DON’T BLAME ME Self-Serving Bias

When we read an annual report of the company the CEO who is a victim of this bias described success due to his skills, better decisions, etc. When things go wrong then he blames the economic slowdown, corona, government policy, weather problems, etc.

We attribute success to ourselves and failures to external factors. This is the self-serving bias.

Similar to fund managers, I have met a few so-called fund managers in the early days of my career who have given entire credit of good return to their skills during the bull phase of the market and when the market started falling then they started blaming the market for the poor return. They keep on changing their benchmark as per their performance so that they can easily blame the market.

Try to know your strength, weaknesses and start to work on them rather than give credit to own or blame others. This will help us to improve ourselves more effectively. When we come out from the blame game and start working on ourselves then only, we can develop ourselves otherwise our life will remain miserable. We should have a record of each decision so that we can timely analyze it and learn from our own mistakes. We cannot say a ship captain is good while he can help ship to drive safely in good weather but a good captain will be one who can help ship to drive safely in the worst weather conditions. So always work on developing your knowledge, process.

This entire series will be reviewed with various examples from books which are Thinking, Fast and Slow and The Art of Thinking Clearly.

WHAT CAN BE A PROBABLE BOTTOM OF INDIAN STOCK MARKET?

We have seen a sharp fall in the market these days. Now, everyone has a question that what can be a probable bottom? where we should start buying? Bottom of the market already made? Should we buy or will we have missed out this opportunity? Yes, Nifty has reached to the fair value zone but pendulum never stayed at the middle zone it will go extreme to both the direction. So, we have seen upside extreme and now have to see downside extreme move.

Before starting answering the above questions, here, I am requesting you to read my old article which I had posted on 4th August 2019. In that article, I mentioned regarding market fall. Please first go through that article because the current article is a continuation of that article.

THE INTELLIGENT INVESTOR – 3 – A CENTURY OF STOCK-MARKET HISTORY

Now, if we analyze current fall then we can say that Indian corporate and GDP has witnessed a limited growth in the past. Also, Covid-19 virus has disrupted the entire world economy. Majority of the economy has started giving a revival package but if we look at the speed of the spreading of Covid-19 and death of the people then it is very painful for us as well as the economy.

Our PM has announced with the 21 days lockdown to fight against the Covid-19. We have taken this step well in advance so that we can able to control the situation, because if the situation will go out of control then we do not have a proper infrastructure for citizens to cure.

I have taken a few data from HDFC Bank India growth outlook 2020, cost of lockdown.

Health exp

By looking at the above data and havoc of Covid-19 in the world, it is essential to go for the not only lockdown but to declare an emergency in India. Now, let’s go to the economic impact of this mayhem. People can oppose that government of the majority of the economy has started announcing a revival package. But We have to think that it’s not a financial crisis where you pump liquidity into the system and things will start recovering. It’s taking the lives of people so what will change after the liquidity get infused. People try to save life rather use those liquidities. So, disruption can take time to revive. If this problem can worsen it will be led to a financial crisis which is still pending to come. It’s just my thoughts, don’t know what can happen but this thing looking worse than any financial crisis.

If the normal situation has come where growth remains subdued then the market can remain in range but here this difficult situation can hamper the earning badly.  we have to understand that our states of India are equivalent of the many of the country where corona has done huge damage. Here, the world economy gets hamper, trade around the world hamper, supply chain get disturbs, corporates have to fund fixed cost, they only can manage variable cost through the lockdown.

Many of the articles and reports indicating towards global recession and as intense as the recession of 1929. I don’t know that will happen or not but I only can pray that such will not happen because it will take many further issues with many of the lives. Let’s not getting into the debate and do some number crunching which is always my favourite.

Current, Nifty EPS is ~Rs.444 so proceed with the calculation based on that. I am assuming current EPS will remain same for FY20 and all degrowth will account in FY21 and FY22 (if the situation will not come to the control then FY22 will also go for a toss).

I have taken the bank rate as an SBI FD rate after the rate cut.

EYield by Bond rate01

Now, if we look at the earnings yield to bond yield ratio then it has reached at the 1.03x in the current period. If we take same EPS and take that ratio to the worst happen during the 2008 – financial crisis then it was 1.11x so nifty level come to the 8000 but Covid-19 will going to hamper earning growth and might be a new level of earning yield to bond yield ratio can come, which I have taken a range of 1.25 to 1.50 with a different scenario.

If things will be in control in coming few days then might be 5% degrowth can be possible and then market also maybe get stable at the old worst level of earning yield to bond yield ratio – 1.11x to 1.25x. But if things will get more worst then now and continue with coming 1-2 months then 10% degrowth in earning can be expected. I have made a study in S&P500 of USA and in that market earning yield to bond yield ratio has reached around 3x in worst level which I am not considering as of now. If we see that then past falls in the market have accounted for ~50% fall from the top so that that will also come to ~6215 level.

Now, another point is that earnings growth always essential for generating returns in the market. So that market can be remaining in the range till no sign comes for earning growth revival because, on the hope of earnings growth, the market has already run a lot.

I have posted an article on WHAT CAN BE A PROBABLE RETURN FROM SENSEX IN COMING 10 YEARS? a way back and where I have taken SENSEX level after 10 years on worst earning growth of 3.50% came at 43547 on P/E and 57678 on P/BV based. So, if earning growth cannot revive then the market can remain in range for a longer period. But from the current base, we can have a good chance of making a return in the range of 4-7% CAGR in the index overcoming 10 years. Tax cut reform will also aid in earning growth coming forward. We only have to pray that situation will not worsen from here and for that we have to stay at home, stay safe and fight against Corona.

#Stayhomestaysafe #Stayhomesavelives #Fightagainstcorona

Disclosure – Companies mentioned in the article are just for an example & educational purpose. It is not a buy/sell/ hold recommendation.