Should you invest in stocks directly at all?

Summary: You don’t need direct stocks to build wealth—here’s the sensible way to do it. This piece explains why mutual funds are enough for most savers, how to avoid the classic mistakes that reduce returns and how to handle direct stocks safely if you still want to try them. Let’s start with a familiar face. Meet Pranit, 34, salaried, living in a metro city. He leaves home around 8.30 in the morning, fights traffic, spends the day in meetings, and somehow makes it back home by 7.30 in the evening. There’s a young child to play with, parents to look after, a few pending chores, and maybe two to three hours a week he can honestly spare for his money. In that limited time, he does what most people do - checks stock prices on his phone between meetings, forwards and receives “hot tips” on WhatsApp, and watches a couple of YouTube videos on the weekend. Now imagine the person on the other side of Pranit’s trade. She’s a full-time fund manager or analyst. Her entire day, 8-10 hours, is spent tracking businesses, meeting managements, reading annual reports, regulations, sector reports and data. She has a research team, a risk team, and her performance is reviewed every quarter in cold numbers. Now ask yourself: who is the stock market really stacked in favour of? This is why, whenever we at Value Research see portfolios stuffed with random shares, the first honest conversation we have is not about which stock to buy but whether direct stocks make sense at all for that person. The three things direct stocks demand Direct stock investing is not “mutual funds DIY”. It demands three things together, not one by one. 1. Time Good stock-picking is not about staring at the price ticker. It’s about understanding the business behind that ticker. That means reading annual reports, tracking quarterly results, following regulations and competition, watching management behaviour, and staying updated with what’s happening in that sector. For one company, this is still manageable. For 10-15 companies, it is a part-time second job. Over the last 10 years, the Nifty 50 TRI has delivered around 14 per cent a year with almost zero effort from the investor once the money is invested. To just match that by picking your own stocks, you have to put in not only money but also hours every week, year after year. In our work with investors through Value Research Fund Adviso

This article was originally published on November 25, 2025.