What's in a story? Sometimes, Rs 4,500 crore

We found a stock. A real gem. As of February 2024, it was up 72x in three years. It is basically the kind of green energy story that fund managers say "you'll wish you'd bought at Rs 100." Its market cap had soared past Rs 4,000 crore. Profits went up 20x over FY21-24, powered by robust order inflows in the core solar EPC business. The growth narrative was irresistible. It was the right sector, at the right time, with the right tailwinds—and a valuation that only made sense if you believed in magic. And we're going to tell you exactly what this stock is. Just not yet. Throughout this article, I have planted clues about this stock. It can be in the turn of a phrase, hidden in bold letters, peeping at you from the edge of your vision, or rather, staring at you in the face while you look right through it. You need to work a little for it, because to understand why this stock soared, you need to understand something deeper: It's not just the stock you want, it's the story. Economist Robert Shiller writes, "Economic behaviour is driven by contagious narratives." And in India, we have no shortage of them—"green gold rush," "sunshine sector," "clean energy revolution." The twist appears when you apply Daniel Kahneman's theory to Robert Shiller. Daniel Kahneman, the world-famous Israeli-American psychologist and economist, presented two simple systems—System 1 and System 2—in his book, 'Thinking Fast and Slow'. System 1 is the fast, emotional, instinctive part of our brain. System 1 loves a good rally. System 1 believes in momentum. System 1 loves a good story. The real question then isn't what this stock we found is. It's why you already want to own it. Let's try to figure it out. The psychological power of narratives Most of us want to believe we're rational thinkers, that we're driven by data and discipline. But when we hea

This article was originally published on April 10, 2025.