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    60th Birthday Tribute! What made Rakesh Jhunjhunwala Big Bull of D-Street with up to 700 times returns!

    Synopsis

    The equity investor with Midas touch, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, turned 60 on July 5.

    Jhunjhunwala-2---BCCL
    Radhakishan Damani, who Jhunjhunwala calls his mentor, said the Big bull is an original thinker.
    NEW DELHI: The equity investor with Midas touch, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, turned 60 on July 5. This year also marks his 35th year on Dalal Street.

    Fondly referred to as the Big Bull, the ace investor has been making his mark on Dalal Street ever since 1985, when the BSE Sensex was ruling at 150 level. Starting his career with just Rs 5,000, Jhunjhunwala is today 48th richest Indian with $2.2 billion (nearly Rs 16,400 crore) in assets, as per Forbes.

    Among his early investments, Apollo Hospitals delivered over 100 times return between 1998 to 2015. He had similar success in Bata (1996-2019) made over 90 times in BEL (1998-2007). Between 2001 and 2007, he made a whopping 700 times return in Praj Industries and during 2004-2020, his bet on Rallis yielded 55 times return, showed an analysis by ETNow.

    BEML (100 times), Lupin (160 times), Crisil (200 times) and SCI (1200 per cent) are some other stocks that did wonders for Jhunjhunwala in the 2000s. In the last decade, the ace investor made 20 times return in Escorts (2013-2020) and 200 per cent in Tata Communications (2010-2020).

    But what contributed most to Jhunjhunwala's wealth was Titan Company, which jumped 80 times between 2005 and 2020, and remains his biggest stock holding even today.

    So, what made Jhunjhunwala a successful trader and investor?

    “Trading and investing are like having a wife and a mistress. You can’t manage both well. So, keep them apart. One should not know anything about the other,” Jhunjhunwala, whom the media calls the Warren Buffett of India, said in a 2018 interview:

    “Trading is momentum, 'le fatafat, de fatafat' (buy and sell quickly). But in investing, one can be contrarian and can still make money," he said.

    "In trading, ROEs are highest and cash flows are great. I love trading. Given a choice, I would love to make all my money out of it. But that's not possible. You lose money, also,” he said.

    Jhunjhunwala said that 98 per cent of the money in the stock market is made by being a bull. The ace investor said, in the past he at times used technical analysis, which helped him make long-term returns. “As an investor, I may feel a stock is overpriced and so I should sell. But my trading skills teach me that stocks can be overvalued and still get more overvalued,” he once told ETNow.

    Radhakishan Damani, who Jhunjhunwala calls his mentor, said the Big bull is an original thinker. “He does not get carried away by other’s thought processes. He is a sharp guy. He really believes in Indian equities and India's prosperity," Damani once told ETNow.

    When Vishal Gupta, Jhunjhunwala's nephew moved to Mumbai in 2005, the ace investor convinced him to go for chartered accountancy instead of law. Gupta joined him four years later at Rare Enterprises, a privately-owned stock trading firm, whose name was derived from the first two initials of his and his wife Rekha Jhunjhunwala’s names.

    “He was two different people. One was a kind uncle at home, the other was a super sharp boss, He has a compartmentalised mind, whose one part is an investor and the other is trader. The investor mind is an eternal optimist, a big picture guy; while the trader part is realistic that keeps eyes on the numbers all the time,” Gupta said.

    Jhunjhunwala values stocks on five parameters: patience, people, governance, frugality and technology. In June, Jhunjhunwala said he still thinks that the mother of all bull markets has started. "Bull markets are test matches, they are not 50-over matches,” he said.

    Asked about his plans for his 60th birthday, Jhunjhunwala in the same interview said: “I am only realising that we live 60 years. So, we have finite life. Do what you want, fast.”



    ( Originally published on Jul 07, 2020 )
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    (What's moving Sensex and Nifty Track latest market news, stock tips and expert advice, on ETMarkets. Also, ETMarkets.com is now on Telegram. For fastest news alerts on financial markets, investment strategies and stocks alerts, subscribe to our Telegram feeds .)

    Download The Economic Times News App to get Daily Market Updates & Live Business News.

    Subscribe to The Economic Times Prime and read the Economic Times ePaper Online.and Sensex Today.

    Top Trending Stocks: SBI Share Price, Axis Bank Share Price, HDFC Bank Share Price, Infosys Share Price, Wipro Share Price, NTPC Share Price

    ...more
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