Top 5 Reasons to Avoid ITC Stock

After Tuesday's (26th Nov) fall of more than 5% on huge volumes, the stock of ITC rose marginally on Wednesday (27th Nov) amid brokerage upgrades and their justification that the decision to ban loose cigarettes cannot be practically implemented and thus will have negligible to marginal impact on ITC earnings. However, it appears to be something fishy about the brokerage upgrades which immediately came after the stock took a big plunge. Most of the big mutual funds and FIIs have ITC among their top holdings and fall in price certainly affects their performance specially when there is a an year end round the corner when their YoY performance is measured. 

It is very clear that govt. is trying everything to curb the consumption of tobacco in the country and would go to any extent to curtail it. Here are the 5 reasons you should avoid ITC for the time being.

Top 20 books on Stock Market Investing

At InvestorZclub many popular eBooks and PDFs related, to finance, investment and personal development, has been shared which readers can either read online or download for free. Some of these books such as "The intelligent Investor", "The Richest Man in Babylon", "Rich Dad Poor Dad" etc were the best sellers of their time.  

Below is the list of 20 most popular eBooks (by views) and pdfs reviewed and shared on the blog.

1. The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham

2. Warren Buffet Secrets eBook

3. Financial Crisis of 1914

Where is the bottom for crude oil?

If the given image is of any indication brent crude oil might bottom out at 75-80 range as many of the major crude oil producing countries will fall into chaos and will try everything to support crude prices. 

If oil prices bottom out in this range many of the Indian and international producers such as Cairn India, ONGC, BP, Conco Phillips will provide good stock price appreciation from current levels in medium to long term.

Globally, the weaker oil price means more money in the hands of consumers. World oil exports averaged about 40m barrels a day last year; a $30 drop in the oil price, which is roughly the fall in the Brent benchmark since June, would transfer more than $400bn from oil exporters to consumers if oil prices stay at current levels for a year. This is very good news for FMCG, Autos, Airlines and many other industries that depend on oil and it's by products .

One country to watch out very closely is Venezuela as it needs roughly $160 a barrel to balance it's budget. At half of that price it might be forced to default on it's debt repayment. This event could trigger short term panic in equity markets for the fear of cascading effect on other vulnerable countries.