Wizards of the Street | Cash is a depreciating asset and an opportunity, says Vijay Kedia

From the bowls of Bara Bazaar in Kolkata, to the glitzy high-rises of Mumbai, India’s maximum city, Vijay Kedia, Director of Kedia Securities proved that anyone with a big heart can use adversity and opportunity as mere steps in their climb to the top.

In CNBC-TV18's special show 'Wizards of the Street', BSE Member Ramesh Damani spoke with Kedia about his journey.

Kedia said bold bets, big bets, bigger gains transformed him from a dreamer to a prolific and wildly successful investor.

“Cash is a depreciating asset and an opportunity. So instead of keeping cash in the bank, I would keep it in opportunity,” he said.

The top investor revealed that he had learned to live with minimum expenses, so he utilised whatever spare cash he had for investments, Kedia mentioned.

With the help of his grandfather, Kedia started doing mock-trading at the age of 14. His father was a member of Kolkata Stock Exchange. And at the age of 19, he officially joined Kolkata Stock Exchange.

“Intuition was the only capital I had,” he said.

He calls himself an enemy of liquidity. If he has liquidity in his pocket, he will spoil it either in trading or for something else, he said.

Investments in Atul Auto was Kedia’s first bigger investment in a stock.

“In 2004-2005, I had bought around 10 percent of that company and by 2007, the stock had gone up 4-5 times but in 2008 Lehman crisis, it fell back to Rs 5. From Rs 70 it went to Rs 200-225 and then it fell back to Rs 5. Again I bought 10 percent of the company. From there it went up to Rs 1,500-1,600 by 2014-2015,” he explained.

During the COVID-pandemic, Kedia made a big swinging bet on Tejas Networks and explained when and why he made this bet.