FAMS shares their views on Investor Sentiment and behaviour

July 13, 2012 - PRLog -- The views of Mr. Panjwani are given below:

Q: Where have you been for the past couple of months sir?

A: Firstly I would like to apologize for the long absence from the blog to to my personal commitments.

However I have been meeting new people during the absence. I have met more than 50 professionals which also include 13 Fund Managers.

Well who says 13 is an unlucky number. If you take the reciprocal of 13 i.e. 1/13 the answer comes to 7.7 approx. Now 7 is considered a lucky number for many.

Over the last few months, I have been meeting small retail clients to get to know what is it that they really look for when investing their money.

Q: You mentioned that you have seen a shift in retail investor behaviour and sentiment, could you please share sir?

A: Well the interaction made me learn many new things. Firstly most of the retail investors are smart, intelligent and vigilant over their investments. They really do not need a money manager. The number one demand for them is an ADVISOR.

We had people who said that they invest Rs. 5000/- only and look to grow this gradually. They earn Rs. 25 to Rs. 100 per day while trading. However they also loose money as they make losses on stocks which may be out of favor or stocks recommended by their investment manager / broker / CA.

Mostly these investors make good returns when they get the flexibility to take the investment decisions.

The second group of people I got to interact with is with college students. They earn pocket money from their parents. Not all kids blow up their savings on cool items like mobiles, electronics, etc.. or even blow it on impressing their girlfriends :-) Even here there is a group of students who have savings habit inculcated in them.

One student, Mr. Ashish Poddar (name changed) says that he would like to save a part of his pocket money and then try to grow it so that he can buy a new TV for his parents.

Another student, Ms. Anjali Singh (name changed) says that her pocket money is Rs. 5000/- per month. She likes to spend most of it and tries to save between Rs. 500 to Rs. 1000 depending on her expenses - traveling, eating and mobile recharges. This savings is used to purchase birthday gifts for her friends.

Ms. Swati Rai, friend of Ms. Anjali Singh, gets pocket money of Rs. 1000 per month. She still manages to save Rs. 250 to Rs. 300.

From this I was amazed how good women are at savings. Therefore I decided to interact with the best of the money managers in the world. These are those who will manage any amount of money in any sort of situation, be it economic boom or gloom. I am talking about HOUSEWIVES.

They will manager not only their expenses in the monthly budget given to them but also will manage to save from that.

Q: You were also mentioning that FAMS Advisors Pvt Ltd, where you work, will look to focus on your findings and re-strategize their approach to these investor class. Can you share your views on this?

A: I cannot divulge much information on how we would strategize and focus on this investor class. However I could share the general re-orientation towards them.

After interacting with all these groups I decided to focus my attention to cater to these groups as they are the ones who are easily and conveniently ignored. Most FUND MANAGERS and INVESTMENT ADVISORS have a minimum limit which one must invest, so that they could avail of the services.

This minimum limit ranges from Rs. 5 Lacs to Rs. 25 Lacs. However you cannot expect students, ladies or homemakers to shell out such amount of money.

We at FAMS offer a unique facility where in the students, ladies and homemakers can start start investing their money to grow it gradually and safely to meet greater future needs.

We would waive the account opening fees so that your initial cost is ZERO. All you would have to do is start investing with Rs. 5000/- minimum.

We started this scheme in May 2012 and had kept a limit for the first 50 people who inquired and availed investment under this scheme. However now it is the end of May 2012 and we have got inquiries from 124 people.

Looking at this overwhelming response from this category which is usually neglected by larger financial institutions who focus their energy for larger clients, FAMS will continue this offer on a larger scale and extend it to the month of June 2012.

As this scheme is mostly for students and housewives, so if you know any student or housewives looking to allocate their savings into equity investments then you could refer them. This would entitle the referrer also for benefits (refer, get account opened, walk away with benefits).

Q: We hear you are now busy in writing a book? What is it about and when can we expect it?

A: (Smiles) Yes I am writing a book. Its focus is for those who wish to get started in the capital markets. It is a light read but with lots of practical points which will help you avoiding mistakes which I have seen in my professional career. Keeping fingers crossed, I am hoping to finish it soon.

Thank you for having me for this interview.