Uncovering Small Cap Gems: A Conversation ft. Ayush Mittal, Founder Screener, Small/Mid Cap Investor

Screener was created by Ayush and Pratyush Mittal (brothers) in 2009. Their dad Sh. Satya Prakash Mittal Ji has been investing in equity Market since 1980s — he has a passion for analyzing financial statements. His approach to investing led Mittal brothers to create Screener.

Sh. Satya Prakash Mittal loves to discover small growing companies available at bargains. The era of internet was just starting-off when Ayush & Pratyush entered high school. Quarterly numbers of the companies were now being published on bseindia.com and capitalmarket.com. Each morning, at 5AM - an hour before they readied for school, their dad would wake them and ask them to download and print new quarterly results. While printing the numbers, Ayush was often fascinated by the mis-pricings market provided. There were cases of changes in regulations, turnarounds in companies or sudden reduction in interest cost and debts. Cases where though the earnings increased, and appeared maintainable, the prices were highly discounted as the companies were lesser known names. Ayush has continued his pursuit for such cases ever since.

Pratyush has a craze for coding. He wanted to automate this whole workflow so that they can study-through more number of companies in a day, and more so because he hated waking up at 5. Pratyush learned a few programming languages to automate the process first in excel, then shifted it to cloud and then converted it into a mass utility tool called Screener.in.

Both of them got into full time investing after completing their Chartered Accountancy. Though traditionally being balance sheet guys, they tried to shift gears into more in-depth research and quality scuttlebutt. They have been a helping hand at ValuePickr.com — it connects like minded people with a passion for hard-work in equities.

Video Chapters 👇

00:00 Intro
03:11 Investing Journey
07:02 How Screener.com started
10:28 Identifying Mispricing Bets
12:24 Networking/Collaborative Research
14:28 Management Meeting (Shilpa Medicare)
17:50 How to generate stock ideas using a screener
21:08 Decadal Investing Journey and Lessons
24:59 Coding/Technicals (Pratyush Mittal)
26:59 Should we book profit in small-cap companies since they are too volatile?
30:25 How does one's investing style change after their portfolio size increases?/ what factors might influence someone to switch positions after experiencing portfolio growth?
32:48 Consistent Compounder Portfolio - CCP
33:50 How to analyze Nano/Micro Cap companies & How to judge management Integrity
37:34 Key red flags to watch out for in small-cap companies (Case-study)
40:50 How to measure a company's competitive advantages/Pricing Power (Shivalik Bimetal Case Study)
44:30 How to ensure low churn
48:09 Re-entry in stocks sold earlier
50:41 Screener-related Query
51:38 Portfolio Allocation
55:13 Capex announcement Query related to screener
56:37 Investing nostalgia from Ayush Mittal's father(Satya Prakash Mittal)
01:02:30 Capex announcement Query related to screener (Continue)
01:03:49 Shivalik Bimetal Case study
01:07:31 Holding underperforming Stocks/
01:13:16 Scaling Position Size in diversified portfolio
01:22:55 Investing strategy evolution over the period
01:25:02 Scuttlebutt investing
01:27:12 How to reach out to micro-cap companies management/ is it beneficiary?
01:28:50 Manuals/Videos for how to use the screener
01:30:20 How to judge Management Quality
01:33:34 Corporate Governance Checklist
01:36:45 How to handle discomforting news about an investee company
01:39:14 Selling Strategy & Using Technicals for long term investing
01:42:30 SIP in small Cap MF
01:43:42 Concentration PF vs Diversified
01:44:27 View on Zomato
01:45:07 Overblown Corporate Governance Issues in Small cap companies
01:46:51 Averaging Up & Averaging Down
01:47:53 Margin Of Safety in Small cap companies
01:49:07 Market Cycle & Timing
01:50:26 View on Smart Meter Manufacturing
01:51:31 How to build position in micro-cap amidst challenging liquidity conditions
01:53:49 Asset Allocation
01:54:25 Risk Management
01:55:14 How to grow 5-10 lakhs to 100 Crores?
01:56:49 Buying Patterns
01:58:10 Buying after stock run-up significantly
01:59:09 View on EV Sector
02:01:45 ChapGPT & AI
02:02:30 Screener-related queries
02:06:06 Small cap in FMCG Sector
02:06:43 Investing in small cap for older people
02:07:27 Screener-related queries
02:08:21 Allocation in all small-cap companies Portfolio
02:09:02 Missed Opportunity
02:10:28 Screener-related queries
02:13:51 Gut-feel Investing
02:15:26 View of Investing in India for Next 25 Years
02:16:13 Valuation Framework
02:18:31 Market view
02:19:47 Screener New Feature
02:22:14 What to do and not to do in investing
02:26:09 Gratitude note
02:31:10 Closing remarks

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