junk
January 18, 2012
More Hedge Fund Employees were arrested by the FBI on Insider Trading Charges . Note Raj Rajaratnam the high profile hedge fund manager of the technology hedge fund is already cooling his heels in jail after being convicted of insider trading by paying money to company and insiders for illegal information. A number of low rung employees have also been jailed for lesser terms. His friend Rajat Gupta who was a former Mckinsey chairman is also facing charges which may result in conviction for passing confidential information to Rajaratnam.
January 9, 2012
Note blatant pump and dump IPO's have made the Indian market a heaven for stock market operators.Despite this going on for years,only recently SEBI has taken some steps against the manipulartion of the primary market.Now SEBI has taken some steps in the Insider Trading case as well by fining executives of JP Associates and Ranbaxy both of which are constituents of the Indian main stock market index. However a mere fine will not do to deter insider traders.A big jail term for a insider trader will make white collar criminals think more in indulging in criminal activity rather than small fines .
May 28, 2011
SEBI has been strangely and inexplicably absent from its role of supervising the primary market in India despite a stream of pump and dump IPO by small disreputable promoters and investment bankers.Most of these IPOs have no fundamentals to justify lofty valuations and without the role of market operators and investment bankers have no hope in hell of getting subscribed.Its a scary gambling scheme in which retail investors put money only with the hope of getting out on the first day with probably listing gains.There is no way that an investor can make money in these issues in the long term.However the shenanigans of the promoters and bankers have gone unpunished leading to more and more of these junk IPOs getting into the stock market everyday.This only brings a bad name to Indian stock markets where manipulation can happen so brazenly and openly and pushes away genuine investors away from equities.SEBI has been recently been trying to get more retail investors into the stock market however it seems mere words as it does not take action on open corruption.
May 8, 2011
Note the stock fell before it announced the results after the close of the markets which means that insider trading had take n place.The volumes at 10 times certainly seems to hint so as the JP Morgan downgrade of the stock could not have led to such a big fall in which there are a large number of foreign and domestic funds as investors.Besides its problems in Andhra Pradesh are hardly new and Indian brokers hardly that good that their reports cause such big stock price movements.Like other SEBI probes expect this one to fail or result in a small penatly which will not deter more such white collar fraunds in the Indian Stock Market.Insider Trading in India is quite widespread with some of the biggest business groups having been fined by SEBI like ADAG etc.
April 22, 2011
Future Ventures is a VC/Private Equity Company that has invested in a number of small Indian companies and startups mainly focused on the consumption industry in India.With India growing at around 8-9% in the last few years and expectations of strong future growth driven by consumption,Future Ventures seems a good investment considering the portfolio of companies that it owns (analyzed below).Future Ventures is a part of the Future Group run by Kishore Biyani who started India's most famous retail company Pantaloons.The Company has set a price band of 10-11 rupees a share with a target of raising around Rs. 750crore though the IPO.This would represent around 40% of the equity which would give it a post IPO market capitalization of around $375 million.Note the company had tried to come with an IPO 2 years ago but it was deemed to expensive at that time.
March 7, 2011
Lovable Lingerie is an innerwear textile company that is coming out with a $20 million IPO.Unlike other totally junk issues which are totally hands of market operators,this one seems to have decent fundamentals and the valuation is not too expensive either.The company has managed to sell 6% pre-IPO to Sequioa Capital which is one of the blue blood PE firms in the country.However this should not be an endorsement given that a number of their investments have bombed in the recent mid cap and small cap carnage.Corporate governance and management issues in small companies in India is totally out of control so investing just based on pure fundamentals does not help.Also a number of other companies in the same sector in textiles remain at attractive valuations.That said the company does have good differentiation as it leverages on the fast growing Indian consumer growth story.The company sells Lingerie though top retail outlets like Lifestyle,Shopper's Stop in top Indian metros and has good brand recall.Here are the positives and negatives of the company based on its DRHP.
February 16, 2011
Acropetal Technologies is a bit different from the run of the mill junk IPOs coming out in Feb 2011.After a deluge of crap IPOs in 2010,2011 has not seen many of them as the markets have corrected by around 15%.However a recent rally has bought out the junk companies in association with their associated shady bankers and market operators.Omkar,Sudar,FCL are some of the totally crap IPOs which have happened or in the process of happening.Acropetal Technologies is an IT/ITES company plans to raise Rs 170-crore through its IPO on February 21. The company has fixed the price-band of its IPO at between Rs 88 and Rs 90 per equity share.The company will use Rs 55 crore for acquisitions and Rs 26 crores for a software office.The company seems better quality than the junk and may merit a look from investors though there are much better companies on offer at better prices in the secondary markets.Here are the positives and negatives of the IPO
February 16, 2011
In the season of scams and scandals when the erstwhile high flying mid cap and small cap names are getting battered for management issues,Sudar Garments has surprisingly come out with an IPO despite spotty corporate governance issues.Like so many of the junk IPOs coming out in 2010,this one too should managed to raise money through market operators.The modus operandi of these IPOs is mostly pump and dump where a few unscrupulous and shady brokers are responsible for managing the issue.With the stock market regulator SEBI refusing to crack down on these blatant manipulation,the pipeline of crappy small cap junk IPOs in the Indian stock market keeps growing.Thought that the current market crash would have removed them,but apparently not so as the junk IPO industry keeps growing stronger.This despite the more than 50% crash on issue day of Omkar Chemicals ( a junk IPO).Here are some of the notable negatives of the issue which has been given a 1 out of a 5 rating by rating agency CRISIL (not that the rating help the retail investors).
February 14, 2011
Fineotex Chemicals (FCL) is a Maharashtra based small chemicals company which is coming out with an IPO for 4.2 million shares at Rs 60-72 to raise Rs 25-30 crores with a total market cap of around Rs 42-50 crores.The company has a 5000 tons plant and is expanding by 13000 tons.The company has little resources by way of cash and it seems strange that a Rs 15 crore company would raise money from the capital markets rather than raising more debt which seems low at around Rs 80 lakhs.Can't find much to say anything positive except that there are no lawsuits pending against the promoters.Here are the negatives.
Omkar Specialty Chemicals was a major disaster for all the investors who decided to gamble on small cap IPO junk.Gambling on FCL in this environment does not make any sense,would make more sense to gamble your money in a casino.In this market you would have a much better chance of returns.
February 10, 2011
In 2010,the Indian Stock Market boomed for junk IPOs with a number of low quality issues raising money.Most of these stocks made no sense from the valuation point of view and were clearly being manipulated by stock market operators in nexus with their promoters.However,it was possible for retail investors to gamble and make money in IPOs by applying and selling on the day the issue listed.If you held on then massive losses were in store as most of the IPOs are trading at less than half of their initial price.Now it seems that even this tactic has gone out of fashion with another low quality IPO Omkar Speciality Chemicals going 50% below its issue price.Note the Indian stock market has falled by more than 15% in the last month or so,with many of the operator driven stocks taking a big hit.This means that these manipulated stocks have little support and would fall to their true value which is a small percentage of their issue price.Hopefully we won't be seeing any more these crappy junk issues for a long time.
December 4, 2010
Ravi Kumar Distilleries (RKDL) is another low quality company coming out with an IPO to take advantage of the current bullish conditions of the Indian Stock Market.It is not the first junk IPO nor is going to be the last ,it is an addition to the list of low quality companies which have given huge losses to investor unfortunate enough to subscrible.Note more than 50% of the companies coming out with an IPO over the last year are trading well below issue price.Recent Stock Market Scandals show the complicity of market operators,shady promoters and compromised financial institutions.Note the other recent IPOs by the investment banker for RKDL IPO have resulted in massive losses for investors.It would take a miracle for this one to prove a success.Ravi Kumar Distilleries (RKDL), plans to raise Rs 74 crore through its Initial Public Offer (IPO) and has fixed the price-band at between Rs 56-64 per share for the issue.Here are some of the main features of the IPO
December 3, 2010
India's Stock Market Regulator has been hardly proactive in cracking down on stock market manipulation except for some inefficient scolding.It has banned some companies and a stock market operator for artificially rigging up stock prices through a nefarious scheme so that the stock could placed through QIBs at higher prices.Recently GMO,Goldman,Morgan and Fidilety got conned by a fly by night Indian financier who managed to place $100 million of his company's shares a hugely inflated price.A cursory due diligence by these high flying financial institutions would have shown his business model to a sham.Realty Investing in India is always a dangerous game with real estate firms involved in all sorts of corruption scandals.Akruti City whose shares had seen a massive rise some months ago has been implicated by SEBI for rigging up its share price with the help of a "stock market operator" Dangi.Some other firms like Murli Industries,Welspun Corp have been found to be part of this corruption game as well.Broking Firms like Ashika and Anand Rathi were broking for the Operator.Note SEBI has not done much except banning these firms.I would have though that these white collar crimes should be punished more stringently.Banning some entities without any jail time will lead to more and more of these stock rigging in the future.
December 1, 2010
Manganese Ore India Limited (MOIL),the government owned miner has seen massive oversubscription of its IPO being subscribed 55 times and should easily reach around 60 times.I had written that the MOIL IPO price of Rs 340-375 makes the valuation hugely attractive which would lead to oversubscription.The fundamentals of this stock easily command a much higher price given its low cost leadership position in the fast growing Indian market.The valuation of the company was compelling even at a 25% higher price point as I had written earlier but at around Rs 6300 crore,MOIL had become a no brainer.
While some of the oversubscription could also have been due to people's expectation of oversubscription,I think most of the demand was fundamental in nature.The Indian primary market is showing huge demand for quality stocks.Junk IPOs unless they are not manipulated are showing weak demand .Somewhat doubtful IPO of Claris Lifesciences was forced to decrease its price by 20% as there were not enough takers for the issue.
November 24, 2010
Note most of these companies fundamentals don''t justify even half of the price at which these stocks were issued at.However these companies keep coming with increasing frequency even as the Regulator SEBI chides investment bankers without doing anything real to prevent the retail investors being defrauded again and again.Note Gravita India is another stock which is undergoing a "pump" currently .I expect it to be dumped shortly as the fundamentals of the company are pretty sorry compared to the valuation it is commanding.The illegal grey market of IPO's , the small market cap of the company and the lax attitude of the Stock Market Regulator has made the Indian Stock Market a heavily biased casino.Here is an interesting article which has analyzed that the only way to beat the shenanigans of the "operators" and the promoters is to sell out on the very day of listing.
October 12, 2010
Indian IPO Rules allows the Merchant Bankers of the Issue to give favored institutional clients a part of the IPO even before the issue starts.This has the advantage for both parties as funds get a guaranteed portion of the IPO and Bankers can tout the quality of the company.However you would have to question these "Anchor Investors' on how they invest in such IPOs.Prestige Estates a Realty Company coming out with an IPO is another low quality company to come out with a high valuation.So finding 21 Anchor Investors is a surprise.Despite the Real Estate Market being avoided by Fund Mangers due to questionable practice,23 Funds have found it worthwhile to add Prestige Estates to their portfolio.Makes you wonder if Institutional Investors are Plain Incompetent ,Compromised or Both
October 7, 2010
The Crap continues to hit the Indian Primary Market with another Junk Microcap trying to raise $11 mm from the market.The company will dilute around 48% […]
October 5, 2010
Real Estate Companies have been trying to raise money from the primary markets for a long time.The depressed markets and the negative sentiment about the real estate sector had prevented that from happening.Realty companies are known for their "creative accouting" shenanigans and their financial statements are not even trusted by Fund Managers.However the Current Bull Run has sparked renewed interest in all sectors even depressed ones like Realty.This has presented a golden oppurtunity for Real Estate Companies to do IPOs.While the last 2 Real Estates issues Jaypee Infratech and Nitesh Estates were disasters,this ones looks better than the last 2 lemons.Oberio Realty has good profits,cash flows and zero debt.This makes their issue much better,however the Realty Sector is a dangerous one to play because of the corruption that pervades the entire industry.So you make an investment here not really knowing what you are getting into.Not a Warren Buffet Investment by a long shot.The upside is limited with huge amount of downsides in the form of unknowns.Here are some of the features of Oberio Realty
September 27, 2010
India has seen a flurry of IPO’s in the current month of September 2010 as the companies IPOing in this month will not have to submit […]
September 14, 2010
Why would anyone want to invest in such a sorry stock is beyond me but I have seen even worse companies list so don't get surprised.The company is basically is using all the investor's money to become a decent business.Its current business with less than $1 million in fixed assets and $500k in profits is not worth putting money into.So if you are a super high risky investor then this stock would make sense for you.
September 8, 2010
It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that stocks are being manipulated to the detriment of the small investors.Experienced people in SEBI would surely know of such manipulation but they are not doing anything.The Prakash Steelage has followed the "Pump and Dump" Script to the letter with the stock in the process of being dumped.The stock fell 13% for no apparent reason and I expect it to soon fall far below its issue price.Note the Promoters of this Stock have already been convicted of Tax Evasion.
August 27, 2010
There is no good way of shorting Prakash Steelage stock otherwise it seems a sure shot money making opportunity.What is funny is that mainstream media websites have described the stock glowingly as a multibagger.More reason than ever to strictly avoid mainstream financial media.These IPOs have become a fertile gambling ground with the dice loaded in favor of the promoters and connected market operators.Retail investors get sucked in not realizing its a "Greater Fool" Game with the whole purpose of making them the Greatest Fools.
August 20, 2010
Midfield Industries was another overpriced small cap IPO in the Indian market which listed on 4th August.This stock not so strangely has almost doubled in price […]
August 5, 2010
It is a microcap stock with only $12 million being sold to the public making it easily susceptible to manipulation because of its small float size.Its fundamentals could not in any way justify Rs 199 as even at Rs 118 it looked twice overvalued to me.But the stock kept climbing without any news probably sucking in naive investors out to gamble on the "greater fool" theory until the greatest fools were left holding out the can
August 3, 2010
The Indian Market has seen a slew of junk Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) which have led to large losses for investors.The fundamentals of these companies are […]
July 28, 2010
Engineers India Follow on Offering (FPO) is a sequel to the government PSU divestment through stake sales in companies with low public float.EIL FPO is going […]
July 17, 2010
Indian market has seen a raft of junk offerings in the IPO market over the last few months.Many of these issues have failed to get subscribed […]
June 23, 2010
India has seen numerous junk initial public offerings (IPOs) in the last few months which have either led to serious losses for the investors or have […]
May 22, 2010
Jaypee Infratech which is one of the low quality offerings (IPOs) to list in the Indian market fell 10% on the very day of the listing.This […]
May 21, 2010
Most of the low quality IPOs that have listed in the Indian market recently, have fallen on the day of the listing itself.Jaypee Infratech which is […]
May 20, 2010
SJVN was one decent quality company to offer shares amongst the sea of junk initial public offerings.The government which had faced tepid response to the IPO […]