Risk Comes from Not Knowing What You are Doing

Businessman jumping across the mountain taking risk

Driving an automobile is Not Risky; driving, without adequate training is – not only to the driver but also to all other unsuspecting road users, and that is why my Guru, Warren Buffett said, “Risk Comes from Not Knowing What You are Doing”.

Often I have heard people proclaim, sporting an, “I Know Everything” smile, that they diligently avoid investing in stocks, as it is Highly Risky.  On questioning how they had come to such a conclusion, they would invariably attribute the wisdom to their parents, teacher, colleague or friend. When questioned where they would prefer to invest, they would retort, with authority, “Corporate Fixed Deposits and Bonds – Rock Solid Safety”.  Sadly, after a few years, I have seen many of them Loose both Capital and Interest, and repent their poor investment decisions.

The moral of the story is, Risk or the Lack of It, does not lie in any particular instrument, but lack of knowledge.  A fixed deposit with a government bank in India indeed is as solid as rock, there is no doubt, but with an interest rate around 7% per annum and inflation near or above the rate of return, the “Value” of your investment is bound to be eroded for sure, over a period of 15 to 20 years.

On the other hand, if an investor had invested Rs.1,00,000 ($ 1470) in “NIFTY 50” in January 1995 and had simply forgotten about it, today in June 2016, it would have grown to Rs.809,400, a growth of 709% or a Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of a whopping 32.99% per annum.  Even after an assumed, high, inflation rate of 10%, the investor would be left with a net return of 22.99%, Compounded Every Year!  So, Where Does Risk Lie? Not in the “Instrument”, certainly, but in “Ignorance”. 

Who is Afraid of Brexit, Really?

Last Friday, the 24^th June 2016, which the media christened “The Black Friday”, when the global financial markets roiled, and lost over $2 trillion in value, Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) sold shares valued Rs.629 crore ($92 million), and retail investors purchased stocks worth Rs.118 crore ($17.50 million), which raises the important question, who really is and should be Afraid of Brexit?

It is not suggested here that global fears regarding Brexit are a Hoax, but merely that the jitters are exaggerated, and purely temporary.  We must realize that all the 28 member nations of the European Union were independent, sovereign states in the first place, before they voluntarily came together to form the common market.  So the sky is not really falling nor is it going to in future.

What remains to be understood is who is scared, who is not; who should be and who need not.

FIIs who pumped dollar funds into the Indian stock markets over the years, and jacked up the valuations to unreasonable levels, panicked and sold.  They also sold fearing irrational redemption by their investors back home. 

Value investors and even lay investors who invest in mutual funds and Systematic Investment Plans (SIPs) need not be and should not be Afraid of Brexit, and simply sit tight through the present turmoil, Nay aggressively purchase and accumulate shares of those excellent companies, which were pricy and unaffordable earlier.  In fact, right now, it is the Golden Opportunity to Master one’s temperament, and to Exorcise the Emotional Ghost called “Fear”.