Golden words from "The Intelligent Investor"by Ben Graham, which I would like to share: " In our own stock-market experience and observation extending over 50 years, we have not known a single person, who has consistently or lastingly made money by thus "following the market". We do not hesitate to declare that this approach is as fallacious as it is popular." - Source: "The Intelligent Investor" by Benjamin Graham (2003 edition), page 3.

Introduction

Stockmarket has been of interest to me for a long time, have found time and money in the past two years to experiment with the same . It also took me quiet a bit of time for me to identify the kind of investor I am.

As any beginner would start, the idea was see if one can quickly multiply your investment from stock market but realisation came that the game is for the most seasoned investor who could spend a considerable amount of time to the task and it was very difficult to believe that I will be a better informed investor ahead of the mass.

Tried to understand trading based on technical analysis studied Candle stick, Elliot wave , Moving averages etc., Back testing proved that even if successful, after the cost, the returns don’t justify the risk.

Realised that the road ahead will be value investing. Having had very little exposure to finance, balance sheet, P&L, cash flow and ratios had to spend a lot of time to understand the basic. Even there I will never be a master. Needed a simpler tool that can guide to a value opportunity. Continued my search till I landed on a model based on Buffet teaching. The difficulty was to get the 7 years data input for the model. Continued my search for a source till I found one.

http://www.traderji.com/fundamental-analysis/12555-tool-fundamental-analysis.html

I believe the model can guide to a value opportunity, but whether will it give satisfactory results? Only time will tell, because the biggest challenge in Value investing is Patience!