The markets challenged her—she mastered it

Despite massive losses in the Harshad Mehta scam, Shaligram refused to quit, turning lessons from the setback into a winning investment strategy

- Aprajita Sharma

You don't really need a finance degree to excel in the stock market—ask Sapna Shaligram. The 58-year-old chemistry teacher turned psychological counsellor is a self-taught investor who has been tracking stock markets since the early 90s.

Her first brush with the stock market wasn't smooth due to the Harshad Mehta scam. She and her husband, Sandeep Shaligram (60), suffered massive losses in the infamous Harshad Mehta scam.

"The Harshad Mehta boom motivated a lot of young couples like us to invest in stocks, but the scam and the subsequent crash in the market left a bitter taste. Indian markets lacked regulatory arrangements the way we have now to protect retail investors. I got back into markets once some regulatory reforms fell in place," said Shaligram.

The second stint Shaligram re-entered the markets in the early 2000s. The second stint, that continues till date, made Shaligram an expert. She now singlehandedly manages her family's portfolio. Shaligram knew she had to take calculated risks. This time, she started off with mutual funds before taking an exposure in individual stocks.

"My salary had just increased. I needed to make some investments to save taxes. I invested in an ELSS fund in 2000," she said. She could not have limited herself to mutual funds. "Numbers, balance sheets and business models fascinate me. I love to explore growth stories, that is, a small company having a potential to turn big," she said.

Catching multibaggers Her big win: Reliance Industries and Larsen & Toubro stocks, in which she invested in 2008, turned multibaggers over time. But, how did she learn stock-picking? It was all self-study. She would read a lot of books and business dailies and watch interviews of top stock market investors. "It took a lot of time to understand that trading and investing are different things. I focused on investing for the long term."