Rakesh Jhunjhunwala death: How Big Bull made his money on Dalal Street

Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, the ace Indian investor, died at 62. Often called the Big Bull or Warren Buffet of India, Jhunjhunwala started off as a bear and made a lot of money short selling. He started with just Rs 5000 but had an estimated net worth of around Rs 43,475 crore, as per Forbes. 

The Mumbai-born investor’s first big trade was Tata Tea, where he made a tidy Rs 5 lakh profit, tripling the money he’d put in. Apollo Hospitals, another early investment, delivered over 100 times the returns between 1998 to 2015, and Jhunjhunwala saw similar results with Bata from 1996 to 2019. He made over 90 in Bharat Electricals between 1998-2007.

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Jhunjhunwala’s best pick was perhaps Praj Industries, which made him a whopping profit of 700 times his investment during 2004-2020. He’s always shown an inclination towards Tata Group companies. 

Elsewhere, BEML, Lupin, Crisil, and SCI are among stocks that worked well for Jhunjhunwala in the 2000s. From 2013-2020, Jhunjhunwala made 20 times return in Escorts and 200% in Tata Communications in 2010-2020. 

A successful trader and investor, Jhunjhunwala has often remarked that it is important to keep the two separate. “Trading and investing are like having a wife and a mistress. You can’t manage both well. So, keep them apart. One should not know anything about the other”, he had said in a 2018 interview.

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He’s advised people to trade with their own money on numerous occasions, so the risks are more calculated. Jhujhunwala also believes that one should have realistic expectations from trades and if the return is 18 to 21%, then one is almost like a king or emperor in the stock market. 

Jhunjhunwala assesses stocks on five parameters – patience, people, governance, frugality and technology. He, along with his wife Rekha, started a stock trading firm RARE enterprises, which takes its name from the first two letters of the couple.