The Securities Exchange Board of Nepal (SEBON) has approved the proposed IPO issue of Menchhiyam Hydropower Limited on Magh 19.
The company will now issue 1,627,750 equity shares at a par value of NPR 100 each. The amount of the issue is Rs. 16.27 Crore. This is 30% of the company’s issued capital. The total paid-up capital after the IPO allotment would be Rs 54.25 crore of the company.
Purwanchal Lube Oil (PLO) plans to issue 500,000 equity shares to the general public through an initial public offering (IPO), with Prabhu Capital Limited serving as the share issue and sales manager.
On Magh 18, 2079, the two parties’ contract was completed. The agreement was signed by Mr. Bholeshwar Dulal, Managing Director of Purwanchal Lube Oil, and Mr. Dinesh Thakali, Managing Director of Prabhu Capital.
The Securities Exchange Board of Nepal (SEBON) has approved Dolti Power Company Limited and Bhugol Energy Development Company Limited’s proposed initial public offering (IPO). On Magh 16, both proposals were approved.
Dolti Power Company will now issue 1,609,458 equity shares with NPR 100 par value each. The issue is worth Rs. 16.09 crore. This is equivalent to 30% of the company’s issued capital. The company’s total paid-up capital after the IPO allotment would be Rs 53.64 crore.
Alright, so you’ve decided you want to take a shot at buying and trading stocks. The only problem is, you really don’t know how. Where should you begin? And do you even know what a stock is and the significance of stock for companies?
This article will serve as a dummies guide for trading and buying stock.
A stock is actually partial ownership of a company. Some companies consider stocks as certificates so the more stock a person owns of the company, the larger portion of the company they own. Along with owning a bigger part of the company, they also have greater influence in running the company. This influence is referred to as equity investment.
There are other important terms you should become familiar with before getting into the stock market. Get to know about leverage, price-earnings ratio, earnings per share, margins and options before you dive in and invest your hard-earned money.
Next you need to figure out where and how to purchase those stocks. Basically, there is only one way to buy shares and stocks. Through your stock broker.
Online exchanges let investors have access to stocks from all around the globe. Without the need for a broker, investors can purchase and sell stocks online. Some banks also give you the ability to set up your own stock portfolio. You can use the money you have invested with these banks to purchase and sell stocks online right away.
Brokers render brokerage services and they are the middlemen who do the work on your behalf. Brokers give advice, research the current stock market and buy and sell stocks in accordance with the requests of their clients. From buying and selling these stocks, the brokers earn a commission.
When you decide on how you prefer to purchase and sell stocks, you need to open an account. Exchanges will allow you to monitor and control your individual stock portfolio yourself. If you decide to enter into the stock trade with a bank, discuss the specifics of setting up your own account with the bank you choose. For conducting trades through a broker, you need to find a reputable broker to deal with and then ask them to open and manage your account.
Once you set up an account successfully, start studying the stock market to plan your strategy. Do you want to be conservative when making investments? Do you like to aggressively invest? How many investing years do you have? Are you a day trader or will you be investing on a long term basis?
When you determine your personal plan, do your research on the current stocks offered in the market. If you have a broker, it becomes easier because they do much of the research for you. However, it is still best to study the market on your own.
Remember, the stock market is a volatile place so be ready for explosive activity when trading and buying stocks. Like life, there are many ups and downs before you reach your goals.
Everyone is looking for a quick and easy way to riches and happiness. It seems to be human nature to constantly search for a hidden key or some esoteric bit of knowledge that suddenly leads to the end of the rainbow or a winning lottery ticket.
While some people do buy winning tickets or a common stock that quadruples or more in a year, it is extremely unlikely, since relying upon luck is an investment strategy that only the foolish or most desperate would choose to follow. In our quest for success, we often overlook the most powerful tools available to us: time and the magic of compounding growth. Investing regularly, avoiding unnecessary financial risk, and letting your money work for you over a period of years and decades is a certain way to amass significant assets.
Here are several tips that should be followed by beginning investors.
Everyone is looking for a quick and easy way to riches and happiness. It seems to be human nature to constantly search for a hidden key or some esoteric bit of knowledge that suddenly leads to the end of the rainbow or a winning lottery ticket.
While some people do buy winning tickets or a common stock that quadruples or more in a year, it is extremely unlikely, since relying upon luck is an investment strategy that only the foolish or most desperate would choose to follow. In our quest for success, we often overlook the most powerful tools available to us: time and the magic of compounding growth. Investing regularly, avoiding unnecessary financial risk, and letting your money work for you over a period of years and decades is a certain way to amass significant assets.
Here are several tips that should be followed by beginning investors.
1. Set Long-Term Goals
Why are you considering investing in the stock market? Will you need your cash back in six months, a year, five years or longer? Are you saving for retirement, for future university expenses, to purchase a home, or to build an estate to leave to your beneficiaries?
Before investing, you should know your purpose and the likely time in the future you may have need of the funds. If you are likely to need your investment returned within a few months, consider another investment; the stock market with its volatility provides no certainty that all of your capital will be available when you need it.
By knowing how much capital you will need and the future point in time when you will need it, you can calculate how much you should invest and what kind of return on your investment will be needed to produce the desired result.
Remember that the growth of your portfolio depends upon three interdependent factors:
Ideally, you should start saving as soon as possible, save as much as you can, and receive the highest return possible consistent with your risk philosophy.
2. Understand Your Risk Tolerance
Risk tolerance is a psychological trait that is genetically based but positively influenced by education, income, and wealth (as these increase, risk tolerance appears to increase slightly) and negatively by age (as one gets older, risk tolerance decreases). Your risk tolerance is how you feel about risk and the degree of anxiety you feel when risk is present. In psychological terms, risk tolerance is defined as “the extent to which a person chooses to risk experiencing a less favourable outcome in the pursuit of a more favourable outcome.” In other words, would you risk NPR 1000 to win NPR 10,000? Or NPR 10,000 to win NPR 10,000? All humans vary in their risk tolerance, and there is no “right” balance.
Risk tolerance is also affected by one’s perception of risk. For example, flying in an aeroplane or riding in a car would have been perceived as very risky in the early 1900s, but less so today as flight and automobile travel are common occurrences. Conversely, most people today would feel that riding a horse might be dangerous with a good chance of falling or being bucked off because few people are around horses.
The idea of perception is important, especially in investing. As you gain more knowledge about investments – for example, how stocks are bought and sold, how much volatility (price change) is usually present, and the difficulty or ease of liquidating an investment – you are likely to consider stock investments to have less risk than you thought before making your first purchase. As a consequence, your anxiety when investing is less intense, even though your risk tolerance remains unchanged because your perception of the risk has evolved.
By understanding your risk tolerance, you can avoid those investments which are likely to make you anxious. Generally speaking, you should never own an asset which keeps you from sleeping in the night. Anxiety stimulates fear which triggers emotional responses (rather than logical responses) to the stressor. During periods of financial uncertainty, the investor who can retain a cool head and follows an analytical decision process invariably comes out ahead.
3. Control Your Emotions
The biggest obstacle to stock market profits is an inability to control one’s emotions and make logical decisions. In the short-term, the prices of companies reflect the combined emotions of the entire investment community. When a majority of investors are worried about a company, its stock price is likely to decline; when a majority feel positive about the company’s future, its stock price tends to rise.
A person who feels negative about the market is called a “bear,” while their positive counterpart is called a “bull.” During market hours, the constant battle between the bulls and the bears is reflected in the constantly changing price of securities. These short-term movements are driven by rumours, speculations, and hopes – emotions – rather than logic and systematic analysis of the company’s assets, management, and prospects.
Stock prices moving contrary to our expectations create tension and insecurity. Should I sell my position and avoid a loss? Should I keep the stock, hoping that the price will rebound? Should I buy more?
Even when the stock price has performed as expected, there are questions: Should I take a profit now before the price falls? Should I keep my position since the price is likely to go higher? Thoughts like these will flood your mind, especially if you constantly watch the price of a security, eventually building to a point that you will take action. Since emotions are the primary driver of your action, it will probably be wrong.
When you buy a stock, you should have a good reason for doing so and an expectation of what the price will do if the reason is valid. At the same time, you should establish the point at which you will liquidate your holdings, especially if your reason is proven invalid or if the stock doesn’t react as expected when your expectation has been met. In other words, have an exit strategy before you buy the security and execute that strategy unemotionally.
4. Handle Basics First
Before making your first investment, take the time to learn the basics about the stock market and the individual securities composing the market. There is an old adage: It is not a stock market, but a market of stocks. Your focus will be upon individual securities, rather than the market as a whole. There are few times when every stock moves in the same direction; even when the averages fall by 100 points or more, the securities of some companies will go higher in price.
The areas with which you should be familiar before making your first purchase include:
Knowledge and risk tolerance are linked. As Warren Buffett said, “Risk comes from not knowing what you are doing.”
5. Diversify Your Investments
Experienced investors such as Buffett eschew stock diversification in the confidence that they have performed all of the necessary research to identify and quantify their risk. They are also comfortable that they can identify any potential perils that will endanger their position, and will be able to liquidate their investments before taking a catastrophic loss.
The popular way to manage risk is to diversify your exposure. Prudent investors own stocks of different companies in different industries, sometimes in different countries, with the expectation that a single bad event will not affect all of their holdings or will otherwise affect them to different degrees.
Imagine owning stocks in five different companies, each of which you expect to continually grow profits. Unfortunately, cirplusstances change. At the end of the year, you might have two companies (A & B) that have performed well so their stocks are up 25% each. The stock of two other companies (C & D) in a different industry are up 10% each, while the fifth company’s (E) assets were liquidated to pay off a massive lawsuit.
Diversification allows you to recover from the loss of your total investment (20% of your portfolio) by gains of 10% in the two best companies (25% x 40%) and 4% in the remaining two companies (10% x 40%). Even though your overall portfolio value dropped by 6% (20% loss minus 14% gain), it is considerably better than having been invested solely in company E.
6. Avoid Leverage/Margin Loan
Leverage/Margin loan simply means the use of borrowed money to execute your stock market strategy. In a margin account, banks and brokerage firms can loan you money to buy stocks, usually 50% of the purchase value. In other words, if you wanted to buy 1000 shares of a stock trading at NPR 100 for a total cost of NPR 100,000, your brokerage firm could loan you NPR 50,000 to complete the purchase.
The use of borrowed money “levers” or exaggerates the result of price movement. Suppose the stock moves to NPR 200 a share and you sell it. If you had used your own money exclusively, your return would be 100% on your investment [(200,000 -100,000)/100,000]. If you had borrowed NPR 50,000 to buy the stock and sold at NPR 200 per share, your return would be 300 % [(200,000-50,000)/$50,000] after repaying the NPR 50,000 loan and excluding the cost of interest paid to the broker (which is usually 16% and over).
It sounds great when the stock moves up, but consider the other side. Suppose the stock fell to NPR 50 per share rather than doubling to NPR 200, your loss would be 100% of your initial investment, plus the cost of interest to the broker [(50,000-50,000)/50,000].
A margin is a tool that can go extremely bad in a stock market like Bangladesh.
Final Thoughts
Stock investments historically have enjoyed a return significantly above other types of investments while also proving easy liquidity, total visibility, and active regulation to ensure a level playing field for all. Investing in the stock market is a great opportunity to build large asset value for those who are willing to be consistent savers, make the necessary investment in time and energy to gain experience, appropriately manage their risk, and are patient, allowing the magic of compounding to work for them. The younger you begin your investing avocation, the greater the final results – just remember to walk before you begin to run.