About Me

My photo
Trichy, Tamil Nadu, India
Working as an Assistant in LIC of India, Rockfort BO, Trichy, TN. Having a strong belief that LIC's welfare is our welfare and always trying to work towards that. I'm a member of AIIEA.

Saturday, November 8, 2014

While others were selling, LIC bought and earned Rs.10 K Cr.

Source: ET

In the game of stock picking, the largest local investor, LIC has been a contrarian. It's a bet that has paid off so far in the current bull run.
LIC's mantra is simple: buy shares of operationally sound companies that are caught in unfavourable business cycle and trading at a lower multiple. Based on the latest stock holdings, the state-owned insurer has gained almost Rs 10,000 crore in the past four quarters on back of its contrarian calls on scrips like BHEL and Axis Bank.
In both stocks, LIC raised its stake nearly 4% since December 2013 when several brokerages gave 'sell' call and even three months ago many were bearish about the stocks. "The biggest ability of LIC is to relate the current valuation and current business cycle of the operationally sound companies. When they find valuation of a stock is discounting current business cycle excessively, LIC buys the stock," said G Chokkalingam, Founder, Equinomics Research. "What works in favour of LIC is the duration of holding period for a stock. Being an insurance company, it can hold stock for 8-10 years. However, mutual funds do not have such flexibility as they are under pressure to outperform the benchmark index on a quarterly basis," he said.
The point LIC started buying BHEL, three out of four analysts covering the stock came out with 'sell' reports. Their reasons: a depleted order book and an