You would have come across many friends in your life. Some of them might have been known to you from childhood days, some through school, neighborhood, college, office, sports, extra coaching classes, etc. You would be maintaining contact with some while you would have lost touch with many. I am lucky to still have contacts with many from all the above categories, including my KG buddies.

Do you know that, I have some friends who work very hard and make money for me also.

Now compare your friends with the stocks you are investing or have invested. Some of your friends would have done well in their life, while some wouldn’t. Few would have also become stars. Without knowing a person, can you become thick friends. Similarly, before selecting stocks is it not necessary that we should know about them and how we feel about them. While trying to know about my friends, I also try to know about their parents(Promoters) and their intentions too. It may not always be necessary to have only stars as our friends. Not all talented ones shine as stars, but deep inside when we know that they are, should we not be happy to be friends with them. It is ok to have solid good friends all through your investing cycle without them being stars. Solid friends are better than stars, who can be relied upon always.

Some of my solid friends have been Pidilite Industries, Coromandel International, Biocon, HUL, Colgate, Infosys, TCS, NHPC, SJVN, Castrol, etc. I never became friends with ITC only due to my thinking of tobacco as the single drop of poison in a whole lot of Amrit, even though I felt their parents were good. Soon, I will be parting ways with some of my best friends like Cholamandalam Finance, HDFC, HDFC Life, SBI Life, ICICI Prudential, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Federal Bank, etc. Since, I was in Life Insurance sector for some period, I knew their potential and befriended them. However, I have decided to part ways due to the similar reason of not becoming friends with ITC, after realizing now. I would love to be friends like Nestle, 3M India, etc., but since, at present, I have a lot of friends and am already partying with them, I may befriend them in future. Also please remember that each has his own set of friends.

Even though we make friends naturally, in investing and stocks, we are given the option to choose our friends. So, now that we have been given a choice should we not exercise our choice as per our frequency. Happy choosing! 🙂