Why should one invest in mutual funds?

Wealthy people have their wealth in form which offers them returns. The forms in which wealthy people park their money is real estate, bonds, debentures, mutual fund units, shares and stock along with others.

Take the example of shares which are in fact part ownership of corporations. If you invest in shares of a corporation you in fact own part of it thus taking part in its future profits and losses.

If you invest shares of Cement Company, you expose yourself to risks affecting the cement industry negatively. Moreover, there are some factors that can affect your company specifically like bad management, technological obsolescence and others.

In order to reduce company specific risk exposure, you need to invest in a number of companies. Likewise, if you want to reduce risk exposure to a certain industry you need to invest in different industries.

The more variety of shares you purchase the less risk exposure you will have. Reducing your exposure to risk by way of investing in multiple securities is called diversification.

Diversification when rightly implemented can reduce your risk exposure. But there are costs associated with buying number of different securities e.g. cost of ordering, accounting, etc. In order to get full benefit of diversification you need to invest a large amount in different securities. An individual has limited amount of capital and cannot diversify, which keeps him away from investing.

The problem of small capital can only be overcome by pooling of funds by different interested individuals. But how to pool funds and also the issue who would manage the funds on behalf of investors arises.

The answer to all these questions can be overcome by utilizing a vehicle called mutual fund.

Mutual funds are pool of funds managed by fund manager for the benefit of isolated investors, who don’t have expertise in the investment field.

When you invest through mutual funds, you benefit from the expert management. The analysts working for the mutual fund industry generates financial models which grows your capital as well as provides protection to your capital.

With Mutual fund investing you also get benefit from diversification, and economies of scale.

The one thing anyone interested in investing through mutual funds should keep in mind that the return from mutual fund is dependent not only on the financial markets performance but also the overall economic performance.

So start investing with good mutual fund manager and select the mutual fund after due diligence.

Disclosure: any thing/ content isn’t substitute of professional advice and the blogging team isn’t responsible for any loss/ damage resulting from acting on information from this blog.

Investing strategies: used by billionaires to amass their fortunes

There are many investing strategies, which investors use. Value investing, contrarian investing and growth investing are mostly used investing strategies. Let’s briefly study them.

Value investing is the most successful investing strategy. It was founded by Benjamin Graham, mentor of Warren Buffet. In this strategy investors see for underpriced securities based on some formula other than market price. This formula for ascertaining the value of the security is generally some multiple of income of the corporation. Value investors usually have to wait for longer in order to realize the full value of their assets.

Along with Warren Buffet many other successful investors follow the value investing strategy of investing. According to researches value investing proved to be the most successful way of investing.  Many billionaire investors favor value investing over other forms of investing. Warren Buffet, Howard Marks, Seth Andrew Klarman, Charles Brandes, Walter J. Schloss, Irving Kahn, Mario Joseph Gabelli, Michael F. Price   are some of most successful value investors.     

Another strategy is contrarian investing. Contrarian investing is buying when other people are selling and selling when other people are buying. Every up and down in the overall stock market or some specific share price offers opportunity of selling and buying to these contrarians respectively.  Warren Buffet is also sometimes referred to as contrarian investor, owing to the obvious reason of many similarities between contrarian and value investing strategy. Other famous proponents of contrarian investing are Michael F. Price, James Beeland Rogers, Marc Faber, David Dreman, Mark E. Ripple, and William Albert Ackman.

Growth investing is another strategy which many successful investors use.  Those who follow growth investing strategy invest in companies that show above average growth even when their shares seem to be highly priced. Unlike value investors, growth investors buy stock in companies that are trading higher than their intrinsic value-assuming that the intrinsic value would grow eventually exceeding current valuations. These investors focus on capital appreciation. Venture capital funds can be classified as growth investors.   

Diversification (Finance) and its benefits

Diversification is the most important technique available to investors. It helps you avoid losing all of your money in financial crisis. Diversification is allocating your investing capital to different asset classes with the goal to reduce your total risk. 

 

But question arises as to why to invest in variety of assets when some may perform poorly.  Why not invest only in assets with greater returns.  The simple answer is that investment returns depend on variety of future events, which nobody can reliably predict.

Diversification can help reduce the risk associated with these future events.

Making diversification effective can take more than simply spreading out your money in more than one asset. The real benefits of your diversification strategy can be fully achieved by owning uncorrelated multiple asset classes which behave differently under different economic conditions.

For example, having a portfolio of 30 oil and gas stocks isn’t diversification. Even owning stocks and bonds may not be sufficiently diversified. Investing in variety of unrelated industries is real diversification.   

Different assets are exposed to different types of risks. If one asset perform badly there are good chances that other assets would perform well and would nullify the impact of bad-performing asset.

Investors should distribute their investments in assets with varying degree of liquidity, risk, and potential of earning. If you are investing in financial markets, you may diversify by investing in real assets like gold or real estate. Financial markets also offer avenues for diversification. Bond market often moves in opposing direction to that of equity. Investing in bonds can save you during period of falling share prices.

Although no amount of diversification can save you from complete disaster but it provides your assets with considerable protection against random events.

   

Just in Time production and its benefits

 
Amancio Ortega is a founing chairman of Inditex fashion group. He looks after more than 6000 stores in 88 countries. He is most famous for creating ZARA, the retailer. 

ZARA chain uses the just in time(JIT) method of production. In JIT inventory is kept to minimum. The basic assumption of JIT is that inventory is a liability rather than an asset and therefore, should be kept to minimum. Resultantly, capital invested in inventory can be directed to other uses. With less capital tied up in inventory the return on investment can be enhanced.

Most people, in management, think JIT as only inventory management technique rather than as a way of thinking to solve problems. With reduced inventory level, the focus is shifted towards quality production. 

With reduced level of inventory the risk of obsolescence is reduced. The cost on storage can also be saved.

Manufacturing executive understands the importance of JIT but think that their operations are not fit to make transition over to JIT.
Many successful companies are using JIT. A list of companies using JIT includes names like NIKE, Toyata, Hawlette Packard etc. Infact, JIT was born in Toyata.  Although it failed initially in Toyota because its geographical disperse.

Later on it was adopted by other automobile manufacturers. Today it is being used in many of top companies in industries as diverse as computer industry to fashion.

The biggest impact of JIT is not on inventory and ROI but the way it exposes problems in supply chain, which needs to be resolved. And this is where executive think JIT can be hurdle rather than support.

As with other techniques, JIT has its own set of flaws. The reduced level of inventory increases the risk associated with supplier’s failure. Toyota lost billions when plant of one of its supplier caught fire.  

Suppliers are the most important piece in JIT.  For succeeding in JIT you need to have reliable suppliers, who can supply you quality product without delay. A supplier than would ask for a bit more money to compensate for the added reliability.

JIT, for its profitable implementation needs to have some prerequisites. A company can only make transition over to JIT if its cost of storage increases sharply with increase in inventory. Moreover, ordering cost should be negligible.

Generally companies starts to implement JIT from suppliers. Sooner they get fed up with unavailability of JIT suppliers, the one who is willing and able to supply right thing, at the right time, and in right quantity. It is advisable for these companies to start implementing JIT from assembly level to backward the supply chain. Rather than having ready prepared finished goods, they should assembly their products when ordered by customer. Gradually, workers would start having components in easy to assemble form.
   

Baby shark method: the secret of many successful retailing giants

Albert Gubay, the late billionaire, from humble beginning established United Kingdom’s most successful supermarket chain Kwik Save.

It started, in 1959, when he founded value foods. His aggressive price cuttings lead many distributors and suppliers to refuse him.

In 1964, he visited United States learning from there a technique which helped him built his retailing chain. Sooner his Value Foods changed to Kwik Save, a discount retailer chain boosting more than 1000 stores. The growth of his business was a direct result of his use of baby shark method.

In this method the retailer purchases goods on good payment terms, say for example, 60 or 90 days and then sell these items at or below costs. The interest on cash generated by the sale is then used to expand retailing business.

The interest on trade credit is received in form of discount. By selling these items he generated cash for expansion at the same time being able to pay suppliers when the payments became due. This method is a sort of OPM, other people’s money.

The use of baby shark method, along with other cost cutting methods learnt from West German retailing giant ALDI, he founded the empire consisting of hundreds of outlets. In 1973, he sold Kwik Save for £14 million, the first step to amass his £500 million fortune.

ALDI, the giant German retailer was using this method much before Gubay copied it. In fact, ALDI was where this method of retailing was perfected. Today ALDI owns more than 10000 stores in 18 countries, with total turnover of 50 billion €.

What are REITs and how they work.

They knew it or not but when group of merchants raised money for the Boston pier in 1772, they were early pioneers of vehicle called REIT. The financing structure for the pier – merchants owned the land together and shared the rent-after 250 years has become an important way for investors to earn hefty returns.

The idea behind REIT is simple raise money from investors, buy property and share more than 90% of its earnings back to investors. REITs have become an active tool to avoid taxes. Many businesses started taking advantage of this structure and arranged themselves as REITS.

Empire state building owned by Empire State Realty Trust is one such building. The massive revenues generated by visitors and rental income are distributed to the investors.

REITs take money from retail investors, pool it and then invest it in real estate and related projects. Real estate is capital intensive business and pooled funds enable individual investors to own piece of lucrative real assets, much bigger than they could manage or afford on their own. Apart from pooling of funds REITs also offers investors the benefit of economies of scale.  

Furthermore, owning real assets through REITs keep you away from hassle of managing your property. The collection of rent and maintenance is outsourced to REIT.

The dearth of available options and illiquidity in realty sector makes REITs an attractive option for small investors.

Investing in REITs is like investing in real economy, unlike stock and bonds. REITs are considered good alternative to bond markets and is considered to move in opposite direction to stock market.

REITs are also tax-efficient structure as they are treated as pipes, structure whose returns are only taxed in the hands of investors. Its tax efficient character is major attraction for many businesses to register themselves as REITs.

These are more liquid than other forms of investments and attract new classes of investors. Moreover they allow industrial companies and insurers to realize the value of properties lying idle on their books.

Till date there are 05 REITs management companies operating in Pakistan.  The number of REITs and asset under management is abysmally low. The number can be compared with more than 40 mutual funds for the stock market, worth capitalization of 75 billion $. Real estate market is worth a lot more than that and even then there are only two REITs available to investors.

Although Real estate took a nosedive after imposition of transaction tax on the sector in the last budget, but it rebounded quickly owing to host of reasons.

Real estate can offer tremendous growth to investors because of CPEC impetus, Trump effect and rising unemployment of workers in Saudi Arabia, home to some 2 million Pakistani workers.

Realty is a save venue for parking untaxed wealth, and therefore expected to grow upward. Moreover, the development in Gwadar would help Pakistan become a transport hub for international trade, which would increase property prices beyond the present level.

Commercial as well as residential property market is facing shortage of supply. It is expected that in 2025 Pakistan will be facing shortage of 20 million housing units. The pooling of funds from savers and using it for development of residential and commercial spaces will be a lucrative option for entrepreneurs and investors at the same time offering living and working spaces to growing population. The growing cement and construction sector will have excess capacity after the completion of CPEC and it would be viable option to use that capacity for construction. 

Growing international demand for Paksitani halal food

Keeping in view the growing international halal food market, Fauji meat limited has set up 75 million USD halal abattoir and meat processing plant, in Karachi.  This 47 acre spread facility has daily production capacity of 100 ton meat, of which 85 tons would be beef, in both chilled and frozen categories.

Halal food is the one which is prepared and is hygienic, in accordance with the principles of Sharia.

The demand for halal products is growing at a 10.8% annually, and is expected to reach 3.7 trillion dollars till 2019. Halal food makes up the largest share of this halal products industry.

Pakistan, is ideally located, to take benefit of this opportunity as consumers in gulf countries have huge liking for Pakistani halal stuff, especially the meat.

With 2nd largest buffalo and 8th largest cattle herd, Pakistan is endowed with valuable live stock. In mutton category Pakistan has 4th largest goat herd and has 9th largest number of sheep in the world. India, situated at the border, has earned more than 4.7 billion dollars from exports of buffalo meat in the fiscal year ended in 2015.

FPCCI president Abdul Rauf Alam, while talking to a private newpaper, said that world leading suppliers for halal products including high quality meat, poultry, dairy products and other foods are Australia, Brazil, Canada, Indonesia, India, Malaysia, Philippines,  Thiland, New Zealand and United States. He further added that USA and Australia are biggest halal beef exporter while Brazil and France are the largest halal poultry meat exporter in the Middle East.

Thailand has become 5th largest global halal food producer.

With more than 700 billion dollar market size halal food is expected to attract 2 billion consumers, both Muslim and non-Muslim.

Global market size for halal food is more than 700 billion U.S. dollars

Businesses around the world have started producing halal food to reduce costs. The daily Mail online in this report said that many major Supermarket chains and restaurants, in U.K., sell halal meat to keep their costs low as it can be eaten by both Muslims and non-Muslims alike

Fauji meat is eyeing lucrative foreign markets but equally important is to market these branded and packaged products to domestic consumer as well. This will not only be good for Fuji meat in long term but also for Pakistan’s halal meat industry.