Over the past few months, I had been hinting that Shekhar’s portfolio may need a relook. However, we had agreed at the outset that no changes would be made before completing one full year. That year is now over.

As Shekhar looked at his portfolio returns over the past year, along with a comparison with Indu and Muthu, he realized that something needed to change. Not necessarily the strategy itself, but given the data he now had, there was an opportunity to learn and refine.

There are various ways to assess winners and losers in a basket of stocks. However, since Shekhar was reviewing his own portfolio, he chose a simple comparison: how much money had he put in, and how much was the stock holding worth today?

Shekhar had started with a basket of 50 stocks, investing ₹2,000 initially in each. Over the next 12 months, he invested a further ₹4,800 in each stock. Due to certain corporate actions, his basket became 52 stocks.

The simple analysis he undertook was to compare each stock’s current value against the ₹6,800 invested in it. He then sorted the list so that the loss leaders were listed at the top.

Below is the table:

Sr No	Stock	Value	Investment	Gain/Loss	%ge Gain/Loss
1	Manyavar Vedant Fashions	4237.35	6800	-2562.65	-37.69
2	Devyani International	4821.24	6800	-1978.76	-29.10
3	Trent	5086.54	6800	-1713.46	-25.20
4	Tube Investments	5183.77	6800	-1616.23	-23.77
5	Page Industries	5226.22	6800	-1573.78	-23.14
6	Garware Technical	5429.33	6800	-1370.67	-20.16
7	Bajaj Housing Finance	5456.00	6800	-1344.00	-19.76
8	Deepak Nitrite	5467.63	6800	-1332.37	-19.59
9	L&T Technologies	5711.87	6800	-1088.13	-16.00
10	Havells	5829.52	6800	-970.48	-14.27
11	Indian Hotels	5837.53	6800	-962.47	-14.15
12	Aarti Industries	5844.16	6800	-955.84	-14.06
13	Mankind Pharma	5935.96	6800	-864.04	-12.71
14	Metro Shoes	6022.97	6800	-777.03	-11.43
15	TCS	6181.07	6800	-618.93	-9.10
16	Naukri Info Edge	6237.56	6800	-562.44	-8.27
17	Tata Elxsi	6341.49	6800	-458.51	-6.74
18	DMART Avenue Supermart	6366.25	6800	-433.75	-6.38
19	Jio Finance	6436.97	6800	-363.03	-5.34
20	Varun Beverages	6489.55	6800	-310.45	-4.57
21	SRF	6573.02	6800	-226.98	-3.34
22	Astral	6626.23	6800	-173.77	-2.56
23	Divis Labs	6740.14	6800	-59.86	-0.88
24	Pidilite	6793.62	6800	-6.38	-0.09
25	HDFC Bank	6871.36	6800	71.36	1.05
26	Bajaj Finserv	6924.75	6800	124.75	1.83
27	ICICI Bank	6938.07	6800	138.07	2.03
28	Tata Motors	3473.78	3400	73.78	2.17
29	HUL	6952.67	6800	152.67	2.25
30	Reliance	7011.29	6800	211.29	3.11
31	Infosys	7017.75	6800	217.75	3.20
32	Dabur	7021.16	6800	221.16	3.25
33	Tata Commecial	3524.08	3400	124.08	3.65
34	Zomato	7073.60	6800	273.60	4.02
35	Kotak Mahindra Bank	7074.22	6800	274.22	4.03
36	Aarti Pharma	7132.20	6800	332.20	4.89
37	HCL Tech	7176.43	6800	376.43	5.54
38	Bajaj Finance	7265.30	6800	465.30	6.84
39	Tata Consumer	7335.18	6800	535.18	7.87
40	Britannia	7360.87	6800	560.87	8.25
41	LTI Mindtree	7403.49	6800	603.49	8.87
42	Nestle	7535.82	6800	735.82	10.82
43	Chola Investment	7678.33	6800	878.33	12.92
44	Asian Paints	7725.32	6800	925.32	13.61
45	Titan	7816.19	6800	1016.19	14.94
46	Axis Bank	7855.10	6800	1055.10	15.52
47	Torrent Pharma	7892.56	6800	1092.56	16.07
48	Nykaa	8078.36	6800	1278.36	18.80
49	PayTM	8215.65	6800	1415.65	20.82
50	Eicher	8265.24	6800	1465.24	21.55
51	Muthoot Finance	10301.54	6800	3501.54	51.49
52	Kwality Walls	127.00	0	127.00	NA

Kwality Walls is something that he does not want to continue investing in. Let this remain a free icecream from HUL. From the remaining 51 stocks, he decided to stop fresh investments in 7 more. The chosen 7 are highlighted in bold and italic in the above table. In total, he will stop investing further in 8 stocks (including Kwality Walls), bringing the active allocation list down to 44 stocks.

It is important to note that he is not selling any of these holdings. The stocks will continue to remain in his portfolio. The decision is only about future allocation of capital.

All three investors are increasing their monthly investment kitty by 10% from this month. The new monthly allocation amount is INR 22,000. Splitting INR 22,000 equally among 44 stocks is simple and manageable.

The selection of the 8 stocks is not purely a mechanical “drop the worst performers” exercise. While underperformance has been a factor, the broader consideration is where incremental capital has a better probability of compounding over time. Some stocks that are currently down remain in the active list because conviction in their long-term potential remains intact.

The principle of equal allocation continues. The INR 22,000 will be split equally across the 44 active stocks (INR 500 each). No stock will be given preference over another.