Are you a lay investor? Trading in derivatives could make your money vanish...

Courtesy: Economic Times

Those who study narcotics addiction have invented the term ‘gateway drug’. It seems that many drug-users start with mild narcotics like marijuana and gradually move up to harder stuff like heroin and crack. It so happens that there’s an almost exact equivalent to this in equity investing as well, except that the first stage is actually beneficial.

The default Indian saver saves all of his or her money in deposits with banks or post offices or the government. Some of these people—perhaps about two crores of them—start investing in equity funds. The gateway investment to equity funds is often a tax-saving fund—one of the so-called ELSS funds.

As ELSS investments come with a lock-in, they are forced to stay put for three years, which is a reasonably long period to see good gains. For most of these investors, the idea that equity funds can get you good returns becomes an obvious. So far, so good.

A certain proportion goes beyond this gateway stage—generally with the help of equity investment’s equivalent of a drug dealer. This person often goes by the name of a wealth manager or a relationship manager or something like that and is generally employed by a bank or a stockbroker.

The logic given is simple: why are you wasting your time? Since you know that equity returns are better than a bank deposit, let me introduce you to the form of equity that can get you the highest possible returns from equity, which is effendo.

Even though ‘effendo’ sounds like a magical spell from Harry Potter (like Confundo or Diffindo), it is not. It is actually the popular way to pronounce F&O, otherwise known as futures and options, or derivatives. Effendo is closely related to a Harry Potter spell called Evanesco which makes things vanish.

Effendo can make money vanish as if by magic, as it regularly does for investors lured into short-term trading using these types of investment avenues. Actually, effendo does not make money vanish, as much as it transfers it magically into the bank accounts of your broker.
Now I know the whole shpiel about how derivatives provide depth and breadth to the stock markets, but for a vast majority of small investors, they are none of that. Instead, as Warren Buffet pointed out, they are nothing but financial weapons of mass destruction. But aren’t derivatives meant to be a good thing?

The answer to that question lies in one of the distortions that have crept it into the Indian stock markets ever since derivatives trading began. Derivatives like futures and options can be used to protect traders against risk, acting like an insurance policy.

However, they can also be used to enhance risk and returns, effectively as an instrument that offers a chance of higher gains, but also a high risk of huge losses, including completely wiping out the investor’s capital.

The real problem is not that using futures and options in this manner is possible, but that almost every part of the equities trading industry is dedicated to getting customers into this kind of trading. Practically every broker—and that definitely includes banks’ ‘wealth management’ units—does this and certainly, all the stock exchanges have spared no effort in getting as many people to trade as speculatively as possible.

This kind of institutional behaviour is certainly disappointing, but not surprising. So much of the behaviour of India’s big financial players is sub-ethical that one suffers from a bit of outrage fatigue.

However, the important point is that savers should save themselves from being herded into such kind of trading. It’s certainly not a natural extension of safe and sensible investing of the kind that one does in a tax-saving or other equity fund. There will be people who will try and tell you stories and earn fat commissions out of your money but it’s your job to show them the door.

Those who study narcotics addiction have invented the term ‘gateway drug’. It seems that many drug-users start with mild narcotics like marijuana and gradually move up to harder stuff like heroin and crack. It so happens that there’s an almost exact equivalent to this in equity investing as well, except that the first stage is actually beneficial.

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