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Dr Pankaj Mehta, a general practitioner since 1981, started equity investments a couple of years after he set up his practice. Like most other investors, he too was inspired by friends to put money in shares and initial share offerings of companies. He has a simple prescription to avoid any disastrous investment decisions,  “don’t be greedy and don’t try to time the market”.

He has seen the market in both pre and post liberalisation period and has some interesting stock picks dating back to the pre-liberalisation era. His investments were initially confined to secondary markets and it is a little later that he moved on to IPOs where he was able to buy into stocks like Tisco, HDFC and Reliance. He has also benefited from PSU stocks like ONGC and NTPC bought at the time of PSU divestment.

Reliance remains a favourite stock as it is with lakhs of other investors of that generation. Holding on to Reliance as well as other IPO picks has over the years given benefit of bonus shares and also additions to the portfolio through rights offers. “I would subscribe to all the rights issues and reject any only if they are outright bad,” said Dr Mehta.

He has seen good returns from HDFC. The Rs 100 share that he initially bought for Rs 185, was sold at Rs 700 in 2004, by when it had undergone a stock split and became a Rs 10 stock. “It has moved up to Rs 1,400 now. But there are no regrets about selling it. My investment decision was need-based,” he explains.

Dr Mehta offloaded most of his investments in 2004 to pay for a residential flat purchase. Though equity markets have run up very well beyond 2004, his decision to buy a flat seems well timed. Because the value of the flat for which he paid Rs 23.5 lakh has already doubled and moreover he needed the property.

He stuck to his stocks undeterred during several bear phases and said he is not disturbed by the ups and downs in the market. But he was shaken by the bear phase in 2000 and decided that he will not invest directly in the markets and took the mutual fund route. “Even now when I do not find any interesting stock to buy in ‘A’ group, I invest in mutual funds,” said Dr Mehta.

As a principle he invests only in ‘A’ group stocks and is happy with the 15-20 per cent returns from equity investments. “I do not have the exact calculation of the returns I got, but I made money in some and lost in some,” said Dr Mehta. He sold off Tisco during one of its bear phases and mentions that as one of the major stocks where he had made losses. His mutual fund investments have also done well giving an annualised yield of 15 per cent.

Having been a cricketer who played for the Indian Medical Association’s team till a couple of years back, Dr Mehta feels that some thing is wrong with the commitment levels of our present national team.

Similarly, he is disturbed about the current market trend. “It is very volatile now and fluctuations are wide. I am not comfortable about investing in equities in this kind of a backdrop,” said Dr Mehta.

But once stability returns to the market, he is willing to bet on technology stocks and FMCG -- a sector that has been performing badly. Having been an investor for long, Dr Mehta feels bad about the spate of buyback of shares and eventual delisting from the markets.

Though he sold most of Sterlite Industries shares before buyback and did not tender the shares to the promoters directly, Dr Mehta feels cheated by the management decision. “They shouldn’t have come out with public issues in the first place,” he condemns.

There is no fixed asset allocation policy that Dr Mehta sticks to but sets aside portion of the funds strictly for fixed income schemes like PPF and insurance. He has stuck to his method of picking up stocks on detailed reading of media investment guides followed up with discussions with friends who are investors.

He confesses that he does not know the technical analysis of charts to time the entry and exit of stocks at appropriate time and hence would prefer to be a long-term investor and not a short-term trader.

Email author: vaijayanthi.chakravarthy@hindustantimes.com