Four reasons why Ranveer Singh's Hamza in 'Dhurandhar' has all the qualities of an ideal long-term investor

Four reasons why Ranveer Singh's Hamza in 'Dhurandhar' has all the qualities of an ideal long-term investor

Every rags-to-riches story has lessons that stock market investors could imbibe to improve their discipline. Monster Bollywood hit "Dhurandhar" is no different and, in fact, the life lessons internalised in the movie through the protagonist Ranveer Singh's Hamza are quite universal for investors.

R Madhavan's character who played the role of IB Chief Ajay Sanyal in the movie, exhorts his recruit (Hamza) to stick to an essential thumb rule when he infiltrates the dangerous world of Lyari in Karachi -- "Nazar Aur Sabr" (be watchful and patient).

While Madhavan's character was talking about the philosophy of embedded espionage, it could easily be replicated when one is into long-term investing.

It's well-known that no one can time the markets, the next best thing someone can do is be patient and do their systematic investments.

Short-term investing is always fraught with dangers of volatility. "Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent" is a famous quote attributed to economist John Maynard Keynes.

To avoid the pitfalls of losing capital while chasing short-term gains, an ideal long-term investor should do systematic investments because the returns in stock markets are always lumpy and never linear. Two-three year sluggish returns would be recovered in one year. This phenomenon was recently seen when markets recovered in no time after the Covid-induced crash and gave stupendous returns even to those who invested before the crash.

Singh's Hamza epitomises this philosophy by biding his time and waiting for the most opportune moment to enter Rahman Dakait's gang (Akshaye Khanna).

The 'nazar' aspect of the thumb rule could be seen as an investing metaphor where investors double down on any 10-15% correction in the markets. While it's not advisable to check portfolios every day, investing more when there's a fall in the market would help the investor get higher returns from a long-term perspective.

Madhavan's character also exhorts Hamza by saying "kismat ki ek bohut khoobsurat aadat hai, ki woh waqt aane par badalti hai" (destiny has a beautiful habit; it changes when the time is right).

If you are a disciplined investor and have minimum 20-year investing horizon, you could do worse than abiding by this dialogue from the Aditya Dhar-movie.

Hamza internalised this dialogue and would never rush and take hasty decisions because he had conviction. In a similar way, investors can build conviction in a beaten down stock by reading annual reports. Because not all beaten down stocks are to be ignored, some fall victim to external factors buy would bounce back eventually and scale newer heights.

Similarly, even index investors should understand that bearish phases of indices don't stay too long and light eventually emerges out of the tunnel. As the veteran investors say "buy right, sit tight".

While we have to wait for Dhurandhar's second part to understand how Hamza evolved from Jaskirat Singh Rangi, one thing is clear -- he backed himself to overcome adversity and emerge stronger and he is willing to put all the hard work it demands.

Hamza would maintain a log of all his exploits and his future goals. Similarly, investors should maintain at least a semi-annual log of where their portfolio stands as that would motivate them further. Maintaining a simple set of realistic mid-term goals would prove beneficial for disciplined investors. Initial goals should be investing in a way that preserves capital, followed by targets of beating inflation and fixed deposits. Eventually, the power of compounding would manifest but that usually takes 5-6 years and that could be the most frustrating time because markets always go in a zig-zag fashion and never linearly

Like every tale of "good prevails over bad" has an antagonist, Dhurandhar had Rahman Dakait who was almost directly responsible for the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai. In stock markets, Dakait's character would be F&O. While chasing instant gratification and ultra short-term returns, newbie investors would take short cuts believing they could generate returns with little capital rather than the traditional form of investing, which needs sizeable capital for returns to look attractive. But SEBI data shows that 90% F&O investors fail to make any profit.

Always be like Hamza when it comes to stock markets, put in the hard work and desired result shall eventually happen.