The perfect recipe to disaster for a serious investor is to discuss an emerging stock idea publicly. First, the idea is not going to play out to a timetable. Emerging ideas do not follow sharp timelines while turning an investment premise into stock price performance. Neither can we expect markets to take swift cognizance of an emerging stock. But people expect a stock to perform based on the reputation of the investor. In bull markets, there is barely time to even think and people take notice of every move, hang on to every WhatsApp forward, and remain in a hyperactive mode. Oddly, there would hardly be any clamour for recommendations in bear markets when the investor is actually working hard on his investment ideas.
In bull markets, time and public perception play an important role in an investor’s performance. People action almost every word they hear and willingly outsource investment responsibility to the source of information. “If Mr X is buying this, saying this, or rumoured to be thinking on these lines, there has to be something in it” becomes the default investment process. Taking a public stance on a stock becomes a kind of endorsement and responsibility. Even a statutory public disclosure of shareholding pattern or bulk deals become the investor’s responsibility.
