Jan 01 2015 : The Economic Times (Mumbai) High-Debt Cos Fail to Gain from Bull Runs   Here's a word of caution as you go about picking stocks in a market that some say has run ahead of reality. While it's generally said that holding stocks for a long time would give good returns, there is a flip side to the common refrain in the world of investments. In the last 10 years, Indian equity market has witnessed three bull runs, including the recent one. But, there is a long list of BSE500 companies that have not generated meaningful returns in this period.Companies such as Future Retail, Tata Steel, Ranbaxy , Hindalco, Reliance Infrastructure, Videocon Industries, Jubilant LifeSciences, JP Associates, IDBI Bank and HCL Infosystems have given returns ranging from 34% to 25% in the last 10 years (see chart). This means even the best performing stock of the lot rose just 2% annually . This is despite their sales growing multi-fold. Take Hindalco,...

Sensex Looks Relatively Well-Placed as We Enter 2015 Saurabh Mukherjea CEO institutional equities Ambit Capital   Three sets of dynamics tend to determine the returns of the index, and they seem to be in the right place; Sensex could hit 36000 by FY16-end Neither GDP growth nor earnings growth has any meaningful relationship with the investment returns generated by the Sensex . Investment returns seem to be dependent on three very different sets of dynamics : ( a ) Reversion to the mean; ( b ) The political-economic cycle in India; and ( c ) The US monetary policy cycle. Seen against these three set of `stories', the Sensex looks relatively well placed as we enter 2015. We reiterate our end-FY16 target of 36000 for the Sensex.So, if neither GDP growth nor EPS growth drives the stock market, what drives it? Secondly , are these drivers predictable at all? Over the last 30 years, there has been a pronounced tendency for the Sensex's returns to r...