Indian Investment Gurus - Rakesh Jhunjhunwala & Radha Kishan Damani

Rakesh Jhunjhunwala started with a meagre Rs 10,000 somewhere in 1985 and with some trading profit was on a leverage capital of Rs 10 lacs in a few months now if you compound that Rs 10 lacs at 57% for 22 years, You do get to the figure of Rs 2250 crores. Rakesh Jhunjhunwala is one example of compounding.

Basically he came out unhurt both in 1992 (Harshad Mehta) and in 2000 (ketan pareikh). Now avoiding the biggest mistakes is one of the ingredients to creating this ocean of wealth. But he had bet very aggressively in 1989 or thereabouts he was the only person long on the markets and I think Madhu Dandvate was to present the budget and the whole market was short and Rakesh Jhunjhunwala the only lone long standing bull! he minted. I heard that In 1992 he was among the few who could time Harshad Mehta's bubble to perfection.

The other being Radha Kishan Damani - of Bright Star investment. So while the whole nation bled and lost these two investors minted. Radha Kishanji lost a fair percentage of his portfolio in BPCL and HPCL and then he diverted into D-mart and became an investor.

The striking thing about thes etwo investors is that unlike a Jesse Livermore (he stands out far above anyone in trading) these two changed their style after making some decent money. He himslef admitted during my meeting with him that he started out with a small capital and huge leverage but remember for every Rakesh Jhunjhunwala that is born, we have hundreds of martyrs like him. But that did not prevent Rakesh Jhunjhunwala from thinking big maybe had he gone into that bank fixed deposit approach after making Rs 10 crores.