Doosra
Posted By: Admin
Doosra literally means Alternative, and is commonly used in Cricket. It refers to the Spinner’s ball that moves the other way other than the convention expected of the bowler. So Doosra means the alternative , which is difficult to spot. Let us understand the investment context of Doosra.
Let us say, You are in Mumbai for a conference, you are booked to travel back the day after the conference and the conference ends a little early and you head to the Bar in the star hotel to spend a little time, there you meet a stranger, who becomes your friend over a few drinks. Turns out that he is a big gangster-businessman in Mumbai, he takes you out on a drive out and pulls up in a remote place. He pulls out a revolver and a suitcase full of money. He offers you a Russian roulette, i.e a gun with one loaded bullet with five empty ones, he offers you a deal, take the gun to your temple pull the trigger and walk away with 5 Crores; there is one sixth chance that you would die, 5/6th of the time you would stand to walk away with 5 crores. What would you do ?
Let us now, imagine a scenario if you had won, you would have walked away with 5 Crores of money moved cities to a new place, a posh neighbourhood where your neighbour would be a leading doctor who puts in 12 hours days to make about a Crore post tax and may take about 10 years to reach where you reached In just 5 seconds.
However while most of us view these entirely based on the outcomes, we need to also look at it from an input perspective and understand the Doosra effect,
Ie. While in the above example,you may appear to have a better life, the route that you took was far more extreme and could have easily turned the other way. As compared to the overseas education that your children now enjoy, if you had died pulling the trigger, your children may be going to a govt college of arts to get a degree/diploma to survive life. Your family may have been put to a vast financial disadvantage due to my irrational action of pulling the trigger.
On the contrary the doosra for your Doctor neighbour if he chose to practice in a tier 3 or tier 4 city or an own practice may be a 25% lower earning per annum, nothing significantly changes for him.
Rakesh Junjunwala ( RJ) is arguably one of India’s best know Investor, however it is said that he bet his wife’s jewellery and mortgaged his property and put his last penny on a single stock ie. Titan industries that made him his crores, clearly not the smartest investment moves. What would have happened if Titan was stuck with a scam like Satyam, what would have happened to Rakesh Junjunwala’s investments. For every RJ, there are millions who have pulled the trigger and the bullet pierced their temple.
So always when you hear the story about this guy who bought hundreds of Cryptos which became hundreds of Crores, look at his Doosra, you will find the answers and whether you would be comfortable taking those risks to make it.
As Harshad Mehta would have said, Risk hai to Ishq Hai, but it is not smart to take risk that ends you in Ruins. Understanding the Doosra could help you measure the risk that you are taking and its outcomes to help you make better decisions.
Babu Krishnamoorthy
Chief Sherpa
Category Finsherpa | Tags Financial Freedom
