The final frontier of consumerism has arrived in South Korea.

H ACID PRICES SURGES TO RUPEES 2850/KG FROM RUPEES 500/KG TILL NOW (KIRI IND, BODAL CHEM AND BHAGERIA IND)

$AAPL. I love the products. I am typing this on one. The stock is a different conversation. * 2009 to 2019: earnings per share grew 25% a year. You could buy the stock for about 16x earnings. * 2019 to today: earnings per share grew 17% a year. The stock trades at 39x. * Growth slowed by a third. Price per dollar of earnings more than doubled. * And that 17% flatters the business. About 4 points of it came from buybacks shrinking the share count. Strip that out and the business itself grew 13% a year. * Buybacks are wonderful when the stock is cheap. At 16x, a year of Apple's profits could retire about 6% of the company. At 39x, the same profits retire about 2.5%. The higher the stock goes, the less the buyback does. * Where did the growth come from? Apple sold 231 million iPhones in 2015 and about 247 million last year, per IDC. That is 7% more phones in ten years. iPhone revenue is up 35% because the average phone costs about $175 more. Raising prices is a fine business. It is not a growth business. * So: slower growth, mostly from pricing, a buyback that does less every year, and a stock priced at more than twice what investors paid for a decade. * I have seen this movie. Walmart in 2000. Nike in 2021. Nothing wrong with the company. The stock got ahead of the business. Either the business grows into the price, or the price comes down to the business.

Markets Sense a Long Era of Instability: Don’t Buy the Fall (a) Govt is distracted (b) FIIs dislike mass protests (c) 2021-26: Nifty below-FD Return (d) FD rates will rise; Build Cash (d) China 17 yrs 0 return (e) Here’s India Data & Facts: Second Order Effects on Economy a. Govt is facing real political storms. It has no bandwidth left for major economic policy or reforms to attract foreign investment. b. Foreign funds don’t invest where mass protests and public discontent are a daily affair. Their bet on India was a strong govt; strong economic agenda. c. Inflation rising, unemployment rising; IT exports declining; Rupee under pressure. RBI is forced to fight inflation. FD rates will rise in Oct. Zero Risk Premium in Equity a. 5-Year Returns: Sept 2021 to Sept 2026 (5 Yrs): Nifty 50 Return: 32.3%; Post Office Deposit Return: 34.4%; SBI 5-Yr FD Return: 30.8% b. 3-Year Returns: Nifty 50 Return: 15.58%; Sensex Return: 9.94%; Post Office Deposit Return: 21.56%; SBI FD Risk-Free Return: 21.34% c. Last 3 Years: Out of a universe of 2,867 stocks, 43.3% delivered negative returns (one-third lost up to 50% value; 11% lost above 50% value). d. Risk-Reward Ratio: In last 3 years, you had a 43.3% probability of destroying your capital. Against such high risk, even if you won, the returns were far too negligible to justify such volatile investment. Don’t Bet on Growth Narrative a. Yesterday, Kotak published a chart showing that China stock market (CSI 300) has remained sideways for the last 17 yrs; and has not yet regained the level it set 18 yrs ago. b. Howard Marks published data in his recent memo: In the last 100 yrs, each time you bought S&P 500 at forward PE 23x, the annualized return in the next 10 yrs has been between +2% and -2%. Every single time. No exceptions. c. India is no exception. India’s growth story of FDI, FII, IT boom, low inflation is long over. Over the next 5 yrs, the downside risk looks higher than the upside potential. If you go all-in, that’s a risky bet for your mental peace, with little potential upside. Why Are FIIs So Pessimistic? a. On Aug 28, Bernstein published a hard-hitting strategy note: "India’s corporate earnings are artificially engineered through state subsidies, fiscal cushions, and borrowed offshore dollars rather than through genuine productivity gains." b. Market bulls touted NSE 200 top-line growth was 12%. Yet, net profit grew only 7%. Bernstein questioned the practice of excluding loss-making oil marketing companies (OMCs) "to manufacture a strong earnings growth story." c. Govt expanded LPG/fertilizer subsidies, took $10B hit through excise duty reductions, $20B GST cuts, OMCs took $2B loss. So govt subsidized consumer spending power, which artificially padded the firms’ operating margins. That's not a long-term play. d. $70B Pay Commission wage revision is coming, which will encumber sovereign balance sheet and cut govt’s capacity for public capex. Plus, with costly FCNR deposits, govt is purchasing rupee stability on credit, Bernstein warned. e. Finally, Bernstein says India’s large caps are not investing in the future, and are consolidating their past (preserving balance sheets). Companies with deepest pockets don’t want to commit capital to emerging technologies, and want policy protection. f. In this scenario, FIIs are forced to look at small and midcaps (SMIDs). But those companies remain sub-scale, with low free-floats, high volatility, and risky corporate governance. Institutional capital is not interested. Bernstein concludes: With these problems, why should FIIs invest in India? ENDPIECE: Investor Strategy a. PE de-rating is going on globally. World-class US companies are available at throwaway prices, and there are no buyers. So, don’t get tempted by a falling market in India. b. Build cash patiently. Unwind risky positions. Cash has 3 benefits: (1) Emergency funds give security & happiness (2) FD may beat equity for next few years (3) If global equity crashes, you will be the only buyer in town. c. Think in Probabilities: Considering all macro factors: (1) India Equity Boom: 20% chance (2) Sideways: 60% chance (3) Bust: 20% chance FD wins: 60% + 20% = 80% chance Equity wins: 20% chance Markets are the greatest game on earth. The dream to get rich is as old as the hills. Most investors will still pick equity. @arabicatrader

Investment Opportunity highlight - LIC. A completely hated PSU Mega Cap. Thanks to @saurabhved for highlighting this in our monthly VP meet in Calcutta 13th September. Over the next 2 days I tried to understand the opportunity and below is my understanding in numbers NSE listing is likely to add 6% kicker to LIC Embedded EV as LIC owns ~10% 1/3

Is this time different? Above-ground gold is now ~26% on 2026 year-to-date world GDP numbers. The floating-era mean is 8.7%. The last cycle peak, 1980, was 18.6%. The low was 3.9% in 2001. A picture is worth 1,000 words. I will not bet against history. Will you?

AMD joins the $1 TRILLION club! Shares jump almost 10%, lifting its market cap to $1.005tn. It’s the 7th chipmaker to cross the threshold, after Nvidia, TSMC, Broadcom, Micron, Samsung & SK Hynix. From just $90bn in October 2022: an elevenfold increase in under 4yrs.

GMO outlines a blended stock valuation measure — price to sales, gross profit, economic book and normalised earnings — running from 1981 to June 2026, with the latest reading in the 4th percentile of that 45-year history.

$3.5 Million USD dollar house in Pilar (Buenos Aires) One of those examples of an investment that probably won't be able to exit for years and years if ever.

Majority of people around me are now investing more in US, saying Indian story is over. Majority of brokers are launching US investing. Majority of Indian finance podcasts now talks more about buying US. Majority of my DMs are about how to invest in US. Many posts & replies on X saying they exited India recently and only invest in US now. In general, when everyone is so positive on something - I like to be little careful.

94.2% of 5-Year Rolling Periods: Multifactor Outperformed Nifty 500.