhas, | ||||||||
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| MUMBAI: In 1999, when he was barely 18 years old and still a student, American Timothy Sykes decided to invest his $12,000 gift money in the Now, suppose an Indian investor had been struck by a brilliant flash of visionary foresight at the start of March this year. Starting March 2, which was the first trading day of the month, for the next three months he would know how each stock was going to behave and which one would end up being the best performer every single day. What would our investor have done with just Rs 100? Would he have made Mr Sykes look like a babe in the woods? On March 2, his Rs 100 would have been on Apollo Tyres, the top gainer of the day. At the close of trading, his investment would have been worth Rs 124 and he would have redeemed it to invest the entire amount in Monnet Ispat on March 3. The steel-maker’s stock would then have turned his Rs 124 into Rs 139. Thus aided by prophetic vision our investor would have gone on, watching his Rs 100 multiply manifold as he picked the best-performing stock each day for 57 trading sessions. As general elections drew nearer around the second week of April, there was a wave of positive sentiment towards the troubled export, infrastructure and real estate sectors. Stocks of companies such as Gitanjali Gems, Reliance Infra, Sasken Communication Technologies and Unitech rose smartly on hopes that a new government would come up with plans to infuse new life into these ailing business segments. On the morning of April 16, when India began voting to elect new representatives to the Lok Sabha, our fortunate investor’s Rs 100 had grown to Rs 36,812. He used the money to buy shares of Gitanjali Gems and exited the stock that evening, pocketing a gain of Rs 6,085.
Over the next month, as the world’s largest democratic exercise unfolded, our investor’s Midas Touch with stocks continued. On election results eve on May 15, he parked his money, now Rs 14,11,863, in Aban Offshore. In a little over five hours, he was richer by Rs 3,10,186. Again, on May 18, when trading had to be halted twice as the market showed its glee with the outcome of the election, our prescient investor had picked Indiabulls Real Estate. In less than two minutes of trading, the pre-market opening order for shares worth Rs 17,22,049 has become Rs 22,98,074. Indian investor better off On June 2, after two months of living the fantasy, our investor’s original Rs 100 had multiplied 2 lakh-fold and returned him a fortune of Rs 1,97,03,879. During this period, the benchmark Sensex index of the Bombay Stock Exchange had risen by a measly 50% while it took Mr Sykes over two years to multiply his investment by 137 times. Our investor may have been imaginary and his investments fantastic. But like English novelist Terry Pratchett remarked, “Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can.” | ||||||||
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