Every new regulation and compliance requirement introduced is a hidden opportunity to rethink, innovate, and build something extraordinary and make it an industry benchmark.
In trying to be compliant with regulations, I forgot one very important thing about myself. I have faced the worst situations in my life and come back up.
Never was I scared of anything until I started to over think on compliances and regulations and always have had a good intent in everything I did.
You can only complain so much. You can only try to reason with exchange or regulator so much to change things.
In all our worries, we forget today there are thousands of people who will kill to get a chance to be SEBI Registered Research Analysts, or even have some clients, let alone have a model portfolio offering.
There are lacs of people who are stuck with liabilities or not in good health who would any day take our place.
Things are not that bad.
At the end of the day, a Research Analyst can only give research. But that does not have to be a bad thing.
True Equity Research Firms always work in an Oligopoly. I do not know why we thought we were in a Perfect Competition space.
True equity research is expectations investing. It involves more of a Reverse-Engineering Approach.
All valuation models no matter which is used by an analyst rely on these expectations. In essence, equity research is nothing but testing hypotheses.
In its purest form, equity research revolves around understanding, challenging, and forecasting the expectations by trying to identifying discrepancies between market expectations and fundamental realities.
It is about knowing about industry dynamics and business dynamics, not pausing work due to regulatory pressures.
It is about thinking quantitatively and qualitatively, not being worried about when next bomb will be dropped on profession.
Every good equity research firm has three things on which they base everything they do.
The first is their philosophy. This defines everything about them. Basis this philosophy, they form a set of principles which act as guidelines under which they will operate.
Basis those principles, a framework is developed and refined over time. This is where an oligopoly comes into play.
After seeing multiple senior Research Analysts surrendering licence and seeing the ever changing regulatory framework, I will not shy away from saying this, a thought had come to my mind whether it would give me peace of mind to shut down Ayush Agrawal Research.
To get some clarity, I decided to take a 15 day digital detox. I took some time and surrounded myself with fresh air, family and friends. I spent time listening to songs, something which has always been a hobby of mine. And yes, I took a short break from city life.
The clarity of thought I have got in a little under 2 days, I wish I had done this weeks ago.
Not only do we plan to stay open, but we are going to build something which we want to be the benchmark for research profession as a business model now. We will make our business model around something which cannot ever be changed in the guidelines.
No fancy gimmicks, no nothing, or anything, we will be designing our business model now around something so simple, and yet so complex at the same time, not everyone will be able to do this. This is because it will be a long, hard, boring and lonely path.
In the days to follow, I will write a very detailed post on this.
The storms of change won’t scatter us—they’ll anchor us.
We are done thinking about surviving the tide, we will now be crystallising a legacy.
"The only way to deal with this life meaningfully is to find a way to be stronger than the circumstances that seek to define you." - Marcus Aurelius
Stay Tuned for what comes next folks. It will take some time, and till then you may not see much activity on my twitter handle or my blog, but the wait will be well worth it. Going to put back my thinking and building cap of The Microcap Investor, an identity I had forgotten was who I truly was and am and always will be.
A word of advice, if you want to unsubscribe from this blog, now would be a good time to do it. We will now not be chasing after clients or blog subscribers. We see a clear path in front of us now. It will become clear to everyone who now shows patience and waits for our next newsletter, which maybe days or weeks or today.
The frequent changes in regulations and compliance burdens may have taken a toll on the Equity Research space. And to some point it did affect us also.
But, we are now going to craft a legacy. Temporarily Down but Definitely Not Out.
Rgds,
Ayush Agrawal
As part of our new strategy, we will be starting 15th February pausing fresh subscriptions in the Core Plan. Only existing subscribers will be able to renew their subscriptions after it has expired, and that also for three months.
I am not interested in posting a link and asking you folks to subscribe to the plan. I have a clear clarity of thought. Please treat this as a public announcement. If you want to subscribe you know where to find us, our website is fairly searchable, I hope.
This will also be shared across all our social media.
Pausing subscriptions does not affect the existing subscribers in any way, they can continue to resubscribe till the time they want to avail our services of the Core Plan. But the caveat is they cannot pay us more than 3 months as per SEBI/HO/MIRSD/ MIRSD-PoD-1/P/CIR/2025/004.
If you pay us for more than 3 months, we will be issuing you a refund, so please do not bother.
To get more clarity on why is that, refer point ix.f in the circular. Link is attached below.
https://sebi.gov.in/legal/circulars/jan-2025/guidelines-for-research-analysts_90634.html
Rgds,
Ayush Agrawal