When to exit long term stock holdings

This is not for short term punters. Nor for swing traders, who look mainly at charts for entry and exit. This is also not for investors who remain in a stock for 2 to 3 years max and then jump ships. This article is for those long term investors, who are willing to wait out in select stocks, hang on to them for sweet compounded annual rates of return, but then do not know when to call it quits.

I have been one of those investors who has hung on to quite a few of my investments over the long term. I do punt in some select stocks, I do take undue risks in some fancy small-cap stocks, but my main investments remains with stocks in whom I have believed over the long term. That belief has kept me hanging on to them even in the "worst" of stock market times.

I had invested in stocks like HDFC ( my all time fav stock), Lupin, L&T, Mahindra and Mahindra, UPL etc. since the early 2000s. I had hung on to them even during the great meltdown of 2008. In fact , I had added to my positions when the markets crashed. Before the crash , about 40% of my holdings were in such long term (LT) stocks. Just before the crash, I had fortuitously smelled the oncoming crash, and had exited about 30%, leaving my 30% in the market to suffer the pangs of the crash, along with the blue chips.

I used the spare cash, to " square off " some of the 30% positions in the market, but also to add to my LT stocks. Over time, I came out unscathed, but there was a lot of short term pain. But even during those painful days, I had refused to quit the HDFCs of the world.

So, what parameters did I use, to either hang in, or exit? The yardsticks I used were a few:

1. How strong is the management? How ambitious are they? Do they have the track record? Is their ambition not over-ambition?

Example of HDFC - they passed on all the above. I am still holding on after 15 years. Same with Lupin.

Bad example of Renuka Sugars - I was stupid enough to believe in a strong management in a cyclical industry, that , in hindsight had bitten off more they could chew. I had to book a huge loss and get out

2. I do not bother much about valuations, which are transitionary, over the long term. What looks like overpriced today, could become more affordable tomorrow, with earnings growth. Key then is - are earnings likely to continue to grow?

Example here is for M&M, which I had quit: M&M had diversified business under the strong leadership of Anand Mahindra. Their tractor business used to balance out any vagaries in the other parts of their business and vice versa. But circa 2012, I realized that their earnings were unlikely to grow much, given that the tractor biz got flat. IN hindsight, my call was spot-on.

Bad example is L&T, which I continue to hold. They pass the muster in the parameters of point 1 above, but I was not able to foresee the global oil price meltdown coming in 2014. I am still holding on, because oil too is cyclical, and it is a matter of time before it picks up again. The moot point is - whether in this interim period of 3 to 5 years, my investment could have yielded better returns in an Eicher or a Bosch. The answer is Yes- which is why I call it a bad example, even though my logic of staying on per se, is right.

3. Are the companies doing whatever they are doing, absolutely right, and is there any risk of their going wrong or a threat of looming competition? Surprising as it may sound, some companies get into a sweet spot in the market from which they are seemingly not dislodgeable. Examples are : Balkrishna Industries, Lakshmi Machine Works, Bosch, Page Industries, UPL , and to a lesser extent, Eicher Motors. 4. And then there are those quiet performers, which do not warrant an exit for decades, because they keep doing more of the same, and in the best possible manner. You wont get multbaggers here overnight, but your investment is in safe hands, and would yield decent returns. I know there are people out there, who argue that, rather than staying on forever, it is better to go in and out more often to maximize your returns. As I said, I bank on my punting stocks for that, and would leave the better part of my money in such stocks above. If you wish to go in and out of stocks every third day, then that is purely your call. Accordingly, your choice of stocks will change too.