“In the 1930s, out of power and financially strapped, Churchill taught a lecture course at Cambridge on human sociology.  One afternoon standing at the lectern and, always prone to the dramatic, he turned to the large class and demanded, “What part of the human body expands to 12 times its normal size when subjected to external stimulation?”

The class gasped.  Churchill, obviously relishing the moment, pointed at a young woman in the tenth row.  “What’s the answer?” he demanded.

The woman flushed and replied, “Well, obviously it’s the male sexual organ.”

Wrong!” said Churchill.  “Who knows the correct answer?”

Another woman raised her hand.  “The right answer is that it’s the pupil of the human eye, which expands to twelve times its normal size when exposed to darkness.”

“Of course!” exclaimed Churchill, and he turned back to the unfortunate first woman.  “Young lady,” he said, “I have three things to say to you.  First, you didn’t do the homework.  Second, you have a dirty mind, and third, you are doomed to a life of excessive expectations.”

The reason why I recounted that story is that the key to successful investing is expectations and you can make money and much more than 12 times when your expectations differ materially from those embedded in market prices and you are right.

And you increase your chances of being right when you have an edge.

Bill Miller, the market beating portfolio manager of Legg Mason, wrote that there are three sources of competitive advantages that an investor can develop: informational, analytical or behavioral.

Informational is when you know something material that others don’t. It is extremely difficult to get that edge in large, well researched stocks unless you act unethically on inside information. But small and midcap stocks, which are outside the radar of most brokerage houses, offer possibilities of developing that edge.

Take the second sort of edge: Analytical advantages come from taking publicly available information and processing and assessing it differently from others. And finally, there is the behavioral edge and there are ways to systematically exploit human behavior in the financial markets. I don’t want to go into prospect theory, support theory, cognitive psychology and neuroscience but behavioral finance and investor psychology are as important as understanding financial statements and valuation metrics.

Capital Ideas Online has promoted Capital Ideas Club. You may be seeing the banners and pamphlets of Capital Ideas Club and may well wonder why you need a CIC when you have CCI in Bombay.

Capital Ideas Club is an exclusive investment community where the best value investment ideas are presented and reviewed by other expert investors.

I urge you to apply for membership because this will be a great way to become a better investor and analyst as your ideas will be shared in an online forum with other expert value investors.

Membership is free, but will be limited to only a few sophisticated investors who will join based on the quality of their investment idea. Just 200 members will qualify for the Club.

The admission will be granted only after a careful screening of candidates.

Each person applying must submit an application at www.capitalideasclub.com that includes a current investment recommendation.

The quality of the applicant's investment analysis and research will be the main criteria for admission. Entrants submitting the best ideas will be accepted as members of the Capital Ideas Club and will be eligible for a quarterly cash prize. Let me emphasize that I suspect that for members the main motivation will be the thrill of playing the game and not the spoils.

There will be a 45 day delayed Access to ideas posted by members for non-members and only members will be eligible to post ideas.

With the investment community and your blessings and support, I would like to today formally launch the Capital Ideas Club.

We had released the book “India's Money Monarchs” last year. The book has done extremely well. There are a few copies available for those who wish to buy them at the stall at a special 40% discount.

Capitalideasonline.com would like to thank the Bombay Stock Exchange for allowing the use of this Convention Hall and the help and support they gave us for today’s evening. In particular, I would like to thank Mr. Kalyan Bose, Mr. Jeevan Sakpal, Ms. Saheli Chatterjee and Mr. Balasubramanian. Capitalideasonline.com would like to thank Reliance Mutual Fund for sponsoring the event and Emkay Shares and Stock Brokers Limited for being the associate sponsor and Business Standard for being the media partner. I would also like to thank Mr. Rakesh Jhunjhunwala for his support.

Capitalideasonline.com would like to thank the members of the today’s panel Mr. Ramdeo Agrawal, Mr. Anoop Bhaskar, Mr. Sanjoy Bhattacharya, Mr. Prashant Jain, Mr. Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, Mr. Madhusudan Kela, and the moderator Mr. Ramesh Damani for taking time out to be with us today.

I would like thank Mr. Chetan Ahya of JM Morgan Stanley, who looks after India and South East Asia and who is the Indian economist most quoted in “The Economist” for his spontaneous agreement to giving the closing remarks and the vote of thanks.

I would like to thank all the members behind Capital Ideas Online – Mr. Navin Agrawal, Mr. R N Bhaskar, Mr. Manish Chokhani, Mr. Ramesh Damani, Mr. Jamshed Desai, Mr. Bharat Shah, Mr. Utpal Sheth and Mr. Avinash Wadhwa. Above all I would like to acknowledge the contribution made by Mr. Chandrakantbhai Sampat and his guiding values.

For making Capital Ideas Club possible I would like to thank Mr. Bhavya Jain for his untiring effort and guidance. I would like to also thank Mr. Mayank Sharma.

I would like to thank Mr. Ramesh Wadhwa and Mr. Ravi Wadhwa for going well beyond the call of duty to make this evening a success. I would like to thank my wife, Sheila for all the work she put in behind the scenes. I would also like to thank Praveen Parola for the effort he has put in.

Value investors often refer to short-term price movements as noise. May I request you not to add to the noise by switching off your mobile phones.

It is a pleasant duty for me to hand over the remaining part of the evening to the wizard behind the wizards of Dalal Street, Mr. Ramesh Damani. He is a famous and familiar figure in India’s capital markets and his contribution to educating Indian investors is unparalleled.

Rameshji has been a member of the Bombay Stock Exchange for over a decade and a half. He is probably the most listened to financial commentator. He is one of the India’s savviest investors. Rameshji will be in charge of the rest of the evening. So join me in welcoming the magical money maestro, Mr. Ramesh Damani.

Ramesh Damani: To start the discussion we turn to the king of the panel first – so I’ll start with you, Rakesh, as always. Well, what do you think of the market?

Although you could have the economy growing but you could have very high interest rates which is a big factor in the valuation of the market. That could temporarily disturb the market.

As long as India’s economy is doing well and I see no reason why it shouldn’t – the bull market is very much alive and kicking for me.

Ramesh Damani: Sometime they say stock prices are slave to corporate profits over the long term. What is your outlook for corporate profits or the Sensex in 2007?

Rakesh Jhunjhunwala: Well, to be very frank, I don’t do too much mathematical research. I don’t say that India is going to have consistent profit growth of 25-30 per cent y-o-y.

But I do believe that you have the biggest market and the biggest opportunity for all companies is the economy. Look at any sector, everything is at such an early stage of growth.

Ramesh Damani: I now have a question for you. We have had four years of solid gains in the Sensex. Do you make it five years in a row for 2007?

Rakesh Jhunjhunwala: Well, seeing the apprehensions that people have, I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t be. Because if you have 15 to 18 per cent earnings growth, unless P/Es dip or those earnings dip, I don’t see any reason why there should not be a positive year.

Ramesh Damani: Sanjoy, in the 2006 roundtable, you had said that India will grow but it might be unprofitable growth. Were you here too early? Will margins shrink this year or inflation lead to unprofitable growth? 

Sanjoy Bhattacharya: I got it wrong the previous year. Clearly, I missed the way the economy would respond to a number of different stimuli – whether it was policy driven or liquidity driven – and many of those remain in place. To not have learned from that would be a tremendous sin.

Much of what has transpired in the past 12 months is indicative as Rakesh said of a turning point for this nation’s economy.

This market bears a burden of very high expectations. And the way people are pricing future earnings suggests that, the penalty for getting that wrong will actually be quite serious.

I don’t doubt that if you have an economy growing at 14-15 per cent in nominal terms and you have certain advantages which are there to stay and which are long term in nature, things are improving. That is a clear indication that things are getting better. That can only help productivity.

Ramesh Damani: And margins then?

Sanjoy Bhattacharya: Margins are a function of where you are. I mean clearly in manufacturing margins are driven by factors which are not solely in the control of our economy.

Today we are much more open as an economy. There is much less tariff protection; much more global impact of commodity prices. So you are not able to insulate yourself from them and as we speak today, a lot of these things suggest that margins will be under pressure.

Ramesh Damani: If you were to say outlook for 2007 in terms of the Sensex, would you say it would be a negative year?

Sanjoy Bhattacharya: I do think though that 2007 will not have the kind of returns we have seen in the last four years. We will not see 30-40 per cent plus type returns spread. The last four years actually have seen the index multiplying 4 1/2 times.

Ramesh Damani: Raamdeo, you started this great Bull Run with low interest rates as you said because previously capital was always crowded. In 2003 capital became easily available.

Now you’re seeing the tightening–prime rates are going up, housing rates are going up. Can that then stop all or even finish this bull market because interest rates are now swinging from low to extremely high? 

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Raamdeo Agarwal: This is the first globalised bull run in every asset class all over the world. The world economy is struggling to figure out all this noise about inflation, and only time will tell because there is no dearth of money.

The government is worried about the response to inflation and is saying the rate will fall in April. But the issue is that it is responding by closing down exports. So what happens is when sugar export was possible, you banned it. You got the inflation under control but what happened? It has shattered the entire sugar community.

Ramesh Damani: Raamdeo, what are your (Motilal Oswal’s) forecasts for 2007 Sensex earnings?

Raamdeo Agrawal: By the last count when this quarterly results got completed, our team had an EPS of Rs 710 for FY07 and more like Rs 840-845 for FY08 for the Sensex stocks.

Ramesh Damani: Madhu, Jim Rogers says that there is a 20-year bull market for commodities. But yet commodities sold off quite sharply recently. If you see, oils, zinc, copper have all sold off. What is your view on the commodities price going ahead?

Madhu Kela: See, I am not a commodity expert. But however you see there are pockets of commodities which will do well. Soft commodities in the world would do well.

Things like food grains which have not seen any price – real rise in the world – will do well. But, I am truly scared when I look at let’s say something like zinc. You know on a five-year perspective is there a possibility that zinc prices can be stable at $3000-3500 a tonne while your cost of production is $500-600 for an efficient player? So these commodity prices which have really hit a significant high from their lows may not sustain. But that does not mean you will have bearishness across the board in commodities.

Ramesh Damani: Madhu, you have been one of the most successful stock pickers. Any particular themes that you think will work in 2007? In 2006, Madhu had come here and had said the thing to attract is real estate. What do you think of real estate now?

Madhu Kela: I am certainly not as gung-ho as I was last year. And in my wildest of imaginations, I also didn’t expect that stocks will go 100 times in a matter of a year. So, having said that, I don’t think you can completely ignore this sector because this is where 30-40 crore Indians are interested. Land and property would always be an interest to India. So you have to be far more stock specific and try and find value which will emerge in this sector.

Ramesh Damani: Tell us how the Sensex will end this year, plus or minus?

Madhu Kela: I am positive in a longer run. Making money is going to be tough if I take a 12-18 or even 24 months period. There are not companies which are available at 5 or 10 P/E multiples. However, we have had 50 years of under-valuation in India. What is the big deal about over-valuation for 12 or 18 months?

Ramesh Damani: Prashant, how seriously should investors view the threat of inflation and what do you tell your investors and how do you protect your portfolio in this case?

Prashant Jain: Real inflation is actually much more than probably what the numbers are suggesting. The largest component in any household expenditure is a house and houses are clearly unaffordable by whichever measure you see. If you look at the inflationary impact on the total consumption expenditure of the household, inflation is way in excess of what these numbers suggest.

Banks are offering 10-11 per cent on deposits, and as we go into March they may start offering 12 per cent. So over long periods of time, there is certainly a strong case to be made that exposure to equities in Indian households which is very low should increase significantly but I don’t know at what pace it will happen – given the fact that fixed maturity plans from mutual funds offer virtually safe 10 per cent return, which used to be 5-6 per cent two-three years back.

Economic growth will still accelerate, but profit growth will slow down. Profit growth will be lower in 2008 than the profit growth in 2007, and 2009 will be even lower.

Ramesh Damani: Does Raamdeo’s Sensex earnings target of Rs 840-845 seem too optimistic to you?

Prashant Jain: Yes. I don’t look at the Sensex as one composite.

In fact, Sensex has two parts to it–the secular growth companies which would be companies like telecom, IT, consumer goods and the cyclicals. If you split the Sensex into these two parts, you will get a more realistic picture of the valuations. And it is not very good. If you look at the secular growth companies they are all trading at close to 20 times FY09 earnings – two years forward, which is not cheap.

And there are risks – telecom will certainly slow down by then. You cannot have 100 crore mobiles in India in the next four-five years. So it has to slow down. You can only argue whether it will take three months or six months or one year.

Cyclical growth companies are trading significantly above replacement cost and we are somewhere close to a peak cycle. So how the sectors will pan out, how zinc, lead, aluminium and steel prices behave, how the margins behave is very hard to forecast. One thing is clear that these are economically unsustainable prices and these profits are not likely to sustain for long time. 

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Ramesh Damani: Anoop, what is your outlook for the market? Are you more cautious or optimistic?

Anoop Bhaskar: Last year has been quite camouflaged. If you look at the large-caps, there are only six or seven stocks which have contributed to the entire movement of the markets.

In terms of small-caps, we have been in a bear market for the last 15-18 months. So, it is only six stocks which have made this whole audience come out here and say that we are still in a bull market. The bull market has stopped around 12-15 months back, frankly.

People with only small-caps and mid-caps in their portfolios would have only gained about 8-12 per cent in the last eight months, which is not a bull market. I think we’re taking a breather.

With interest rates being where they are, a rational investor would take a three-month deposit paying about 9.5-10 per cent. So, people should invest in debt rather than equity with such returns from the markets.

In equity it is more like a marathon–you cannot run a sprint all the time. This is the point where you conserve your energy for the next 12-18 months and make sure that you conserve your capital for the next round. You cannot keep on running a 100-metre sprint for the next 20 years for sure. There are times when…

Ramesh Damani: …you got to move to debt or the like. Having said that, for the record, I think everyone knows the answer, but what would 2007 end for the Sensex, plus or minus?

Anoop Bhaskar: It will depend a lot on liquidity because what really matters today is not value, it’s only liquidity. I think the Sensex will be down between 7-10 per cent.

Ramesh Damani: In the first part, we surveyed the forest. Now we take a look at the trees. How do you turn the big picture view about the economy, interest rates, equity markets into winning stocks? There is, of course lies the essence of successful investing. The panelists have a vested interest in the recommendations they are making. Moreover the panelists may change their views on the stock recommendation at any point and therefore investors are requested to do their own homework before acting on this advice. I will start with my favourite stock-picker, Bhattacharya… I would like to see three good stock ideas from you, for one year or three years…

Sanjoy Bhattacharya: Tata Elxsi, Grindwell Norton and Rane (Madras). Tata Elxsi is in a focused business, it has gone away from doing things which it didn’t do well earlier. So, it has learnt from the past mistakes and is actually a rare company in information technology where the margins are becoming higher and higher progressively.

Second, the valuations still remain very attractive. This year it will earn Rs 16 per share. If you leave out the fact that it has had a difficult and troubled past, its earnings power relative to capital that it is employing is very impressive, a reasonably impressive management team and the growth is definitely sustainable.

Ramesh Damani: And a merger with TCS on cards?

Sanjoy Bhattacharya: That would be a cherry on the top. I need not worry about that at all, even if it does not merge with TCS. Next one, Rane (Madras) is a play on the Indian automotive industry. It is in linkage products and manual steering gears.

Fortunately, in the Indian passenger vehicles, tractors, LCV business, a very large proportion of vehicles manufactured in these categories have manual steerings. So, growth is assured. Second, it has a very strong dominant competitive position with only two serious competitors – Sona Koyo and ZF Steering, and the record of all three suggests that the industry as a whole is doing very well. Third, it has been through a major financial restructuring. So, you will see a dramatic change in terms of the efficiency with which capital is utilized to prepare and grow for the future. And in exports, it has a link with TRW, a major global player.