SMARTPortfolios

Since the beginning of this year, the stock market has become a difficult place to invest in. The market has been hugely volatile in the short term and has trended downwards over the medium term.

Picking stocks is no longer easy. For example, even if you had bought shares in a blue-chip company when the market tanked in March, there is still a chance that you are losing money on the investment.

Even if you had bought the right stocks, you probably didn’t buy enough to improve your portfolio’s overall returns. That is where asset allocation comes into play. What is the percentage weight of a particular stock or a sector in your equity portfolio?

In order to assist Business Standard readers, we have launched Smart Portfolios, a year-long exercise where professional investors will run phantom portfolios of Rs 10 lakh each. You will learn how professional fund managers pick stocks and how they allocate funds across sectors and investments.

This educational initiative will help you understand the nuances of the market and take more informed investment decisions. Find out what the experts are doing every day on www.business-standard.com/smartportfolios and every Monday in The Smart Investor.

Happy investing!

THE FUND MANAGERS

Amar Ambani 
Vice President (Research)
India Infoline

Amar Ambani is the head of research at India Infoline. An MBA in finance, he is also certified in business process re-engineering. He has played a major role during the launch of India Infoline's institutional broking business and has been instrumental in building the present retail research desk. His research on various stocks, especially mid-cap ideas, has generated multi-baggers.

INVESTMENT STYLE: Ambani follows a fairly diversified investment style across sectors and stock categories. There is no bias towards a top-down or bottom-up approach and exposure to concept stories is generally avoided. The objective is wealth creation over the long term, partly using short term strategies to provide a shot in the arm.

Kashyap Pujara
Fund Manager
Enam Direct

Kashyap Pujara is a fund manager for the ENAM Direct PMS product. He also oversees the equity research function for ENAM Direct. He has a Bachelors degree in Commerce and a Masters in Management Studies, both from Mumbai University. He has over eight years of experience in the fields of research, investment advisory and funds management.

INVESTMENT STYLE: Pujara follows a research-based investment approach with a medium to long term investment outlook along with appropriate portfolio diversification. His stock selection would be largely driven by growth available at reasonable valuations. Portfolio construction would be blend of large- and mid-caps.

Sadanand Shetty
Vice President
Kotak Securities

Sadanand Shetty is senior portfolio manager at Kotak Securities. He has done his post graduation in management. Shetty has over a decade of experience in investment management, fund management and security analysis in global firms having a dominant franchise in India.

INVESTMENT STYLE: Sadanand follows a mixed style of investing across market caps and will be benchmarking his portfolio vs the BSE 200. He adopts a dynamic and active approach in selecting stocks.

Anand Agarwal
Fund Manager
Reliance Money

Anand Agarwal is the fund manager at Reliance Money. He is a chartered accountant, cost accountant, company secretary and a certified financial analyst from the ICFAI Business School. He has over 12 years of experience across various facets of finance and investments, including managing debt and equity investments of over $1 billion.

INVESTMENT STYLE: He is an ardent believer in GARP (Growth at a reasonable price). 

The Rules

1. The duration of the activity will be for one year. Each of the four fund manager will have a phantom portfolio of Rs 10 lakh in notional value, which can be invested either in stocks or held in cash. 
    
2. The fund manager can follow any investment style, be it large-cap, mid-cap or small-cap; value, growth or blend, short-term, medium-term or long-term. He will only need to specify the style he will follow and stick by it. 
    
3. The fund manager can hold 100 per cent cash in his portfolio, though it will not earn any return. 
    
4. The fund manager is only allowed to trade in the cash market and cannot take a short position. 
    
5. The fund manager will report his phantom trades on business-standard.com, which will be reflected immediately on business-standard.com. The stock price for transactions will be the BSE price available on the website, which is delayed by at least ten minutes. 
    
6. There is no limitation on trades except that the fund manager will have to hold a stock for seven calendar days. This is to prevent speculation. 
    
7. There is no limitation on the number of stocks a fund manager will hold in the portfolio. 
    
8. The returns will be calculated on a pre-tax basis, and the BSE 200 is the benchmark index.