At any given point in time, there is always a story in the stock market that is cited to be a sure-shot winner, mutli-bagger, jackpot or whatever else it may be called. It can be Internet stocks one day, retail stocks the next, realty stocks the day after and so on. As more and more traders hear about the story and prices starts zooming, there is always the temptation to jump on the bandwagon and shovel in a large chunk of the portfolio in such stocks.
That is not such a good idea. Over-betting stems from over confidence and over confidence as we all know, has no place in stock markets. Betting a large chunk of your investment into any one idea can lead to significant diminishing of capital once the sector falls out of favour.
It is best to restrict exposure to any one stock to 2-3 per cent of your portfolio.
Diversification is the key to successful management of your investment portfolio. We talked about diversification within the equity portfolio in the preceding paragraphs. But the overall investment portfolio should also be diversified with money invested across asset classes so that the portfolio is cushioned from the vagaries of the stock market.
The exposure that an investor or trader has to the stock market should be related to his assessment of the market's trend. As the market starts looking over bought, over stretched etc, the exposure to the stock markets should be reduced and cash should be moved into safer avenues of investment. The extent of speculative activity evident in the markets can be used to guide the investors regarding formation of market peaks. Revival of interest in penny stocks, increase in the number of stocks hitting 52-week highs, surfacing of scams etc. are some of the common symptoms of a market nearing its peak.
Similarly, as the market sentiment turns negative more money should be moved away from equities.
It is not possible to take all the money out of the market or to move all the money in to the market. Scaling down the exposure is the second best alternative.
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TODAY'S HOT STOCK PICK: BHARTI AIRTEL
BSE CODE: 532454
REC: BUY
TARGET : Rs. 325
STOP LOSS: Rs.305
BHARTI AIRTEL LTD
LTP: Rs.311.20
PREV. CLOSE: Rs.300
CHG %: 3.73%
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Description
Bharti Airtel Limited is a provider of telecommunication services with presence in all the 22 licensed jurisdictions in India and in Sri Lanka. As of March 31, 2009, it served an aggregate of 96.6 million customers. It operates through five segments. Mobile Services segment offers mobile services using global system for mobile communication technology. Telemedia Services segment provides broadband and telephone services (fixed line) in 15 circles spanning over 95 cities with focus on media and entertainment solutions, such as direct-to-home and Internet protocol television. Enterprise Services Carriers segment provides a portfolio of services to enterprise and carrier customers. Enterprise Services Corporate segment includes services, such as Internet services to corporate customers. Passive Infrastructure Services segment, through Bharti Infratel Limited, deploys, owns and manages passive infrastructure in 11 circles of India. All the services are provided under the Airtel brand.
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HOT NEWS
Bharti puts in bid for BWA spectrum
A day after putting in application for 3G licence, Bharti Airtel applied for broadband wireless access services spectrum for which the government has kept the reserve price at Rs 1,750 crore.The last date for applying for both 3G and BWA spectrum is on Friday. Auction for BWA spectrum will begin on April 11.
The government has fixed the reserve price of Rs 1,750 crore for pan-India spectrum. Two blocks of 2.3 MHz spectrum in each circle will be put up for the auction.
So far Vodafone, Tata communications and Mumbai-based Tikona services have applied for BWA spectrum.
Besides, these four service providers US-based chipset maker Qualcomm has also bid for pan-India BWA spectrum.
Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) spectrum is necessary for rolling out Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (Wimax) services that helps hand-held devices and laptops to access the Internet.
However, Qualcomm's plans to use the BWA spectrum for offering TD-LTE, which is the advanced version of 3G technology, has not gone down well with Wimax players.
Bharti had already applied for pan-India 3G licence.
The government will be sell spectrum to three players across the nation with the exception of a few states where four slots will be on offer.
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Trading tips
Never try to fight a trend by taking positions against the prevailing trend. Though it may be always tempting to buy a stock that is falling with an intention to lower the average cost of acquisition, such a practice should be avoided. This will be tantamount to throwing good money after bad.
Always have a stop-loss and an exit price clearly defined before making a trading decision.
There are several methods to arrive at stop-loss levels. If you are unable to identify a logical or reliable stop-loss level, use a fixed money-based stop method, which fits into your psychological comfort zone.
Never hold on to a trading or investment position that has moved past your psychological zone of comfort.
If you are not disciplined to cut positions on the breach of stop-loss, it could turn out to be a psychologically arduous task to cut those loss-making positions when prices keep moving against you.
Always take care of your losses and profit would take care of themselves.
Periodical profit booking and re-entry on fresh "buy" triggers are crucial aspects of success in stock market investing. There is nothing wrong or inconsistent in buying a stock at slightly higher levels after having booked profit earlier.
Keep track of stocks you find are in a long-term upward trend and take positions on fresh "buy" triggers. The key aspect is to ensure that the long-term trend is intact and there is a valid reason to take fresh exposures.
Even after the stop-loss is hit, investors should not ignore the stock they have been tracking.
It may well turn out that the stock could reverse trend and get back to the target zone envisaged earlier.
The stop-loss might have been hit owing to either an incorrect stop loss or a change in the short-term trend. The stock price may reverse at lower levels and manage to move to the earlier determined target zone.
Not willing to play a guessing game
Various technical indicators in the derivative segment (detailed below) captured the nervousness and weakness in the underlying market over the past month. However, the primary reason for the indicators turning weak is low trading volumes, suggesting that not many investors were willing to take bold calls in a volatile market.
Volatility
When dealing in options, one has to consider two kinds of volatility — historical and implied.
Historical volatility measures how erratic or volatile the stock has been in the past while implied volatility (IV) measures the market's perception of how erratic or volatile it may be in future.
In determining whether options are cheap or expensive, it is the volatility that offers the clues. When a stock is fluctuating wildly, it is volatile, which in turn increases the volatility component. When volatility increases, so do option prices. When stocks are stagnant, volatility decreases which, in turn, brings down the option premiums. Now, with the market swinging wildly almost on a daily basis, volatility levels have surged to historic highs.
Put/call ratio
It is a ratio of the trading volume (and open interest) of put to call options. For example, a high volume of puts compared to calls indicates a bearish sentiment in the market. As this ratio increases, it can be interpreted to mean that investors are putting their money into put options rather than call options. An increase in traded put options signals that investors are either starting to speculate that the market will move lower, or starting to hedge their portfolios in case of a sell-off. However, investors have predominantly used put options only as hedging tools.
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DISCLAIMER:
The stock picks and recommendations are based on the information we collect regarding those stocks. However it's your discretion to select a stock to buy/sell and you have to use your personal check about the price or news related to those stocks and use your due diligence before buying or selling any stock. And you've to understand that we're not responsible for your loss/profit on our stock recommendations or picks.
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