And How Are You This 20k?

Posted on January 15, 2013 by Uday Nath

20k’s knocking on our sensory index.

How are you feeling, this 20k?

I remember my trading screen, the first time 20k came. Lots of blue till it came, and when it came, the screen just turned into a sea of red.

Sell orders hit their auto-triggers, as if it were raining sell orders along with cats and dogs.

What is it about round numbers?

Why do they engulf us in their roundness?

I don’t think I am making a mistake in stating that the first person to recognize the significance of round numbers in the game was Jesse Livermore, the legendary trader. Jesse developed a round number strategy that he pulled off repeatedly, with enormous success. It is because of Jesse Livermore that a trader takes round numbers … seriously.

So, what is it about the roundness of 20k?

Plain and simple. The 0s engulf the 2. You don’t see the 2 anymore, and the 0s scare you. Or, they might excite you. Round numbers make the human being emotional.

Big question for me, to understand my own mindset – how am I reacting to 20k?

I would like to share my reaction with you, because it could help you understand your own reaction.

Also, writing about it makes me understand my own reaction better. Thoughts get assimilated.

Yeah, it’s not all social service here, there’s some selfish element involved too.

Besides, I have a bit of a guilty conscience about the amount of research the internet allows me to do, free of cost. I mean, I can get into the skin of any listed company with a few button-clicks. All this writing – is a give-back. You’ll get your calling soon enough. Nature will tell you where you need to give back. When that happens, don’t hold back – give freely. It’s a million dollar feeling!

Back to the topic.

I’ve seen 20k twice before, I think, perhaps thrice. Oh right, between late September and December ’10, it came, was broken, then it came back, to be again broken on the downside, all within a few months.

The aftermath of the first time I saw it (in November ’07) hammered me, though, and taught me my biggest market lessons. I’m glad all this happened in my early market years, because one doesn’t normally recover from huge hammerings at an advanced stage in one’s market career.

The second / third time I saw 20k, I was profiting from it to a small extent. A vague kind of strategy was developing in my mind, and I was trying all kinds of new trading ideas so as to formulate a general strategy for big round numbers.

This morning, I saw 20k for the fourth time, for a few minutes.

By now, I was on auto-pilot.

A human being will have emotions. A successful market player will know how to deal with these emotions.

I bifurcated my emotions into two streams.

One was the fear stream.

The other was the exuberance stream.

The former helped me decide my future investment strategy.

The latter helped me decide my future trading strategy.

In my opinion, a good investment strategy in times of market exuberance would be to not look for fresh investments anymore. This morning, I decided to stop looking for fresh investments, till further notice.

Sometimes, when you’re not looking for an investment, you might still chance upon a company that sparks your investment interest.

If that happened, I would still scrutinize such a company very, very thoroughly, before going ahead. After all, these were times of exuberance.

Yeah, fresh investments would be on the backburner till margins of safety were restored.

Now let’s speak about the exuberance stream.

Market looked ripe for trading. Fresh market activity would take the shape of trading.

Trading is far more active an activity, when compared to investing. We’ve spoken a lot about the difference between trading and investing, in previous posts. Investors enter the market when stocks are undervalued, because the general market is unable to see their intrinsic value. Traders take centre-stage when stocks are overvalued, because the general market is repeatedly attributing more and more value to stocks, much more than should be there. Traders ride the market up, and then short it to ride it down.

Yeah, till further notice, I would be spending my energies trading. After a while, I would re-evaluate market conditions.

That’s what I thought to myself this morning.

Stock-Picking for Dummies – Welcome to the Triangle of Safety

Posted on January 12, 2013 by Uday Nath

Growth is not uniform – it is hap-hazard.

We need to accept this anomaly. It is a signature of the times we live in.

Growth happens in spurts, at unexpected times, in unexpected sectors.

What our economic studies do is that they pinpoint a large area where growth is happening. That’s all.

Inside that area – you got it – growth is hap-hazard.

To take advantage of growth, one can do many things. One such activity is to pick stocks.

For some, stock-picking is a science. For others. it is an art. Another part of the stock-picking population believes that it is a combination of both. There are people who write PhD theses on the subject, or even reference manuals. One can delve into the subject, and take it to the nth-level. On the other hand, one can (safely) approach the subject casually, using just one indicator (for example the price to earnings ratio [PE]) to pick stocks. Question is, how do we approach this topic in a safe cum lucrative manner in today’s times, especially when we are newbies, or dummies?

Before we plunge into the stock-picking formula for dummies that I’m just about to delineate, let me clarify that it’s absolutely normal to be a dummy at some stage and some field in life. There is nothing humiliating about it. Albert Einstein wasn’t at his Nobel-winning best in his early schooldays. It is rumoured that he lost a large chunk of his 1921 Nobel Prize money in the crash of ’29. Abraham Lincoln had huge problems getting elected, and lost several elections before finally becoming president of the US. Did Bill Gates complete college? Did Sachin Tendulkar finish school? Weren’t some of Steve Jobs’ other launches total losses? What about Sir Issac Newton? Didn’t I read somewhere that he lost really big in the markets, and subsequently prohibited anyone from mentioning the markets in his presence? On a personal note, I flunked a Physical Chemistry exam in college, and if you read some of my initial posts at Traderji.com, when I’d just entered the markets, you would realize what a dummy I was at investing. At that stage, I even thought that the National Stock Exchange was in Delhi!

Thing is, people – we don’t have to remain dummies. The human brain is the most sophisticated super-computer known to mankind. All of us are easily able to rise above the dummy stage in topics of our choice.

Enough said. If you’ve identified yourself as a dummy stock-picker, read on. Even if you are not a dummy stock-picker, please still read on. Words can be very powerful. You don’t know which word, phrase or sentence might trigger off what kind of catharsis inside of you. So please, read on.

We are going to take three vital pieces of information about a stock, and are going to imagine that these three pieces of information form a triangle. We are going to call this triangle the triangle of safety. At all given times, we want to remain inside this triangle. When we are inside the triangle, we can consider ourselves (relatively) safe. The moment we find ourselves outside the triangle, we are going to try and get back in. If we can’t, then the picked stock needs to go. Once it exits our portfolio, we look for another stock that functions from within the triangle of safety.

The first vital stat that we are going to work with is – you guessed it – the ubiquitous price to earnings ratio, or the PE ratio. If we’re buying into a stock, the PE ratio needs to be well under the sector average. Period. Let’s say that we’ve bought into a stock, and after a while the price increases, or the earnings decrease. Both these events will cause the PE ratio to rise, perhaps to a level where it is then above sector average. We are now positioned outside of our triangle of safety with regards to the stock. We’re happy with a price rise, because that gives us a profit. What we won’t be happy with is an earnings decrease. Earnings now need to increase to lower the PE ratio to well below sector average, and back into the triangle. If this doesn’t happen for a few quarters, we get rid of the stock, because it is delaying its entry back into our safety zone. We are not comfortable outside of our safety zone for too long, and we thus boot the stock out of our portfolio.

The second vital stat that we are going to work with is the debt to equity ratio (DER). We want to pick stocks that are poised to take maximum advantage of growth, whenever it happens. If a company’s debt is manageable, then interest payouts don’t wipe off a chunk of the profits, and the same profits can get directly translated into earnings per share. We want to pick companies that are able to keep their total debt at a manageable level, so that whenever growth occurs, the company is able to benefit from it fully. We would like the DER to be smaller than 1.0. Personally, I like to pick stocks where it is smaller than 0.5. In the bargain, I do lose out on some outperformers, since they have a higher DER than the level I maximally want to see in a stock. You can decide for yourself whether you want to function closer to 0.5 or to 1.0. Sometimes, we pick a stock, and all goes well for a while, and then suddenly the management decides to borrow big. The DER shoots up to outside of our triangle of safety. What is the management saying? By when are they going to repay their debt? Is it a matter of 4 to 6 quarters? Can you wait outside your safety zone for that long? If you can, then you need to see the DER most definitely decreasing after the stipulated period. If it doesn’t, for example because the company’s gone in for a debt-restructuring, then we can no longer bear to exist outside our triangle of safety any more, and we boot the stock out of our portfolio. If, on the other hand, the management stays true to its word, and manages to reduce the DER to below 1.0 (or 0.5) within the stipulated period, simultaneously pushing us back into our safety zone, well, then, we remain invested in the stock, provided that our two other vital stats are inside the triangle too.

The third vital stat that we are going to work with is the dividend yield (DY). We want to pick companies that pay out a dividend yield that is more than 2% per annum. Willingness to share substantial profits with the shareholder – that is a trait we want to see in the management we’re buying into. Let’s say we’ve picked a stock, and that in the first year the management pays out 3% per annum as dividend. In the second year, we are surprised to see no dividends coming our way, and the financial year ends with the stock yielding a paltry 0.5% as dividend. Well, then, we give the stock another year to get its DY back to 2% plus. If it does, putting us back into our triangle of safety, we stay invested, provided the other two vital stats are also positioned inside our safety zone. If the DY is not getting back to above 2%, we need to seriously have a look as to why the management is sharing less profits with the shareholders. If we don’t see excessive value being created for the shareholder in lieu of the missing dividend payout, we need to exit the stock, because we are getting uncomfortable outside our safety zone.

When we go about picking a stock for the long term as newbies, we want to buy into managements that are benevolent and shareholder-friendly, and perhaps a little risk-averse / conservative too. Managements that like to play on their own money practise this conservatism we are looking for. Let’s say that the company we are invested in hits a heavy growth phase. If there’s no debt to service, then it’ll grow much more than if there is debt to service. Do you see what’s happening here? Our vital stat number 2 is automatically making us buy into risk-averse managements heading companies that are poised to take maximum advantage of growth, whenever it occurs. We are also automatically buying into managements with largesse. Our third vital stat is ensuring that. This stat insinuates, that if the management creates extra value, a proportional extra value will be shared with the shareholder. That is exactly the kind of management we want – benevolent and shareholder-friendly. Our first vital stat ensures that we pick up the company at a time when others are ignoring the value at hand. Discovery has not happened yet, and when it does, the share price shall zoom. We are getting in well before discovery happens, because we buy when the PE is well below sector average.

Another point you need to take away from all this is the automation of our stop-loss. When we are outside our safety zone, our eyes are peeled. We are looking for signs that will confirm to us that we are poised to re-enter our triangle of safety. If these signs are not coming for a time-frame that is not bearable, we sell the stock. If we’ve sold at a loss, then this is an automatic stop-loss mechanism. Also, please note, that no matter how much profit we are making in a stock – if the stock still manages to stay within our triangle of safety, we don’t sell it. Thus, our system allows us to even capture multibaggers – safely. One more thing – we don’t need to bother with targets here either. If our heavily in-the-money stock doesn’t come back into our safety zone within our stipulated and bearable time-frame, we book full profits in that stock.

PHEW!

There we have it – the triangle of safety – a connection of the dots between our troika PE…DER…DY.

As you move beyond the dummy stage, you can discard this simplistic formula, and use something that suits your level of evolution in the field.

Till then, your triangle of safety will keep you safe. You might even make good money.

PE details are available in financial newspapers. DER and DY can be found on all leading equity websites, for all stocks that are listed.

Here’s wishing you peaceful and lucrative investing in 2013 and always!

Be safe! Money will follow! 🙂

So, … … , When’s Judgement Day?

Posted on January 5, 2013 by Uday Nath

The “fiscal cliff” thingie has come and gone…

Gone?

People, nothing’s gone.

If something is ailing, it needs to heal, right?

What is required for healing?

Remedial medicine, and time.

Let’s say we take the medicine out of the equation.

Now, what’s left is time.

Would the ailing entity heal, given lots of time, but no medicine?

If disease is not so widespread, and can be expunged over time, then yes, there would be healing, provided all disease-instigating factors are abstained from.

Hey, what exactly are we talking about?

It is no secret that most first-world economies are ailing.

Specifically, the US economy was supposed to be injected with healing measures, which were to take effect from the 1^st of Jan., ’13. Financial healing would have meant austerity and a more subdued lifestyle. None of that seems to be happening now. The healing process has been deferred to another time in the future, or so it seems.

You see, people, no one wants austerity. The consumption story must go on…

So now, since the medicine’s been taken out of the equation, is there going to be any healing?

No. Disease-instigating lifestyles are still being followed. Savings are low. Debt with the objective of consumption is still high. How can there be any healing?

Under the circumstances, there can’t.

So, what’re we building up to?

We’re all clear about the fact that consumption makes the world go round. What is the hub of the world’s consumption story? The US. That part of the world which does save, and where there is real growth, well, that part rushes to be a part of the consumption story. It produces cheaply, to sell where there’s consumption, and it sells there expensively. Yeah, like this, healthy economies get dragged into an equation with ailing economies. Soon, the entanglement is so deep, that there’s no turning back for the healthy economy. It catches part of the ailment from the diseased economy. Slowly, non-performing assets of banks in such healthy economies start to grow. The disease is spreading.

Hold on, stay with me, we’re not there yet. Yeah, what are we building up to?

Healthy economies take time to get fully diseased. Here, savings are big, domestic manufacturing is on the rise, and there a healthy demographic dividend too. Buffers galore, the immune system of a healthy economy tries to fight the contagion for the longest time. As entanglement increases, though, buffers deplete, and health staggers. Non-performing assets of banks grow to disturbing levels.

That’s what we are looking out for, when we are invested in a healthy economy which has just started to ail. Needless to say, we pulled out our funds from all ailing economies long back. Our funds are definitely not going back to economies which refuse to take medicine, i.e. which don’t want to be healed. Now, the million dollar question is …

… what’s to be done with our funds in a healthy economy which has just started to become diseased due to unavoidable contagion?

Nothing for now. Watch your investments grow. Eventually, since no one is doing enough to stop the damage and the spread, big-time ailment signs will invariably appear in the currently “healthy” economy, signs that appeared a while back in currently ailing economies. Savings will be disappearing, manufacturing will start to go down, and bad-debt will increase. Define your own threshold level, and go into cash once this is crossed. You might not need to take such a step for many years in a row. Then again, you might need to take such a step sooner than you think, because the ailing mother-consumer economy is capable of pulling everyone down with it, if and when it collapses. And it just stopped taking its medicine…

Let’s get back to your funds. In the scenario that you’ve gone into cash because you weren’t confident about the economy you were invested in, well, what then?

Option 1 is to look for an emerging economy that gains your confidence, and to invest your funds there.

Not everyone is comfortable investing abroad. What if you want to remain in your own economy, which you have now classified as diseased. There’s good news for you. Even in a diseased economy, there are pockets of health. You need to become a part of such pockets, just after a bust. So, remain in cash after a high and till after a bust. Then, when there’s blood on the streets, put your money into companies with zero-debt, a healthy dividend-payout record and a sound, diligent and honest management. Yeah, at a time like that, Equity is an instrument of choice that, over time, will pull your funds out of the gloom and doom.

You’ve put your funds with honest and diligent human capital. The human capital element alone will fight the circumstances, and will rise above them. Then, you’ve entered at throwaway prices, when there was blood on the streets. Congrats, you’ve just set yourself up for huge profit-multiples in the future. And, the companies you’ve put your money with, well, every now and then, they shower a dividend upon you. This is your option 2. Just to share with you, this is my option of choice. I like being near my funds. This way, I can observe them more closely, and manage them properly. I suffer from a case of out of sight, out of mind, as far as funds are concerned. Besides, when funds are overseas, time-differences turn one’s life upside down. This is just a personal choice. You need to take your own decision.

At times like this, bonds are not an option, because many companies can cease to exist in the mayhem, taking your investment principal out with them.

Bullion will give a return as long as there is uncertainty and chaos. Let there be prolonged stability, and you’ll see bullion tanking. Yeah, bullion could be option 3 at such a time. You’ll need to pull out when you see signs of prolonged stability approaching, though.

One can use a bust to pick up cheap real-estate in prime localities. Option 4.

You see, you’ve got options as long as you’re sitting on cash. Thus, first, learn to sit on cash.

Before that, learn to come into cash when you see widespread signs of disease.

Best part is, widespread disease will be accompanied by a big boom before the bust, so you’ll have time to go into cash, and will be ready to pick up quality bargains.

You don’t really care when judgement day is, because your investment strategy has already prepared you for it. You know what to do, and are not afraid. If and when it does come, you are going to take full advantage of it.

Bring it on.

Can We Please Get This One Basic Thing Right? (Part III)

Posted on December 29, 2012 by Uday Nath

Yeah, we’re digging deeper.

How does an investor arrive at an investment decision?

It’s pretty obvious to us by now that traders and investors have their own rationales for entry and exit, and that these rationales are pretty much diametrically opposite to each other.

So, what’s the exact story here?

The seasoned investor will look at FUNDAMENTALS, and will exhibit PATIENCE before entering into an investment.

The versatile trader will look at TECHNICALS, and will NOT BE AFRAID of entry or exit, any time, any place. He or she will be in a hurry to cut a loss, and will allow a profit to blossom with patience.

What are fundamentals?

Well, fundamentals are vital pieces of information about a company. When one checks them out, one gets a fair idea about the valuation and the functioning of the company, and whether it would be a good idea to be part of the story or not.

A good portion of a company’s fundamental information is propagated in terms of key ratios, like the Price to Earnings Ratio, or the Debt to Equity Ratio, the Price to Book Value ratio, the Enterprise Value to EBITDA Ratio, the Price to Cash-flow Ratio, the Price to Sales ratio, etc. etc. etc.

What a ratio does for you is that in one shot, it delivers vital info to you about the company’s performance over the past one year. If it’s not a trailing ratio, but a projected one, then the info being given to you is a projection into the future.

What kind of a promotership / management does a company have? Are these people share-holder friendly, or are they crooks? Do they create value for their investors? Do they give decent dividend payouts? Do they like to borrow big, and not pay back on time? Do they juggle their finances, and tweak them around, to make them look good? Do they use company funds for their personal purposes? Researching the management is a paramount fundamental exercise.

Then, the company’s product profile needs to be looked into. The multibagger-seeking investor looks to avoid a cyclical product, like steel, or automobiles. For a long-term investment to pan out into a multibagger, the product of a company needs to have non-cyclical scalability.

After that, one needs to see if one is able to pick up stock of the particular company at a decent discount to its actual value. If not, then the investor earmarks the company as a prospective investment candidate, and waits for circumstances to allow him or her to pick up the stock at a discount.

There are number-crunching investors too, who use cash-flow, cash allocation and other balance-sheet details to gauge whether a coveted company with an expensive earnings multiple can still be picked up. For example, such growth-based investors would not have problems picking up a company like Tata Global Beverages at an earnings multiple of 28, because for them, Tata Global’s balance-sheet projects future earnings that will soon lessen the current multiple to below sector average, for example.

Value-based investors like to buy really cheap. Growth-based investors don’t mind spending an extra buck where they see growth. Value-based investors buy upon the prospect of growth. Growth-based investors buy upon actual growth.

The trader doesn’t bother with fundamentals. He or she wants a management to be flashy, with lots of media hype. That’s how the trader will get volatility. The scrips that the trader tracks will rise and fall big, and that’s sugar and honey for the trader, because he or she will trade them both ways, up and down. Most of the scrips that the trader tracks have lousy fundamentals. They’ve caught the public’s attention, and the masses have sprung upon them, causing them to generate large spikes and crashes. That’s exactly what the trader needs.

So, how does a trader track these scrips? Well, he or she uses charts. Specifically, price versus time charts. The trader doesn’t need to do much here. There’s no manual plotting involved. I mean, this is 2012, almost 2013, and we stand upon the shoulders of giants, if I’m allowed to borrow that quote. Market data is downloaded from the data-provider, via the internet and onto one’s computer, and one’s charting software uses the data to spit out charts. These charts can be modified to the nth degree, and transformed into that particular form which one finds convenient for viewing. Modern charting software is very versatile. What exactly is the trader looking for in these charts?

Technicals – the nitty-gritty that emerges upon close chart scrutiny.

How does price behave with regard to time?

What is the slope of a fall, or the gradient of a rise? What’s the momentum like?

What patterns are emerging?

How many people are latching on? What’s the volume like?

There are hundreds of chart-studies that can be performed on a chart. Some are named after their creators, like Bollinger bands. Others have a mathematical name, like stochastics. Names get sophisticated too, like Williams %R, Parabolic SAR and Andrew’s Pitchfork. There’s no end to chart studies. One can look for and at Elliott Waves. Or, one can gauge a fall, using Fibonacci Retracement. One can use momentum to set targets. One can see where the public supports a stock, or where it supplies the stock, causing resistance. One can join points on a chart to form a trendline. The chart’s bars / candle-sticks will give an idea about existing volatility. Trading strategy can be formulated after studying these and many more factors.

Where do stops need to be set? Where does one enter? Exit? All these questions and more are answered after going through the technicals that a chart is exhibiting.

One needs to adhere to a couple of logical studies, and then move on. One shouldn’t get too caught up in the world of studies, since the scrip will still manage to behave in a peculiar fashion, despite all the studies in the world. If the markets were predictable, we’d all be millionaires.

How does the trader decide upon which scrips to trade? I mean, today’s exchanges have five to ten thousand scrips that quote.

Simple. Scans.

The trader has a set of scan criteria. He or she feeds these into the charting software, and starts the scan. Within five minutes, the software spits out fifty odd tradable scrips as per the scan criteria. The trader quickly goes through all fifty charts, and selects five to six scrips that he or she finds best to trade on a particular day. Within all of fifteen minutes, the trader has singled out his or her trading scrips.

Do you now see how different both games are?

I’m glad you do!

🙂

Can We Please Get This One Basic Thing Right? (Part II)

Posted on December 28, 2012 by Uday Nath

Now that we’ve laid the foundation, we need to build on it.

The most important aspect of investing is the entry. For a trader, entry is the least important aspect of the trade.

An investor enters after a thorough study. That’s the one and only time the investor is calling the shots regarding the investment. The right entry point needs to be waited for. After entry, the investor is no longer in control. Therefore, the entry must be right, if the investor is required to sit for long. If the entry is not right, then one will not be able to sit quietly, and will jump up and down, to eventually exit at a huge loss.

The trader can even take potshots at the morning newspaper, and enter the scrip hit by a dart at current market price (cmp). There’s a 50:50 chance of the scrip going up or down. If, after entry, the trade is managed properly, the trader will make money in the long run. A loss will need to be nipped in the bud. A profit will be allowed to grow into a larger profit. Once the target is met, the trader will not just exit slam-bam-boom, but will keep raising the stop as the scrip soars higher, and will eventually want the market to throw him or her out of the trade. If the scrip is sizzling, and closes above the stop, the trader will be happy that the market has allowed him or her to remain in the trade, because chances are very high that the scrip will open up with a gap the next morning. Then the trader will take the median of the gap for example as a stop, and will continue to raise this stop, should the scrip go even higher. Eventually, the correcting scrip will throw the trader out of the trade. One or two big winning trades like this one will give the trader a fat cushion for future trades. Now, the trader will position-size. He or she will again take his or her dart, and will select the next scrip. The amount traded will be more, because the trader is winning, and because the pre-decided stop percentage level now amounts to a larger sum. The trader’s position will be sized as per his or her trading networth. So, you see here how unimportant entry is for trading, when one compares it to trade management and exit.

For the investor, there’s no investment management in the interim period between entry and exit, unless the investor goes for a staggered entry or exit. That again falls under entry and exit, so let’s not speak about interim investment management at all. If anything, the investor needs to manage him or herself. The market is not to be followed real-time. One’s investment-threshold should be low enough so as to not have the portfolio on one’s mind all day. You got the gist. Also, exit happens when no value is seen. The investor just loses interest. He or she just tells his or her broker to sell the ABC or XYZ stake entirely. Frankly, that’s not right. Proper exits are what the trader does, and the investor can learn a trick or two here. Then, again, the investor would be following the market real-time in the process, and will get into the trader’s mind-set, and that would be dangerous for the rest of the portfolio. On second thoughts, it’s ok for the true investor to just go in for an ad-hoc exit.

You see, the investor likes it straight-forward. A scrip will be bought, and then sold for a profit, years later. That’s how a typical investment should unfold.

The trader, on the other hand, likes to think in a warped manner. He or she has no problems selling first and buying later. It’s called shorting followed by short-covering. The market can be shorted with specific instruments, like futures, or options. In seasoned markets, one can even borrow common stock and short it, while one pays interest on the borrowed stock to the person it was borrowed from. Yeah, many traders like to go in for all these weird-seeming permutations and combinations in their market-play.

A person who trades and invests runs the danger of confusing one for the other and ruining both. We’ve spoken about how proper segregation avoids confusion. Another piece of advice is to specialize in one and do the other for kicks. Specializing in both will require a good amount of mind-control, and one will be running a higher risk of ruining both games. At the same time, doing both will give you a good taste of both fields, so that you don’t keep yearning for that activity which you aren’t doing.

You see, sometimes the trader has it good, and sometimes, the investor is king.

When there’s a bull-run, the fully invested investor is the envy of all traders. Mr. Trader Golightly has gone light all his life, and now that the market has shot up, he is crying because he’s hardly got anything in the market, and is scared to enter at such high levels.

During a bear-market, Mr. Investor Heavypants wishes he were Mr.Trader Golightly. Heavy’s large and heavy portfolio has been bludgeoned, whereas Lightly’s money-market fund is burgeoning from his winnings through shorting the market. Lightly doesn’t hold a single stock, parties every night, and sleeps till late. Upon waking up, he shorts a 100 lots of the sensory index, and covers in the early evening to rake in a solid profit.

When Mrs. Market goes nowhere in the middle, Lightly gets stopped out again and again, and loses small amounts on many trades. He’s frustrated, and wishes he were Mr. Heavypants, who entered much lower, when margin of safety was there, and whose winning positions allow him to stay invested without him having to bother about his portfolio.

Such are the two worlds of trading and investing, and I wish for you that you understand what you are doing.

When you trade, you TRADE. The rules of trading need to apply to your actions.

When you invest, you INVEST. The rules of investing need to apply to your actions.

Intermingling and confusion will burn you.

Either burn and learn, or read this post and the last one.

Choice is yours.

Cheers. 🙂

Can We Please Get This One Basic Thing Right?

Posted on December 27, 2012 by Uday Nath

Pop-quiz, people – how many of us know the basic difference between investing and trading?

The logical follow-up question would be – why is it so important that one is aware of this difference?

When you buy into deep value cheaply, you are investing. Your idea is to sell high, after everyone else discovers the value which you saw, and acted upon, before everyone.

When you’re not getting deep value, and you still buy – high – you are trading. Your idea is to sell even higher, to the next idiot standing, and to get out before becoming the last pig holding the red-hot scrip, which would by now have become so hot, that no one else would want to take it off you.

The above two paras need to be understood thoroughly.

Why?

So that you don’t get confused while managing a long-term portfolio. Many of us actually start trading with it. Mistake.

Also, so that you don’t start treating your trades as investments. Even bigger mistake.

You see, investing and trading both involve diametrically opposite strategies. What’s good for the goose is poison for the gander. And vice-versa.

For example, while trading, you do not average down. Period. Averaging down in a trade is like committing hara-kiri. What if the scrip goes down further? How big a notional loss will you sit upon, as a trader? Don’t ignore the mental tension being caused. The thumb rule is, that a scrip can refuse to turn in your direction longer than you can remain solvent, so if you’re leveraged, get the hell out even faster. If you’re not leveraged, still get the hell out and put the money pulled out into a new trade. Have some stamina left for the new trade. Don’t subject yourself to anguish by sitting on a huge notional loss. Just move to the next trade. Something or the other will move in your direction.

On the other hand, a seasoned investor has no problems averaging down. He or she has researched his or her scrip well, is seeing deep-value as clearly as anything, is acting with long-term conviction, and is following a staggered buying strategy. If on the second, third or fourth buy the stock is available cheaper, the seasoned investor will feel that he or she is getting the stock at an even bigger discount, and will go for it.

Then, you invest with money you don’t need for the next two to three years. If you don’t have funds to spare for so long, you don’t invest …

… but nobody’s going to stop you from trading with funds you don’t need for the next two to three months. Of course you’re trading with a strict stop-loss with a clear-cut numerical value. Furthermore, you’ve also set your bail-out level. If your total loss exceeds a certain percentage, you’re absolutely gonna stop trading for the next two to three months, and are probably gonna get an extra part-time job to earn back the lost funds, so that your financial planning for the coming months doesn’t go awry. Yeah, while trading, you’ve got your worst-case strategies sorted out.

The investor doesn’t look at a stop-loss number. He or she is happy if he or she continues to see deep-value, or even value. When the investor fails to see value, it’s like a bail-out signal, and the investor exits. For example, Mr. Rakesh Jhunjhunwala continues to see growth-based value in Titan Industries at 42 times earnings, and Titan constitutes about 30% of his billion dollar portfolio. On the other hand, Mr. Warren Buffett could well decide to dump Goldman Sachs at 11 – 12 times earnings if he were to consider it over-valued.

Then there’s taxes.

In India, short-term capital gains tax amounts to 15% of the profits. Losses can be carried forward for eight years, and within that time, they must be written off against profits. As a trader, if you buy stock and then sell it within one year, you must pay short term capital gains tax. Investors have it good here. Long-term capital gains tax is nil (!!). Also, all the dividends you receive are tax-free for you.

Of course we are not going to forget brokerage.

Traders are brokerage-generating dynamos. Investors hardly take a hit here.

What about the paper-work?

An active trader generates lots of paper-work, which means head-aches for the accountant. Of course the accountant must be hired and paid for, and is not going to suffer the headaches for free.

Investing involves much lesser action, and its paper-work can easily be managed on your own, without any head-aches.

Lastly, we come to frame of mind.

Sheer activity knocks the wind out of the average trader. He or she has problems enjoying other portions of life, because stamina is invariably low. Tomorrow is another trading day, and one needs to prepare for it. Mind is full of tension. Sleep is bad. These are some of the pitfalls that the trader has to iron out of his or her life. It is very possible to do so. One can trade and lead a happy family life. This status is not easy to achieve, though, and involves mental training and discipline.

The average investor who is heavily invested can barely sleep too, during a market down-turn. The mind constantly wanders towards the mayhem being inflicted upon the portfolio. An investor needs to learn to buy with margin of safety, which makes sitting possible. An investor needs to learn to sit. The investor should not be more heavily invested than his or her sleep-threshold. The investor’s portfolio should not be on the investor’s mind all day. It is ideal if the investor does not follow the market in real-time. One can be heavily invested and still lead a happy family life, even during a market down-turn, if one has bought with safety and has even saved buying power for such cheaper times. This status is not easy to achieve either. To have cash when cash is king – that’s the name of the game.

I’m not saying that investing is better than trading, or that trading is better than investing.

Discover what’s good for you.

Many do both. I certainly do both.

If you want to do both, make sure you have segregated portfolios.

Your software should be in a position to make you look at only your trading stocks, or only your investing stocks at one time, in one snapshot. You don’t even need separate holding accounts; your desktop software can sort out the segregation for you.

That’s all it takes to do both – proper segregation – on your computer and in your mind.

Anatomy of a Multibagger

Posted on December 14, 2012 by Uday Nath

Wouldn’t we all like to rake it in?

A multibagger does just that for you. Over a longish period, its growth defies normalcy.

In the stock markets, a 1000-bagger over 10 years – happens. Don’t be surprised if you currently find more than 20 such stocks in your own native markets.

Furthermore, our goal is to be a part of the story as it unfolds.

Before we can invest in a multibagger, we need to identify it before it breaks loose.

What are we looking for?

Primarily, a dynamic management with integrity. We are looking for signs of honesty while researching a company. Honest people don’t like to impose on others. Look for a manageable debt-equity ratio. Transparency in accounting and disclosure counts big. You don’t want to see any wheelin’-dealin’ or Ponzi behavior. If I’d been in the markets in the early ’80s and I’d heard that Mr. Azim Premji drove a Fiat or an 800, and flew economy class, I’d have picked up a large stake in Wipro. 10k in Wipro in ’79 multiplied to 3 billion by ’04. That can only happen when the management is shareholder-friendly and keeps on creating value for those invested. Wipro coupled physical value-creation with market value-creation. It kept announcing bonus after bonus after bonus. God bless Mr. Premji, he made many common people millionaires, or perhaps even billionaires.

A good management will have a clean balance-sheet. That’s the number two item.

The company you’ re looking at will need to have a scalable business model.

It will need to produce something that has the ability to catch the imagination of the world for a decade or more.

The company you’re looking at will need to come from the micro-cap or the small-cap segment. A market-cap of 1B is not as likely to appreciate to 1000B as a market-cap of 25M is to 25B.

Then, one needs to get in at a price that is low enough to give oneself half a chance of getting such an appreciation multiple.

Needless to say, the low price must invariably be coupled to huge inherent value which the market is not seeing yet, but which you are able to correctly see.

After that, one needs the courage and conviction to act upon what one is seeing and has recognized.

One needs to have learnt how to sit, otherwise one will nip the multibagger in the bud. Two articles on this blog have already been dedicated to “sitting”. Patience is paramount.

The money that goes in needs to be a small amount. It’s magnitude shouldn’t affect your normal functioning.

Once a story has started unfolding, please remember one thing. If a stock has caught the imagination of the public, it can continue to quote at extended valuation multiples for a long time. As long as there is buying pressure, don’t exit. One needs to recognize buying pressure. That’s why, one needs to learn charting basics.

Phew, am I forgetting something here? Please feel welcome to comment and add factors to the above list.

Here’s wishing that you are able to latch on to many multibaggers in your investing career.

🙂

How To Nip A Ponzi In The Bud

Posted on December 12, 2012 by Uday Nath

Mirror Mirror on the wall…

Who’s most prone of them all?

As in, most prone to Ponzis…

Frankly, I think it is us gullible Indians.

Everyday, there’s some report of a Ponzi scheme being busted, with thousands already duped.

Charles Ponzi’s is a case of the tip of the iceberg – maximum recognition came posthumously. If Charlie would have received a cut every time his scheme was used by mankind, he would probably have become the richest man in the world. Unfortunately for him, he popped it before reaping the full rewards of his crookedness.

What Charlie did leave behind was a legacy. Yeah, Charlie did an Elvis, meaning that many have tried to emulate Charles Ponzi since he departed. Maybe I’ve gotten the chronology wrong, but you know what I mean…

Chances are, a Ponzi will eventually cross your path sooner or later. More sooner than later.

How do you recognize a Ponzi? Yeah, that’s the first step here – identification.

A Ponzi will talk big – he or she will flash. There will be a small track record to back up what is being said, and this will almost be blown into your face, after you’ve been dazzled by the Ponzi’s fancy car, expensive clothes and gold pen. The Ponzi will be a good orator, and his words will have a hypnotic effect on you (ward this off with full strength). The Ponzi will show off, making you feel awkward. You will feel like being “as successful” as what is being projected before you, right there, right then. When all these symptoms match, and such feelings well up inside of you, you are, with very high probability, talking to a Ponzi, who is trying to suck you in with a promise of stupendously high returns.

After you have identified the Ponzi, the next step is to not get sucked in. This is going to take all your self-control. Remember, the grass is not greener elsewhere. Take charge of your emotions. You’ve identified a Ponzi, man, that’s big. Now you need to follow through and see to it that a minimum number of people come to harm.

Hear the Ponzi out. Don’t react. In fact, don’t say a word. Don’t commit a penny. Keep reminding yourself, that you have it in you to succeed. You don’t need the Ponzi’s help to get good returns on your money. You certainly don’t want to lose all your money. With that thought in mind, block the Ponzi and his promises out. Leave politely and inconspicuously.

After you’ve left securely, without having committed a penny and without having left your details with the Ponzi, you now need to sound the alarm. Tell all your friends of the lurking danger. Forewarn them, so that no one you know gets sucked in. Ask everyone to spread the word. The whole town needs to know within no time.

Identify – Control – Alarm – this is a three step programme to nip the Ponzi In the bud – try it out, it works!

Cheers! 🙂

Learning to Sit (Part II)

Posted on December 12, 2012 by Uday Nath

Can you sit?

I mean, can you really sit?

Maximum money is made by sitting, not by wiggling about.

I didn’t say that, but people far, far greater did.

To name just two who did say so, I’m sure you’ve heard of Jesse Livermore and Warren Buffett.

Fact remains – if you’re a long-term investor, you have to be able to sit.

One can’t sit for very long if one isn’t comfortable.

So, logic dictates – make yourself comfortable first.

Get rid of all extra background noise that disturbs you.

Keep consolidating – till you are comfortable to a point of not wanting to move from where you are.

You’ve gotten rid of investments you don’t understand.

Then, you’ve also dumped those investments that you do understand, but which don’t interest you.

Your rapport with your family is healthy.

You eat and sleep well.

You enjoy your life.

Then, the investments that you’re gonna sit on – are their volumes influencing the normal flow of your life?

If yes, it’ll be hard to stay focused somewhere down the line, because some fragment of your life will invariably be disturbed positively or negatively due to the voluminous investment in question.

Can you digest the volume such that its level does not interfere with your daily life?

What is your capacity for volume digestion?

Some have very large digestive capacities, like RJ. Such people can sleep comfortably on gigantic invested volumes for a very long time.

Others don’t digest volume at all, and can’t sleep over volume, like that day-trader who lives down the road. When the market closes, his invested volume is nil. Otherwise, the rest of his day is ruined.

Identify your volume threshold.

Invest below it. Then, you’ll be able to sit on your investment.

Any investment must have a rationale. Is your investment rationale sound? You’ll only be able to sit long-term on an investment made with sound rationale.

Therefore, take your time. Do solid research. Your research is pivotal for your investment. It doesn’t have to be so technical or so fundamental as to psyche a lay-person. It doesn’t have to deal with nitty-gritty. It doesn’t have to look for wheels within wheels.

In my opinion, market research needs to be broad-minded, and done with common-sense. Researching a company is an art. One doesn’t need to go ballistic with numbers, mathematics, projections, charts etc. One needs to formulate the long-term picture in one’s mind, based on key ratios, charting basics, knowledge of cycles, quality of management etc., and of course (based on) the million dollar question – is one looking at a multibagger? You can fill in the blanks here, for yourself.

Then, don’t enter with too big a bang. That’s my formula. Enter small. You can always top up later, if your conviction about your investment has grown. That’ll allow you to sit if your investment goes wrong in the initial stages. If you’ve entered too big and things go awry, you won’t be able to sleep, and then the first thing you’ll do is exit. So, enter small.

See, you can average down if you’re an expert, but for the longest time and till you get the hang of things, do not average down.

Why am I saying this?

Averaging down can make you even more jumpy if the stock in question goes down further. Your chances of sitting on your investment become even lesser.

Now for the flip-side. Sitting on a profit? Are you booking? Yes? No?

Depends. On you. On your outlook.

I mean, are you going to nip a multibagger in the bud?

I think you got the point.

So, till when do you sit?

Till you’re comfortable. Till you can sleep and eat well. Till you have a happy family life. Again, define you own “tills”.

The rest, as they say, is (your own investing) History.

Satisfying One’s Video Game Urge

Posted on December 7, 2012 by Uday Nath

We’re all kids on some level.

Do you remember when video game parlours hit your town?

We used to pretty much storm them, and blow up a lot of pocket money.

Do you remember the Gulf War (1991), and how it was portrayed on television like a video game?

Our life is about button-clicks.

If we don’t click a button for a day, we have an urge to click buttons. We get withdrawal symptoms.

Cut to the markets.

The marketplace today is at your fingertips. You can contol your interaction with a few button-clicks.

What’s the inherent danger?

More and more clicks, of course.

Your circumstances allow you to get as much action as you please. Play the markets to your heart’s content.

Is that good?

Depends.

What this does is satisfy your craving for action.

It also generates fat brokerage for your broker.

Volume does not necessarily translate into profits. So, it’s not a given that you’ve made more money by trading more.

The inherent danger is that your A-game is threatened by the extra action.

Never let anything threaten your A-game.

For example, if your A-game is investing, the extra trading action might confuse you, and you might start treating your investment portfolio like a trading portfolio.

Over a few months, your investment portfolio will then actually start looking like a trading portfolio. Does that solve your purpose?

No.

You’ve ruined your A-game.

Nobody’s asking you not to get your daily shot of button-clicks. It’s a free world. Go, get your daily dose. Fine.

However, anyone with common-sense will ask you to keep your A-game intact. Your reckless button-clicking, thus, needs to be channelized, and should not blow over to ruin your A-game.

Welcome to the world of options, as in the trading instruments called “options”. Fire away, satisfy your video game urge. There are cheap options, and there are expensive options. Move amongst the cheaper ones. Satisfy your video game urge. It doesn’t matter if you lose money. The sums in question will be small. At least you’ve gotten all your impulsiveness out of the way. Now, when you approach your long-term investment portfolio, you are not brash, but focused.

What happens when trading is your A-game, and not investing?

Ever heard of overtrading?

Can drain you. Life might become moody. Kids and family would then bear the brunt of your trading hangover.

Worth it? Naehhhh.

So what do you do?

If trading’s your A-game, satisfy your video-game urge on an actual playstation or something. Use your imagination. Play the keyboard. Write. Whatever it takes for you not to …

… overtrade. Do not overtrade at any cost. Save ample energy and your good mood phase for your family.

What’s the thin line between normal trading and overtrading? How do you notice that you are overtrading?

Energy reserves. You know it when energy you’ve reserved for something else is seeping into your trading. That’s when you are overtrading.

You see, so much in this field is not mathematical or formula-based, but feeling- and art-based. Discovering the thin line between normal trading and overtrading is an art.

Frankly, even stock-picking is an art. You can go on about numbers, and trendlines and blah, blah, blah, but fact remains that ultimately and in the end, picking a multibagger is more of a gut-feel thing.

While trading, you’re looking for spikes. When and where is the next spike going to happen? Ultimately and in the end, that’s also a gut-feel thing.

In the marketplace, apart from needing to be technically savvy, or needing to be a number-cruncher, one needs to be an artist too. Yeah, the artist’s touch binds the game together, and makes it enjoyable to play.

Why Emergency Fund?

Posted on December 5, 2012 by Uday Nath

Why do you wear a seat-belt while driving?

Why do you purchase medical insurance?

Why does one carry two parachutes while jumping off a plane?

Why do you keep your spouse happy?

So you can live in peace, right?

Peace of mind – so important…

Without peace of mind, market decisions are warped. Disturbing factors cause you to take wrong decisions.

Once faced with a market decision, it is extremely easy to go wrong. There are many telling you what to do. Some have agendas, others speak wthout an agenda, for the sake of speaking. Topping that, Mrs. Market starts playing tricks on you. She’s almost always catching you on the wrong foot. You needs to be mentally alert to identify your initial error and correct it as per your outlined strategy. If your mind-control is compromised, you step deeper into the delusive web of Mrs. Market by not being able to identify your initial error, and then the error can get bigger, and bigger, and even bigger, till it has the capability to consume you.

That’s why emergency fund!

You are not bigger than Mrs. Market. No one is bigger than Mrs. Market. You might start thinking you are, because of a few successes. As a result, you might start to play bigger. Over-confidence will first cause you to make a small mistake. Because you will not have identified the mistake as a mistake, owing to delusional conditions, the small mistake might get bigger and bigger, till it becomes bigger than you, and your market career is over.

That day, your emergency fund will feed your family.

So, firstly, make sure that an emergency fund exists for you.

It needs to be accessible, i.e. liquid.

It needs to be sufficiently large.

Its contents should be safely parked.

If it is generating some income of itself, even better, but the emergency fund should not be locked-in. If it is locked-in, you should be able to access it in a maximum of 24 hours, even if you need to pay a small monetary penalty for full and irreversible access.

Your spouse, who you’ve kept happy, should know about the emergency fund, and how to access its contents. If you’ve not kept him or her happy, he or she might access this fund anyhow, and blow it up beforehand. So, keep him or her happy and in a responsible state of mind. It is possible that he or she is just not interested in finance, right, so then what do you do? Wait for your child to grow up, wishing that he or she has an interest in finance! Anyways, someone you trust should know how to access the emergency fund. If nothing else, write out all details in a file, and inform the person you trust of the file’s existence.

Why am I being so extreme about all this?

I’m big on safety. I don’t like seeing a market player blowing up, because I wouldn’t want that to happen to myself. Have you been to a circus?

The acrobats do have a safety line, don’t they? I mean, they practice all their lives, and pull of the most amazing stunts, again and again, day after day, but at the back of their mind, they know it’s over if they make just one mistake. Unless they have a safety line. If and when a mistake occurs, their safety line will save them. The existence of a safety line allows them to perform with peace of mind, and perform well.

It is exactly like that in the markets. One big mistake, and it’s all over.

Unless there’s an emergency fund.

It’ll allow you to survive, recuperate, and get back on track. When you’re back, you’ll most definitely not repeat the big mistake you made. Also, the first thing you’ll do is regenerate the emergency fund, before you get back to proper market action.

Here’s wishing that you never need to access your emergency fund, but also wishing that it exists in the first place.

Here’s wishing that its presence gives you the necessary peace of mind to perform better.

A Critical Look at Debt on the Balance-Sheet

Posted on December 4, 2012 by Uday Nath

Borrowed money needs to be paid back.

Pray where is a company going to pay it back from?

From current reserves and /or earnings, of course.

Unless you do a Suzlon and restructure your 2 billion dollar debt.

When I hear the word “restructure”, I feel like puking.

By the way, one can even do a “Mallya”, and expect the government to pay off chunks of one’s almost 1.5 billion dollar debt.

By now, I’m really throwing up.

I mean, first, some people borrow. Then comes a spending frenzy. Then these people don’t want to pay back what they borrowed. Oh, sorry, some don’t even want to pay the interest back, let alone the principal.

Frankly, I don’t wish to invest in companies run by people who delay paying back their debt through maneuvering and manipulation.

I detest manipulation. Prefer it straight-forward.

You guessed it – I’m a debt-averse human-being. What pleases me most in a company is a debt-free balance-sheet. It is challenging to find debt-free companies that are able to grow freely and fast, and when one runs into such a company, it’s like a home-run. After that one waits for the right price, but that’s another story.

Most companies borrow. They wish to grow, and funds are not there, while opportunity is.

Fine. Borrow.

Then, show me that you want to pay back. On time. ( = integrity ).

Show me that you haven’t lost your marbles while borrowing, and have borrowed an amount which by no means risks the existence of your company. ( = balance ).

Furthermore, show me that you are creating value with the borrowed amount. ( = shareholder-friendliness ).

Show me, that after payment of interest on borrowings, you can still generate a reasonable earning per share. ( = diligence ).

That would make me want to invest in your company, despite your debt.

Oh, one more thing, I would only stay invested long-term in your company, if I see you decreasing your debt-burden year upon year. ( = like-mindedness, i.e. debt-aversion ).

Also, if any new debt taken on doesn’t fit the above criteria, I would look to exit. ( = over-confidence because of earlier successes ).

Once invested, keep rechecking the story every few months. Times are bad. If you don’t look, it is likely that a CEO will pull a stunt right under your nose. Yes, it’s totally possible that your investment doesn’t meet your criteria anymore, and that you are still invested. Don’t let that happen.

At least with regards to debt, have an exact check-list. If a company doesn’t meet your standards regarding debt, discard the company. During times of high interest-rates, large debt on the balance-sheet is like a raging fire which refuses to be stilled, and which can well terminate the existence of a company.

Your success as a long-term investor depends much on how you react to debt.

Here’s wishing you wary and successful investing!

Cheers! 🙂

The Ideal Entry

Posted on December 3, 2012 by Uday Nath

What kind of destiny do you prefer?

A scenario where you know the game, and are a champion, with people gloating over you, and where you balloon into over-confidence, only to blow up big?

Or a situation where you are uncomfortably stuck with your surroundings, and make mistake after mistake in an effort to stay afloat, until you start understanding, then mastering and finally manipulating your environment towards mega-success?

What’s that? The latter?

Congratulations. You’ve chosen the path of pain. Temporary pain, but still pain. Pain pains. That’s why it’s called pain, and that’s why it is a pain. It has one basic characteristic, though, which most of us need to understand. Slowly but surely, the human being is capable of becoming immune to small levels of pain. That’s all it takes to win in the markets.

Why didn’t you choose the former path?

Did you know, that given a choice, most of us choose the former (“smoother”) path?

Why?

That’s because when we’re given the choice, the part about ballooning into over-confidence, only to blow up big is purposely left out. That’s the portion one needs to intuitively identify on one’s radar and then avoid, if one is able to remain in one’s senses and is not drunk on fame. The test portion, aha. There needs to be some test in life. If there’s no learing / evolution, what’s the point of the path anyways?

You didn’t choose the former path because its demon was disclosed to you.

Did you for one moment stop to think, that the second path also discloses its demon to you, but only partially? To balance things out, it also discloses the reward. What it does not spell out for you is the big IF in the middle. IF as in – IF you manage to stay afloat after making mistake upon mistake, until you start understanding, mastering and finally manipulating your environment towards mega-success…

Aha.

The thing about this second path is, that you are on high alert from the beginning. You are getting hit, again and again, and it’s a battle for survival. You are evolving. You are in a great position to intuitively identify and understand the big IF, because, as I said, your senses are on high alert from the beginning. And that makes you fight even harder – no one wants to go down without a fight, right? When you’re in a do or die thing, and your hands and feet are moving to stay up, nature itself starts fighting for your survival. Your odds of making it improve tremendously. After making it through, you know the game by the back of your hand, and can go on to manipulate it to your benefit from there.

There’s another thing about this second path, and of course nobody tells us this. After you’ve won the first leg, the second path becomes the first path.

Ahaaaa!

Also, there’s another thing about the first path too, which again nobody tells us. After one has lost on the first leg, the first path becomes the second path.

Ha!!

So, what’s the ideal entry into a career in the markets?

The second path, obviously.

Make mistakes, make many, many mistakes, and make them when you’re a nobody. These will be small mistakes. They’ll hit you, but you’ll keep surviving them. Your market play will get bigger and bigger. You might even become very wealthy and famous. At that stage, the cost of a mistake will be big. If you’re drunk on your fame, there’s a huge chance of you blowing up.

Thus, an ideal entry into a career in the markets is the second path without the “getting drunk on fame bit”.

Believe me, you don’t wanna blow up. Blowing up brings baggage that lingers. Highly avoidable.

In the end, if you’re on the second path, and if you do become wealthy and famous, you are not going to get drunk on fame. Period.

And, if you’re on the first path, please come down from your high horse to properly approach each new trade with your full capability, with confidence but not over-confidence, and without feeling greater than God.

Who Told Who So?

Posted on November 22, 2012 by Uday Nath

Nobody’s in a position to tell anyone so.

That’s the marketplace for you in a nutshell.

There are times when you’re sure a scrip has peaked, and it just keeps on going higher, and higher, and then even higher.

At other times, a scrip might show tremendous valuations, but it just refuses to rise. 9 years in a row. Just refuses to rise.

Welcome to a world where if you’re able to watch your own back, you’re good.

In the world we are speaking about, a Rakesh or a Warren are what they are because that’s what suits them particularly. What suits them might most definitely not suit you. What makes you think you can emulate someone in the marketplace?

That’s the whole point, people.

You need to carve out your own unique niche in the marketplace. Something that suits you, and just you. If you do that, you’ll be happy. Satisfied from within. And that’s when you’ll start doing well.

Your best performances will come when you start being … … yourself.

Playing someone else’s game? Well, try to. Don’t be surprised if you lose your pants.

Your biochemistry is unique. So are your reactions to subtle changes around you. Thus, your interactions and dialogues with Mrs. Market need to be unique. These need to cater to your needs, your queries, your tendencies and your idiosyncrasies.

We try to follow rules. We want to master Mrs. Market. Frankly, what a joke!

Firstly, we need to make our own rules, for ourselves.

Secondly, Mrs. Market needs to be understood, even if for short spans, and she most definitely doesn’t need to be mastered. She’ll master you rather than you her. Be wary of her, win from her, but why do you wish to conquer? Fool’s paradise. Stick to the script, pal. Take your winnings and go. Why do you bet the farm, in an effort to make a killing? You’re not proving any point to anyone. Everyone’s busy doing their own thing with Mrs. M. No one’s looking at you. You don’t need to prove anything to anyone. Don’t bet the farm. Stick to the script. Take your winnings and go.

So, what’s the real learning in this world we speak about?

When you go wrong. That’s when real learning begins. How do you handle yourself? How do you come back? How do you start winning again? How do you then keep winning, again, and again, and again.

That’s the learning.

I didn’t tell you so.

You discovered it for yourself.

Remember that.

Discover it for yourself.

What’re you waiting for?

A Tool By The Name of “Barrier”

Posted on November 2, 2012 by Uday Nath

Come into some money?

Just don’t say you’re going to spend it all.

Have the decency to at least save something.

And all of a sudden, our focus turns to the portion you’ve managed to save.

If you don’t fetch out your rule-book now, you’ll probably bungle up with whatever’s left too.

Have some discipline in life, pal.

The first thing you want to do is to set a barrier.

Barrier? Huh? What kind of barrier?

And why?

The barrier will cut off immediate and direct access to your saved funds. You’ll get time to think, when hit by the whim and fancy to spend your funds.

For example, a barrier can be constructed by simply putting your funds in a money-market scheme. With that, you’ll have put 18 hours between you and access, because even the best of money market schemes take at least 18 hours to transfer your funds back into your bank account.

Why am I so against spending, you ask?

Well, I’m not.

Here, we are focusing on the portion that you’ve managed to save.

Without savings, there’s nothing. There can be no talk about an investment corpus, if there are no savings. Something cannot grow out of nothing. For your money to grow, a base corpus needs to exist first.

Then, your basic corpus needs a growth strategy.

If you’ve chalked out your strategy already, great, go ahead and implement it.

You might find, that the implemetation opportunities you thought about are not there yet.

Appropriately, your corpus will wait for these opportunities in a safe money market fund. Here, it is totally fine to accept a low return as long as you are liquid when the opportunity comes. There is no point blocking your money in lieu of a slightly higher return, only to be illiquid when your investment opportunity comes along. Thus, you’ve used your barrier to park your funds. Well done!

Primarily, this barrier analogy is for these who don’t have a strategy. These individuals leave themselves open to be swept away into spending all their money. That’s why such individuals need a barrier.

An online 7-day lock-in fixed deposit can be a barrier.

A stingy spouse can be a barrier.

Use your imagination, people, and you’ll come up with a (safe) barrier. All the best! 🙂

Danza Kuduro x Gangnam Style = Indian Political Circus

Posted on October 29, 2012 by Uday Nath

Can you ignore the circus around you?

Sooner or later, you’ll need to learn how to.

Why?

Because growth is where we are.

And, growth is dying in many parts of the world.

So, why do you need to ignore the circus?

To focus. The circus won’t let you focus properly.

And why do you need to focus?

To take advantage of the growth around you.

Growth is a coveted commodity, remember that.

One could say that you are lucky to be born in an area showing growth. You are in demand. People from other parts of the world want to participate in any available growth story. These are competent people, selling highly developed technology and expertise. They deserve to participate in growth stories, why not? The question here is about you.

Are you able to make the most of your times, and that too – ethically?

Then forget about the circus.

The circus won’t let you function ethically.

You need to learn to function despite the circus.

Welcome to the world of minimal exposure. At times, you will need the circus, since it controls the machinery of your system. That’s about it, that’s your minimal exposure. No more exposure than what is absolutely required – these are golden words summing up your policy of minimal exposure.

And you are totally going to succeed despite minimal exposure – many have done so already, so why should you be an exception?

The quality of success that emerges, after having followed a policy of minimal exposure, is sweet. It’s a no-strings-attached kind of success. It is lasting, and brings peace and exhilaration. Definitely worth striving for. So, circus shmirkus, don’t even bother, just go for it, and make the most of the growth happening around you. Because of your ethical angle, I wish even more, that you succeed.

All the best! 🙂

Going Legit in the Times of Robber Vodka

Posted on October 19, 2012 by Uday Nath

A good, clean, healthy and tension-free life – don’t you want that for your children and families?

Right, people, go legit.

It is possible, despite the Robber Vodkas, the Call Muddies and the Rama Lundgren Rajus of our times.

The first step is going white.

Go white, people. Declare your assets, pay your taxes, just sheer refuse to deal in black money as much as you can, and for heaven’s sake, start cutting out unwanted people dealing in black from your lives.

Second step – avoid people wearing whites. 98%+ of male folk dressed in whites in this country are either inactively or actively politically connected. In the process, you might pass up on the 2% genuinely good ones in whites, but you’ll have avoided all the ones you want to avoid. Political connect in India will not allow you to go legit. People hook up with politicians for favours, and / or because they feel that in their hour of need, their political clout will save them. Did you know, that for the one favour, your political connection will make you do ten illegit things in reciprocation, stuff you’d never dream of doing normally. Ask yourself. Is the trade-off really worth it? No, right?

Then, avoid dealing with people who use body-guards. I mean, use your common-sense. There’s no reason to shun a benevolent, well-known corporate honcho with or without body-guards, like Anand Mahindra for example. You’ll learn to recognize shady honchos. There’s that feel about them, that mafioso vicious vibe. If you can sense that vibe in a honcho, don’t deal with that person. Forget about the profit you’re losing out on, and look at the level of tension and complication you’re avoiding.

Don’t deal with people promising stupendous returns. Nip the Ponzis in the bud. Dealing with a Ponzi will eventually land you in court, to get your money out . Believe me, you don’t want our super-efficient judicial system messing up your life, if you can help it.

Be firm while dealing with any government officer. The government officer will only start to misbehave if there is any weakness from your side. Remember, a government officer is supposed to serve the nation. His or her salary is paid from the taxes you dish out. If your dealing is clean, the official could harass you for refusing to bribe, but that’s about it. Take the harassment, but keep coming back till your work is done. We need to stop bribing. Then, and only then will government officers eventually stop expecting us to bribe.

Right, we’ve pretty much cut ourselves off from a lot of people and things, so where does this leave us?

Don’t worry, we are not alone.

There are like-minded people around, and we need to make these like-minded people a part of our lives. Yeah, and we can lead good, healthy lives with such people surrounding us.

Also, don’t for a moment think we can’t do anything for our country, just because we’ve nixed the political linkage. Private opportunities come along everyday, to help people and society. If you want to still make a difference, grab these opportunities. Poor people come to you for medical aid. Help them. You can contribute privately to social-welfare. Many private citizens are running clean NGOs. As the name suggests, these NGOs have no government involvement, and are less likely to be corrupt. Funds donated to clean NGOs will very likely reach disaster areas on time and in full.

You can make a difference, all by yourself. You don’t need a corrupt government to make a 20-odd% difference for you per unit of currency you trust them with, as tax or whatever. Yeah, only about that %age gets converted into welfare; the rest is nibbled up along the way.

Make a difference – all by yourself.

What are you waiting for?

Clean up your act, go legit.

It’s not going to cut you off from any good, clean and healthy action.

Trust me on this.

It Started With A K.I.S.S.

Posted on October 17, 2012 by Uday Nath

In the year 1982, the band Hot Chocolate churned out a hit called “It started with a kiss”. The number hit the top ten. Whenever this song played during the span of the 80s, entire dance floors used to get the hint.

Well, unfortunately, the K.I.S.S. we speak about is a little different.

Ours is a formula.

Expanded, our formula stands for “Keep It Simple (Stupid)”.

Nevertheless, for us too, it all starts with the formula of K.I.S.S.

In the world of finance, we apply this formula everywhere. We don’t leave home without it. Anything that doesn’t conform to our formula is booted out of our lives.

For example, how diversified are you?

Are you so diversified, that you don’t know where which investment of yours is? That’s like way, way off our formula trajectory. Please lessen your level of diversification, such that you have all your investments on your fingertips.

Or, is your prospective investment product’s math complicated enough for you, such that you are not understanding the product fully? Leave the product alone. Again, it does not lie on the trajectory of our formula.

Then, is some investment officer talking razzle-dazzle lingo, trying to psyche and bulldoze you into an investment? Please show him or her the door. You got it. Eliminated by our formula.

Is some promoter’s lifestyle very sophisticated and complicated? Think twice before buying into his or her company, because the sophistication with all its complications is (with very high probability) being financed by company money, at the cost of all shareholders.

How many financial advisors have you got? Why do you even need financial advisors, when everything is available to you on the Internet? Is a financial advisor going to share the pain of your investment loss? Of course not. You are going to bear that pain fully. Therefore, once you yourself get going, the quality of investments you decide upon for yourself are going to be better than those selected by an investment advisor. You know yourself better than an investment advisor does. He or she doesn’t possess the power to understand and define you better than you do yourself. So, simple, do it yourself. Since any resulting pain is yours, you’ll try to avoid all pain, at any cost, and after a few hits, you’ll eventually start doing it well. You won’t sink, you’ll swim, believe me. Once you get the hang of it, staying above water can be simple. There’s nothing complicated about it.

I mean, we can go on here. Yeah, like we can go on K.I.S.S.ing here…, but I’m gonna stop, because I think you’ve got the message.

On that note, cheers, and here’s looking forward to keeping it simple…and not stupid.

Happy Second Birthday, Magic Bull !!

Posted on September 12, 2012 by Uday Nath

Seasons change. So do people, moods, feelings, relationships and market scenarios.

A stream of words is a very powerful tool to understand and tackle such change.

Birthdays will go by, and, hopefully, words will keep flowing. When something flows naturally, stopping it leads to disease. Trapped words turn septic inside the container holding them.

Well, we covered lots of ground, didn’t we? This year saw us transform from being a money-management blog to becoming a commentary on applied finance. The gloom and doom of Eurozone didn’t beat us down. Helicopter Ben and the Fed were left alone to their idiosyncrasies. The focus turned to gold. Was it just a hedge, and nothing but a hedge? Could it replace the dollar as a universal currency? Recently, its glitter started to actually disturb us, and we spoke about exit strategies. We also became wary of the long party in the debt market, and how it was making us lazy enough to miss the next equity move. Equity, with its human capital behind it, still remained the number one long-term wealth preserver cum generator for us. After all, this asset class fought inflation on auto-pilot, through its human capital.

Concepts were big with us. There was the concept of Sprachgefühl, with which one could learn a new subject based on sheer feeling and instinct. The two central concepts that stood out this year were leverage and compounding. We saw the former’s ugly side. The latter was practically demonstrated using the curious case of Switzerland. There was the Ayurvedic concept of Satmya, which helps a trader get accustomed to loss. And yeah, we meet the line, our electrolytic connection to Mrs. Market. We bet our monsters, checked Ace-high, gauged when to go all-in against Mrs. Market, and when to move on to a higher table. Yeah, for us, poker concepts were sooo valid in the world of trading.

We didn’t like the Goldman attitude, and weren’t afraid to speak out. Nor did we mince any words about the paralytic political scenario in India, and about the things that made us go Uffff! We spoke to India Inc., making them aware, that the first step was theirs. We also recognized and reacted to A-grade tomfoolery in the cases of Air India and Kingfisher Airlines. Elsewhere, we tried to make the 99% see reason. Listening to the wisdom of the lull was fun, and also vital. What would it take for a nation to decouple? For a while, things became as Ponzi as it gets, causing us to build a very strong case against investing a single penny in the government sector, owing to its apathy, corruption and inefficiency. We were quite outspoken this year.

The Atkinsons were an uplifting family that we met. He was the ultimate market player. She was the ultimate home-maker. Her philanthropy stamped his legacy in caps. Our ubiquitous megalomaniac, Mr. Cool, kept sinking lower this year, whereas his broker, Mr. Ever-so-Clever, raked it in . Earlier, Mr. Cool’s friend and alter-ego, Mr. System Addict, had retired on his 7-figure winnings from the market. Talking of brokers, remember Miss Sax, the wheeling-dealing market criminal, who did Mr. Cool in? She’s still in prison for fraud. Our friend the frog that lived in a well taught us about the need for adaptability and perspective, but not before its head exploded upon seeing the magnitude of an ocean.

Our endeavors to understand Mrs. Market’s psychology and Mr. Risk’s point of view were constant and unfailing, during which we didn’t forget our common-sense at home. Also, we were very big on strategy. We learnt to be away from our desk, when Mrs. M was going nowhere. We then learnt to draw at Mrs. M, when she actually decided to go somewhere. Compulsion was taken out of our trading, and we dealt with distraction. Furthermore, we started to look out for game-changers. Scenarios were envisioned, regarding how we would avoid blowing up big, to live another day, for when cash would be king. Descriptions of our personal war in Cyberia outlined the safety standards we needed to meet. Because we believed in ourselves and understood that we were going to enhance our value to the planet, we continued our struggle on the road to greatness, despite any pain.

Yeah, writing was fun. Thanks for reading, and for interacting. Here’s wishing you lots of market success. May your investing and trading efforts be totally enjoyable and very, very lucrative! Looking forward to an exciting year ahead!

Cheers 🙂

Your Personal War in Cyberia

Posted on September 7, 2012 by Uday Nath

Are you illiterate?

Literacy is not just alphabetical.

The meaning of literacy has expanded itself into your cyber world and also into your financials.

I mean, can you call yourself literate without knowing computer and financial basics?

I don’t think so. Not anymore. Times have changed, and so must you, in case you want to be called literate.

One of the first things one learns during one’s quest for financial literacy is the operation of one’s netbanking.

Once you are logged in, you soon realize, that your assets are under attack, and must be appropriately secured.

Login password, secure login, phishing filter, security questions, transaction password…you are learning fast. Your vocabulary is changing. Your defences are up. Yes, you are at war.

What kind of a war is this?

More of a cold war, till it gets hot for you, which can happen, but is not a must.

Worst-case scenario is that someone cleans you out. As in, a cyber thief steals all your money that was reflecting in your netbanking.

Your common-sense should tell you that your netbanking password is the all-important entity. Tell it to no one. Store it in a password safe. Keep changing it regularly. Don’t forget to update it in your safe. The safe of course opens with its own password, and is in sync between your mobile and your desktop. On both your mobile and your desktop, internet security prevails. Meaning, don’t use an el cheapo antivirus. Use a good one. Pay for it.

If there is a large amount reflecting in your account for a number of days without being used, secure it. Even if someone hacks in, available amounts should be as minimal as possible. Let the hacker first deal with unsecuring a secured amount. This gives you a time-window, during which you read and respond to any sms sent by your bank, that a secured amount has now been unsecured. The shot has been fired, your watchman has alerted you, and you now need to respond.

For the amount to be actually transferred out of your account, one more thing needs to happen. The hacker needs to set up a new payee under third party funds transfer. Some banks take three days for this, during which they coordinate with you whether or not you really want this payee to be set up. Other banks have a one-time password (OTP) system, where a transfer can only be activated by an OTP sent by sms to the registered mobile number linked to the account. Works.

Nevertheless, hackers seem to be getting around these systems, because one hears and reads about such cyber thefts all the time. However, the window created by your systems in place gives you crucial time to respond.

What is your first response, after becoming aware that you are under cyber attack?

Relationship manager (RM) – call him or her. After you’ve alerted your RM, login if you can, and secure any unsecured amount. Change your login and transaction passwords, along with security images, words, questions and answers. Delete all payees. Logout. Close all windows on your desktop. Clear all history, cache, temporary files, cookies and what have you. Run a virus cum spyware scan. Clean any viruses, then shut your computer.

How does one go about securing unsecured amounts?

Make a 7 day fixed deposit with your unsecured amount. Or, configure your mutual fund operations through your Netbanking itself, and transfer the unsecured amount to a trusted liquid scheme offering 18-20 hour liquidity, all through your netbanking. Pretty straight-forward.

After you’re done, join your RM in finding the loophole. If you’ve incurred a loss, file a police report along with an application for reimbursal, citing all security measures you undertake as a given while also outlining the chronology of your actions after you realized that you were under attack.

That’s about it, I can’t think of anything else that you could do. If you can, please comment.

Right then, all the best!

magic bull

finance strategy meta-game psychology application

Category Archives: Common Sense

And How Are You This 20k?

So, … … , When’s Judgement Day?

Can We Please Get This One Basic Thing Right? (Part III)

Can We Please Get This One Basic Thing Right? (Part II)

Can We Please Get This One Basic Thing Right?

Anatomy of a Multibagger

How To Nip A Ponzi In The Bud

Learning to Sit (Part II)

Satisfying One’s Video Game Urge

Why Emergency Fund?

A Critical Look at Debt on the Balance-Sheet

The Ideal Entry

Who Told Who So?

A Tool By The Name of “Barrier”

Danza Kuduro x Gangnam Style = Indian Political Circus

Going Legit in the Times of Robber Vodka

It Started With A K.I.S.S.

Happy Second Birthday, Magic Bull !!

Your Personal War in Cyberia

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