Monthly Archives: June 2026

A Tale of Two Worlds

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Like the plus…

…to the minus…

…and day to night, …

…like forwards to backwards, …

…like North to South, …

…so is…

…investing to trading…

…or trading to investing…

…spin it any way around, like you’d like to.

These two worlds have their own tales, and, you guessed it, each is…

…diametrically opposite to the other.

In the one, you average down. In the other, you pyramid.

In the one, you buy low. Ideally, you don’t sell for a long time, and when you do, you sell high.

In the other, you buy high and sell higher, or sell low and buy back lower, ideally sooner than later.

In the one, you welcome notional losses in high conviction bets, so you can put in more at lower cost.

In the other, you abhor the sight of notional losses, and cut these beyond small thresholds.

In the one you are not glued to the screen, and can even choose to operate completely from after hours.

In the other, especially while taking big positions, significant screen-time is important.

In the one, you have time for other things in life, many other things.

In the other, perhaps not as many.

In the one, emotional and nervous overhang can be reasonably manageable with lifestyle and mental training.

In the other, management and mental training required is tougher.

One could go on.

That’s not the point though.

What do we take from this?

We want something concrete.

There’s a potent and vital point where the two worlds meet.

Let’s say you engage in the one world.

You then need the other – one way or another.

How?

Let’s say you are a trader.

You need to divert some profits to long-term holds, to build wealth, to secure yourself and your family.

Let’s say, on the other hand, you are a long-term investor.

Where does the world of trading fit in, for you?

To control your gambler’s instinct.

To not allow passage to your repeated inclination towards opening up your long-term portfolio, again and again.

Trading gets your trigger-happiness out of the way.

You tire mentally.

Perhaps take a few small losses. Wins are a small bonus.

Bottomline is, you don’t open your long-term portfolio to fiddle with it, unnecessarily. That action is grounded by a rule imposed by you yourself. Once a week. Once a month. Half-yearly. Annually. Whatever suits. At that time, open, fiddle, rearrange, do what you wish, but then close till next window. In the meantime, satisfy your need for action with some mild trading.

Even better if your small trading operation only shorts the market.

With that, you’d automatically be hedging your long-term portfolio.

Elegant.

Symmetrical.

Purposeful.

For a long-term portfolio in a growth market, …

…very…

…winning.

Only Misses for the DoomNixers

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Stadiums full.

This is what we see at the FIFA World Cup.

Gloom and doom about no one travelling to watch…

…seems to be nixed.

Are any doomsdayers amounting to anything?

AI taking over and slaying all else?

It’s a collab. No one’s taking over anything completely.

US markets were supposed to crash…

…like yesterday. And with that, the world.

Whenever a full blown crash does happen, it will very probably be at a time when most shorters are exhausted, read in big losses and retired hurt, didn’t want to use the word bankrupt.

AI is supposed to lead the ‘bubble burst’.

Has AI just smelt some monetization in collab with the back-offices of the world?

Back-offices have the capability to hold the system up on the back of their picks and shovels work, which, obviously, DoomNixers ‘nix’ themselves upon. You see, it’s not glamorous enough. They didn’t see it at all thus, and stumbled and fell.

Here’s another one : No one can beat the effthurteefiive. True? Hmmm. We saw what we saw.

Attackers felt they would bring the opponent down over the weekend. Opponents, fighting for their lives, seem to have emerged better than their attackers.

When one fights for one’s life, one fights with every ounce of resource and every joule of energy.

The Dean at his Univ advised Max Planck to study Music instead of Physics, since he felt that every meaningful thing in Physics had been discovered already.

Max Planck went on to found a whole new branch of sciences. Quantum Physics. On which anything and everything today is based.

There’s this thing about optimists. They believe in their systems, their hard work. Their ability to fight for their lives. For their systems. For the passing on of their legacies.

Max Planck fought for the entire field of Physics, and what a legacy he’s passed on. Conventional Physics builds the framework, and Quantum allows us to traverse the Universe.

Core Tech is fighting for its life. Pushed to the wall, it will devise a way to emerge, as a monetizing handholder for AI to be implemented. It’s fought for its life many times before and has emerged victorious, and very lucratively.

There are two paths emerging here, in the example with Core Tech.

Path one – DoomNix. Pronounce it dead. Invest elsewhere, with expensive valuations.

Path two – research. Find companies that are transforming with the times, with clean balance sheets and free cashflows. Invest in these, as valuations are very reasonable currently.

One can even follow both paths MINUS the doomnixing. Meaning that one takes punts in expensive companies, no idea how that will pan out in the very long-term, and one also invests in very reasonably priced and transforming Core Tech, with clean balance sheets and free cashflows. This will give a decent return in the very long-term.

We leave the doomnixing to the pessimists, nay-sayers, lacking-in-hopers, non-believers in themselves and in good systems – this breed will keep collecting misses in life.

Having expunged the breed from our eco-systems, we stride ahead with our very long-term bullish view in our growth market, since the essence of sitting on a compounding portfolio for multiple decades is…

…an optimist mindset.

Miss Giving

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There’s no Hurray…

…yet…

…on the Street.

People have…

…doubts.

About anything…

…even everything.

The general public seems to be containing its enthusiasm, because who knows what might be around the corner.

Owing to the cast in the mix, like Diabolo TryMeButDon’tTryTooHard, and the opponents, who, well, have championed in sins committed, and who perhaps have now been overtaken in sins committed by Diabolo TryNotTooHard and ally NotMuchYoohooThere, …

…a cease-fire…

…could mean anything…

…but a cease-fire…

…as of now.

Enthusiasm will flow once certainty replaces misgivings.

Hesitancy to come out and fully invest, given the circs, allows us future opportunity.

At every small insinuation of an anomaly, reversals will follow.

Diabolo’s back and forth penduluming on everything, for a good while now, has capped the risk appetite of the masses.

Fine. We accept the circumstances as those which will allow repeated entries over the short-term, perhaps over the short to medium term also.

The Magic Bull approach here would be to enter with whatever there is to enter, …

…over the next three to four months.

Who knows when Miss Giving will turn into Miss NotGiving. More sooner than later. Since the penduluming has gotten on everyone’s nerves now, reactions are not under control owing to nerves, and masses might come out that much harder once it becomes clear that the peace-flag persists.

Cut to our ongoing discussion on full exposure preferred in a growth market over dilly-dallying or semi-exposure over the long run.

As far as our own microcap market vis à vis world market cap is concerned, entry more sooner than later is a thing.

As time will tell, …

…a big thing.

Fable me this

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Fable…

…we’re being told about…

…Fable 5…

…is that Frontier Country has disallowed its usage…

…for non-Frontier Countries or semi-Frontier Countries.

Thing is, …

…not every country needs to be a Frontier Country to make the world go round.

There’s a front-end, fine, accepted, and it seems to be calling the shots. To the extent of over-estimation of its own capabilities. Over-reaching. Over-stretching. Over-everything. That’s the front end. They’re doing what a front-end would do, in its position, and perhaps more.

However, there’s a back-end to everything in the world. Some countries are great at being back-offices to the world. Please understand, that the front-end can’t function long-term without cowork with the back-end.

Back-end streamlines.

It monetizes.

It affords the front-end penetration.

Infrastructure-seepage.

Bridging of the getting used to gap.

Bridging of the trust gap.

Process pinpointing.

To lever to becoming an accepted norm, front-end needs back-end, forever, since remaining the norm is also a priority.

The episode with Fable 5…

…reeks strongly of something big back-firing…

…in the front-end’s thought process.

They came sweeping in, full of over-confidence that they had something which would wipe everything else out.

Caused havoc.

Meanwhile, back-end started to adapt. FAST.

Some four months into the storm, fronties realize that backies have the usage figured out, and are implementing so fast, that very, very soon, their numbers promise to be fab.

Panic.

What to do?

Deny the backies usage of the frontest-end, i.e. Fable 5. Lest they overtake us in looking good.

Ha.

Just gave yourself away.

We know you now. WE SEE YOU.

And we’re going to use this dawning realization to our benefit.

We’re holding the line.

Our back-end is rock-strong, highly adaptive, and will find a way to monetize any situation.

Anything you throw…

…at us. We…

…will…

…monetize.

We’re just doubling down in our own back-yard.

On our own horses.

Period.

I want to be that fool

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You know…

…the bloke who gets called out…

…at social gatherings…

…as the fool who got fully in at the top?

In a long-term growth market, I don’t mind being that fool.

It’s a short-term affliction. I think I can…

…bear looking like a fool for a not-longish duration.

Why do I say short-term?

First up, that’s my estimation of my tolerance levels.

Never happened, so it’s all estimates we function with.

Then, field of action is a long-term growth market, remember?

Here, we risk not being exposed to growth and compounding, if we’re conservative in entry.

No one’s saying get rid of your small entry quantum.

However, do let your small entry quantum expand with portfolio-size.

Also, make more entries.

Till fully invested.

In a long-term growth market, we wish to be fully invested, more sooner than later.

What’s the risk?

Growth…

…is NOT…

…a linear entity.

If we understand this one sentence, we can stay invested. Sit. For the very long term.

Thing about growth is, it happens, and then it does not, and then there’s a crash, and then it suddenly resumes, and then it can fire back to back doubling, or 50%+ for three years in a row, or what have you. Non-linear entities have peculiar equations defining them, not linear ones.

So it can well happen, again all hypothetical, that we get in fully, with precaution, with a small entry quantum, with many entries, over 12 months, and right after that, Wham. Down it goes, big. Ya, we look like fools then. We’re called out at parties. People laugh. It’s not necessarily a ‘serve him right laugh’ but more a ‘relief laugh’, as in ‘thank God I’m not in such a position’. And that’s OK.

Why?

Ya, Nath, why so cool about the whole thing?

Will tell you why.

In a year’s time after such hypothetical crash, when the market has sunk some more, people don’t know whether to laugh at or cry for us. There are feelings of pity, and questions like ‘Are you ok?’ crop up. Just doing a simulation. Picked up the ‘Are you ok?’ from a recent smaller crash, because that exchange actually happened. These situations are also absolutely ok. Why?

Things are about to change.

Long-term growth market, remember?

Growth not a linear entity, remember? When it sets in, can happen very fast, before one has gotten significant money in.

We are fully exposed, remember?

What do you think happens to our folios? In another year, we could not only cover up, but be up 2x. In five we could be up 5x. In 10, we could be up 12x. In 20, perhaps 25x. No longer foolish.

Those who don’t get in, miss the growth market.

Others get in to some extent, and catch growth to some extent.

Fools get both extremes, …

…the looking foolish one, and…

…the long-term vindication one.

Lumpsum vs Piecemeal

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What’s a…

…better…

…market entry?

Lumpsum, or piecemeal?

Since I function in a growth market, …

…which can be seen as a microcap vis à vis the world, …

(you guessed it, India, currently exhibiting value, …

…but for our discussion please treat it as a growth market,) …

…and, because this discussion makes the most sense for a growth market exactly, …

…please, therefore, treat this comparison as a tool to help you decide…

…your growth market entry strategy.

You come into a lumpsum, let’s say.

What are your options? For the investible portion that is.

Pump in – one shot?

Average down, bit by bit, as and when opportunities arise?

Two ends of the spectrum. Where do you stand? Let’s break it down.

What’s your capacity for drawdowns?

Can you take a 50% notional drawdown, and not have a sleepless night?

Yes? Sure? Ok, pump it into the long-term growth market in one shot, provided you know your stocks well enough. In ten years time you’ll look like a star. In three months, a fool. One year, bigger fool. Perhaps. Slowly, growth will show, …

…and compound.

In two decades, you’ll rule.

Not able to take the big drawdown? Don’t like looking like a short-term fool?

That’s ok.

Very few people can handle big drawdowns.

Even lesser individuals like looking like fools, even if for a short time.

Then you can go in bit by bit.

Two strategies.

If you know your stocks well, you can average down.

If you want the market to throw you winners, you can average up.

Disadvantages?

Sure. You aren’t subjected to big drawdown pangs, and aren’t chastised by the masses for investing on interim highs. In lieu of that, not all of your money is in, and thus, not all of it is exposed to growth, or for that matter compounding. Also, your money hangs around to be…

…spent.

Don’t like the downsides of either extreme?

There’s a way out for you. You can take the middle path. You can also decide for yourself how ‘middle’ it is.

Decide for yourself a time-period that you want to be in by. 3 months? 6 months, 9 months, 12 months? Longer will take you towards full-on piecemeal.

Decide also, for yourself, about averaging down, up, or down till a level, and from that point onwards, only up. You can say that you are for example going in to a stock with margin of safety, up to a level, but then you would like the stock to prove itself, and from that point onwards, you now start averaging up as the growth story unfolds. You can then couple your averaging down and up combo to your total time-frame selected for going in.

Bottom-line : in X months your funds start getting full growth and compounding effects, as per the cost-averaging mix Y you have chosen.

Both X & Y should be a function of your risk profile.

Isn’t that the reason why you chose the middle path, because you didn’t want to be exposed to lumpsum drawdowns?

So, three choices, break it down, follow what suits.

On a personal front, if money needs to go into a growth market, for me its better sooner than later.

Took a long time to realize this though.

My pursuit for financial independence was impeding this understanding.

The moment financial independence was achieved, along with it came the realization…

…that we don’t wait on a long-term growth market.

Decoupling X.Y

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We’ve…

…had many conversations…

…on the topic of decoupling.

So much so, that I’ve lost count.

The only difference, this time around…

…is the approach.

This time around, we’re handling from centre-point.

Meaning…

…that we are the ones…

…learning how to…

…decouple.

This time it’s not about economies decoupling from other economies…

…or markets decoupling from other markets.

We don’t even care anymore whether that is a myth or…

…whatever.

What economies do to or with each other is not our concern in this discussion.

Here, we are devising methodologies to reconfigure our nervous system, …

…actually, our very DNA, …

…so that we can decouple from market forces, at will, for however long we want to.

Without feeling pangs.

Two questions – How? Why?

Regarding the why, it’s imperative to allow our nerves rest.

Long-term survival. We’re not going to implode, or explode.

It’s about building patterns. This is the how we are addressing. Patterns. Many times. Patterns that take us away from markets, temporarily.

Slowly the pattern comes on auto. We devise a mental and a physical macro for the pattern.

An activity hiatus.

A terminal kill switch activation, with reactivation date.

Family.

Book.

Holiday.

Hobby.

Different…

…work.

Anything that’s not market related. At will, till wilful reactivation.

Again and again, whenever we feel the need, and / or whenever the situation demands.

Over many years, we now have an ingrained reflex. A muscle memory. Allowing us at will, to…

…decouple.

Welcome to Decoupling X.Y.

Define your X and Y. Incorporate into your system. And then…

…decouple at will.

Life at Frontier Minus One

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Sanity prevails…

…at frontier minus one.

Rat race is within the underlying’s…

control.

Virtual / quasi / substantial / semi debt-free-ness…

exists.

Free cash-flow generation on the balance sheet is…

…common.

At frontier minus one, the narrative is …

…under control…

…as proven by self-determination of speed of change…

…and by exhibition of substantial growth.

Not at breakneck speeds.

Not by borrowing to the hilt.

Not by greedy behaviour.

Not by indigestible trajectory.

Not by a reckless ‘not giving a damn too bad if you’re not so fast’ attitude.

Life at frontier minus one…

…is somewhat balanced, with a flow.

Innovation at frontier minus one is achieved much faster

…than at frontier minus two, but much slower than at…

…frontier zero zero.

No tech company that wishes to thrive well into the future is currently functioning at…

…frontier minus two.

Either the transition to minus one has been made, or, it’s in the process.

Why not go for the jugular? Straight to zero zero.

Everyone has their role in this puzzle.

Imagine an older civilization going into battle.

There was a front line, paving the way, at immense cost.

There was a reserve support line, with artillery, first-aid, communication, and what have you.

There was a third line with supply, reinforcements, semi-trainees doing other stuff normally, etc.

There was aerial support, naval support, intelligence, research and analysis staff etc.

All combined to create an ensemble of actions.

Cut to now.

Warfare has changed.

Immense cost is still there, but immense cost to the front line, as in cost of life, has been reduced greatly, speak drone and missile warfare, supported by AI backed intelligence and analysis.

Point is, innovation, a different way of thinking, disruption and all their cousins will find a way to make things affordable, implementable.

That’s the way civilizations move forward.

Not for you or me to change. It’s the way of the world.

And that is what frontier minus one banks upon.

Meaning, to keep functioning at sustainable levels, slowly, painstakingly, in the process, simultaneously, finding a way, a connect, to frontier zero zero.

The connect can be of co-work. Amicable. Win-Win. You earn, we earn.

At frontier minus one, the world view is not to annihilate, but to…

…accommodate.

To win…

…together…

…in…

symbiosis.