Noise Diaries

When something is a given, ….

…one just sheer deals with it.

And that something just got so much louder.

For example, social media is screaming with that something, i.e. …

… noise.

However, noise…

… has value.

One needs to know what’s being floated among the masses.

Furthermore, it’s helpful to gauge the decibel level.

If we look at the current scenario, everyone and their Aunty are yelling “Craaassshhhhhh…!” Dollar, bonds, gold silver, stocks, real-estate…

…everything’s supposed to “Craaassshhhhhhh!”

Fine.

Keep shouting.

At least we get an idea about the script and the concerned noise-level.

Is it supposed to scare us?

Yes.

Are we scared?

NO.

Why not?

Because we’re busy doing exactly what they don’t want us to.

Firstly, who’s ‘they’?

The floaters of the script. You were asking, ya, secondly?

Secondly, what do ‘they’ now NOT want us to do?

Buy cheap, like they are. They want us to let go and sell to them.

Wow.

Ya, it’s the biggest wealth-transfer in the History of mankind, currently unfolding.

Are you then not afraid of a crash, if you are buying now?

No.

Why not?

I’m liquid. If there’s a crash I’ll continue buying, into the crash. My entry quantum is aptly small and a function of my networth, thus allowing me entries for three to five years, upon any signs of reasonable value. Held over the years and bought with a clear head, in a growth market, assets will yield stellar returns.

So you’re saying you’ll cover the crash?

Yes. Timelines move very fast nowadays. Markets, when at all efficient, have become super-efficient, as if trying to prove a point to the level of overkill. When not efficient, they bubble or crash. Super-speed in times of efficiency is a huge bonus for us.

How?

Crashes play out within a shortish time-span. Buying through the crash is over fast. It’s not that when there’s a fire the crash is going to happen after five years. It will happen way sooner than later.

So is that enough time to get your money in, especially with a small entry quantum?

No. That’s why it’s important for small entry quantum cum long-term players like us, crash in, crash out, to keep buying amidst any signs of cheapness caused by fear-mongers creating all this…

…noise!

Exactly! 🙂

Market Ability

Hammers…

…hammer.

That’s their job.

They do a good job, at hammering.

At times, the market behaves like a hammer.

Market players learn from hammerings.

Question is, can market players learn without being hammered?

I don’t think so.

One can psych oneself into believing otherwise, I’ll give you that.

And, for a while, things will look like all’s good.

Point is, one isn’t looking for the hammer, …

… the reason for which being, that one has never experienced one.

That’s when the hammer falls, when and where one is least expecting it.

It is better to undergo a hammer event in the early days of one’s market career, and while one’s young.

Young – because – a). one plays small when one’s young, mostly by default, owing to there not being ample access to fund supply. Also, b). in the early days of one’s market exposure, the bulk of one’s mistakes and miscomprehensions emerge. The combination of these two facts a). and b). leads to losses that are bearable (youth has backups, like parents). In our youth, we tend more to brush it off and move ahead, full of energy. Yeah, youth has the energy, and time (upcoming multiple market-cycles), to not only emerge from a hammer, but to go on to prosper from the now ingrained learning.

Issue starts when our corpus is big and we still don’t know what a hammer is.

Issue compounds when we then confuse our ability to implement money into markets, in an effort to make it work, with actual market ability.

What is market ability?

It all starts with risk profile.

Some people die without having recognized their risk profile

Then, after having recognized one’s risk profile upon encountering some hammers and seeing our bodies and minds react to these, we move on to systems.

From development to fine-tuning to implementation of a system, we keep chipping and chiselling away at our strategy. We emerge with one that has an edge. We continuously work to keep our edge profitable.

Simultaneously, we throw in risk management. Development of an emergency fund is part of this.

Discipline.

Regimen.

Rules.

Let’s throw in some unpredictability, on purpose.

After putting one system on semi-auto, we work on another, and so on and so forth. We use our profits to diversify and make ourselves more secure, ideally anti-fragile.

Market ability is a successfully implemented combo of all these factors and perhaps more.

It includes being a good human being at home too. There’s no question of letting out the effects of a bad market day on one’s family members. We’re stopping all market action before anything like this develops. Harmony paves the way for another serene market day…

…about to dawn.

Strategy

Reserve currency’s buying power is…

…waning.

Many others, too, have pointed out, that…

…assets…

…quoted in the reserve currency…

…are getting expensive.

Across the board.

If something is happening across the board, is the entire board showing an anomaly, or is it the underlying entity, here the reserve currency, that is behaving differently?

Going for the latter. Gut. Common sense. Fundamentals. Printing. Geopolitical balance of scales.

Diagnosis stands. The only bubble in town is a reserve-currency-bubble.

Doesn’t stop here.

Central governments across the world blindly price, or, rather, mis-price their own currencies in response to movements in the reserve currency. Many governments artificially support levels of their own currencies which are not realistic. Net net, asset markets worldwide are rising. It seems that buying powers of fiat currencies in general is falling. Masses seem to be losing confidence in fiat currencies.

Where does this leave you, financially?

Are you very liquid?

Hmmm, liquidity is losing value. How about moving some of your liquidity into assets of your choice. Look for value, and act where you find it.

However, stay liquid to a comfortable extent, and let some value of that particular liquidity be lost. It’s ok. You’ll make it up and more, in the event of a correction, where you’ll be tanking up on assets of your choice.

There will always be a correction. Period. You need to be at least somewhat liquid, come a correction, and it will.

So, this is what needs to be done.

Identify extra, and movable liquidity.

Look for value.

See if you are comfortable with the asset class offering value.

If yes, move any extra liquidity into the asset offering value, bit by bit.

Signposts

Noise, …

… currently, …

… is deafening.

Posturing, …

… rebuttal, …

… a coup nearby, …

… printing, …

… and what have you, …

… have now become par for the course.

What are the signposts we follow, amidst this chaos?

First up, let’s not be afraid of chaos. Big returns are made exactly there.

We are going to follow high-growth, …

… and specifically, value offered in a high-growth market. Ya, we’ll never get away from margin of safety. It keeps coming back, in one form or another, whether one is investing, or even trading. We use it to get a little better value while entering, facilitated by Technicals. We understand that it’s in volatile times and markets that growth offers value, very temporarily.

Needless to say, basic Fundamentals need to be intact, on the path that we tread.

The governments, and managements we invest in need to show integrity, and develop trust.

We remind ourselves, that high growth is a non-linear entity, and thus we need to stay invested.

We achieve this by keeping our Cost-Free-Ness in the market, like, forever.

We toil to create more and more Cost-Free-Ness.

What this exactly is has been explained ad nauseam in this space, at many earlier instances.

Creation of Cost-Free-Ness means that our principal goes to work repeatedly. Its mini-units are like soldiers that go into battle, bring back winnings, and then they rest, to be deployed another day. If some deployed principal is losing, we wait for it to win. If losses mount, we always have the option to bail it out, or to switch its battle.

The beauty about Cost-Free-Ness is, that since it remains in the field, like, forever, there then is no cap on its upside, in a high-growth market.

Wishing you happy and lucrative wealth-creation!

🙂

Bridging

Rules of the game…

…are quite clear…

…and out there.

People like me…

…talk about them.

Everyone’s heard of, seen or read them, somewhere or the other.

Why hasn’t everyone cracked the markets?

There are some aspects to these rules, which are difficult to execute for most.

Like?

Buying low.

Selling high.

Holding.

Sitting.

Bridging.

Etc.

Today we’ll talk about bridging.

Actionable situations are few in number.

One acts from situation to situation.

The time in between – one bridges.

How?

By investing in oneself.

What’s that?

It’s something intangible, like learning a skill.

Or fine-tuning one.

Yes, that’s right, one bridges gap after gap, with investment in oneself.

This kind of investment is never wasted.

One carries it like a stamp on one’s soul.

Eventually the Universe knows how to utilize one, and one’s skill

First let’s put ourselves out there for the Universe to utilize.

Money made in the markets through lucrative action implemented at actionable situations will remain in this domain.

The satisfaction emanating from having worked, even temporarily, for the Universe, is something one will carry.

Wherever one goes.

Oh, forgot to mention, repeated investment in oneself keeps one sharp, ready to recognize the next actionable situation, and poised to act in the most lucrative possible manner.

2050

Hey,

There’s a Street View… ,

… , and then there’s a street view.

I rely on…

…my street view.

Making it a point not to heed that the Street thinks, I repeatedly look for micro and macro signs on my street.

My street is where I am.

I mostly spend my time in my own country.

And, my street view is one of staggered growth.

There’s development…

…with holdups waiting to happen out of nowhere, and often.

That’s India, for me.

Am I going to cry?

I scream, actually, at apathy prevailing, but from the inside. To no avail. At one point the screaming stops. The only thing remains is to take advantage. I’ll make it up for India. Part of the money earned will go towards a private initiative towards my country’s development. So, no guilty-conscience here. My country gives me repeated opportunities. Why should I not take them? India does give me grief too. It’s ok. I love my country. We both can take liberties with each other, as do parents and children between themselves.

Owing to our attitudinal coordinates, our country is full of bottlenecks, and these bring a rising entity down, regularly.

Apart from that we’re emotional.

Over-emotional, actually.

So what’s going down goes down by an unhealthy multiple.

Activation.

Chart Pattern?

Numbers talking to you?

Method.

System development.

Pinpoint.

Enter.

Sizably.

Making size a function of portfolio magnitude.

When something here rises, one lets it ride with a stop that eventually triggers, then trails.

One never books a winner fully in India. Not in this bull market.

Billion dollar strategy.

One first goes cost-free.

And then some.

After one’s in-the-profit stop is triggered and then hit, one takes one’s principal out, with which one will fight the next battle, the next quest for cost-free-ness.

One leaves one’s cost-free-ness created on the table and shifts if out of sight and out of mind.

One’s cost-free-ness can be held for a long, long time.

Till 2050?

Yes, if the underlying has been duly whetted for a 2050 hold.

That’s how we play India.

Till 2050.

Beta

We’re not afraid…

…of beta.

In fact, we want beta to be there.

And, we want it to be big.

Beta is part of wealth-generation through cost-free-ness.

Why…

…are we not afraid of beta?

When we make an underlying cost-free, there are two parameters that are of prime importance, in the game that we are playing.

First up, speed of cost-free-ness.

How much time has it take us to reach the desired stage?

Too much time?

Work at the strategy.

Short time?

Great.

With large betas, we take lesser time to reach cost-free-ness.

Cost-free-ness is a state of mind.

Also, it is a function of parameters prevailing.

As a result of internal synthesis, we know in our mind when it’s time for cost-free-ness creation.

Once cost-free-ness is created, we move on to the next play with the same objective.

Next up, we have quantum of cost-free-ness created, per capita time.

Higher the quantum, in lesser time, why, that’s optimal.

Again big beta.

Without big beta, there’s not much chance of achieving large quantum in less time.

How do we exploit big beta to attain objective?

Get in on huge margin of safety. Get principal out when exuberance prevails. Scrips being played are those of which you are convinced. Meaning, that you are mentally in sync with very long-term holds of cost-free-ness created in these scrips.

Also…

…as a general game-enhancing practice…

…get in and out with multi-day or multi-month triggers. Don’t look at the markets while they’re on. Take emotion out of play. Nil market forces out of your equation.

Here one sees, how, amongst other factors, a big beta allows one to generate long-term wealth through cost-free-ness while…

…acting on one’s own terms.

From Cost-Free-Ness to a Unified, Singular, Comprehensive, 360° Market-Field-Strategy

So you’re cost-free in the markets…

…and are contemplating your further market-journey ahead.

Yeah, now what?

First-up, let’s grab a hold of what you have in your hands.

You are holding high-quality material which fits your risk- and long-term holding-profile, and, most importantly, this material has now been freed up of its investment-cost.

That’s (very) huge!

So, how does it go from here?

I’ve been here, and have always bungled it up.

This time, I won’t.

Why?

I’ve finally realized the supreme importance of being at this point, and, …

… I wish to keep coming back to this sweet-spot, …

… again, and again and again.

It’s a wonderful feeling.

One feels deep satisfaction, of achieving something big.

Yeah, at Magic Bull, we sheer achieve, write about it, and then achieve more.

We’ll just go on achieving.

We’re not stopping.

The writing part is only to keep a log and to help others on the path.

And of course, it clears one’s thoughts, making one arrive at gems of strategies…

…which all converge and unify into a singular market-approach.

Let’s talk about singular.

At this sweet-spot, the ghost of trading arrives.

One feels like riding the highs by video-gaming through the markets.

And, one falls flat.

It’s not familiar territory, because the approach till now has been one of investing, and investing and trading are diametrically opposite in nature. Meaning that it takes some time to rewire.

Before rewiring properly, …

… one’s already pressing buttons as if buttons are soon going to become extinct, since one is seeking thrills. It’s normal.

One’s achievement-vector points only towards falling flat, such is one’s behaviour.

How do we conquer this pitfall?

We’re going to exhaust this ghost’s potential to our benefit.

We are going to trade, …

… because otherwise, ghost’s not going away.

However, we are going to trade only those scrips that are already inhabiting our cost-free portfolio.

We trade these, as new units, in a different trading account.

Entry is worth one small quantum, whatever small entry-quantum one has defined for oneself.

The objective is to ride a quick run, and make, let’s say, 20% of the traded units cost-free.

That’s would be good, hard, tangible bang for our trading bucks.

Assuming we succeed, we then transfer the cost-free units to our long-term portfolio.

In the event we fail because markets start to reverse, it’s still ok.

It’s a holding we are comfortable holding, into the next market cycle, where we’ll again try and make it cost-free, and we’ll then have cost-averaging on our side, since we’ll have reversed to an investing approach.

It’s win-win everywhere.

Failure comes eventually, because markets ultimately reverse.

No one knows when.

Till them we keep trading and increasing our cost-free-ness.

When failure comes, it’s once, and eventually we hold and try to turn it around.

Because we’re holding quality, the probability of turning the situation around is high.

Before this one failure, we are poised for many possible trading wins, with each win adding to our cost-free-ness.

And there we have it…

…voilà…

… , yes, it’s a unified, singular, comprehensive, 360° Market-field-strategy…

…courtesy your friend and comrade-in-investing. …

… Magic Bull !

🙂

Using Doubt as an Asset

Is this really working?

Have I thought this through enough?

Is my strategy sound enough to hold?

Am I going to look like a fool?

Should I just scrap it?

What if I’d followed that other strategy, where the other fellow said he was making tons of money with? (Like hullo, just forget the other fellow, period).

Questions…

…crop up…

…when a strategy stalls, or doesn’t behave like you want it to.

Doubt is par for the course.

Doubt is good.

Keep it at good.

Control doubt.

Don’t let it control you.

I have a great strategy for when doubt crops up.

Nothing.

I do nothing.

I sit on the strategy in question, and occupy my mind with other things.

Now, two things can happen.

Either the strategy starts to work again,…

…or things remain status quo.

If your patience is over, fine, scrap it.

However, mostly, things do get back to normal.

You’ve taken your time to develop something.

Effort and sweat have gone in.

Don’t be in a hurry to scrap something valuable.

A new strategy will take long to develop. Be prepared for that.

Remember, no strategy works all the time.

You’re well served by one that works more than it doesn’t work.

Doubt serves like a stop-loss.

As doubt overshoots critical mass, you start to change things.

Use doubt as an asset.

Till it is overshooting critical mass, keep observing it, but don’t act.