Finding Multi-baggers the Basant Maheshwari Way

Most market gurus in India like to preach the virtues of patience and caution and urge investors to be happy with a 15 per cent return from equities. But not this charismatic Kolkata-based investor who has made a living out of stock market investing and has a large fan following - Basant Maheshwari. Finding multi-baggers in the stock market is his passion and he makes no bones about it. "Paisa jaldi banana hai ki zyaada?" Basant asked a packed audience of 300-350 investors at a seminar conducted by the Tamilnadu Investors Association at Chennai. His advice to investors who want to make a debut in the stock market is to focus on zyaada, because only that can lead to wealth creation. "Most people start buying shares thinking they will make ₹2,000 or ₹5,000 a day. But that cannot change your life. What can change your life is making ₹2 crore or ₹5 crore over many years," he says. Getting started Creating that kind of wealth, he qualifies, will take a lot of time and dedication. First, you cannot consider stock market investing to be a hobby. It is a full-time activity. "Hobbies always cost you money," he quips. Fascinated with markets since his college days, Basant worked for six years at his family firm before becoming a full-time investor. His second bit of advice is to invest enough money in equities to make a difference to your wealth. "You are not poorer by 10 or 15 per cent in life. You are poorer by 10 times. So, you cannot create wealth by investing ₹50,000," he says. But he advises starting small because to really understand equity investing, you first have to lose money. He did not make money in the market for the first ten years. "I used to buy low P/E stocks at