Category Archives: Common Sense

A Tool By The Name of “Barrier”

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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

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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

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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.

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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 !!

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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

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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!

Isn’t This Other Party Getting Too Loud?

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We in India have decided to go for gold after the Olympics.

I mean, there’s a whole parallel party going on in gold.

What’s with gold?

Can it tackle inflation?

No.

Is there any human capital behind it?

No.

Meaning, gold has no brains of its own, right?

Correct.

Is there a storage risk associated with gold?

Yes.

Storage volume?

Yes.

Transport inconvenience?

Yes.

Price at an all time high?

Yes, at least for us in India. We’d be fools to consult the USD vs time chart for gold. For us, the INR vs time chart is the more valid one for gold, because we pay for gold in INR.

Getting unaffordable?

Yes.

No parameter to judge its price by, like a price to earning ratio for example?

No.

Then how am I comfortable with gold, you ask?

Right, I’m not.

Can I elaborate, is that what you are requesting?

Sure, it’s exorbitance knocks out its value as a hedge. A hedge is supposed to balance and stabilize a portfolio. Gold’s current level is in a trading zone. It is not functioning as an investor’s hedge anymore.

Why?

Because from a huge height, things can fall big. Law of gravity. And gold’s fallen big before. It doesn’t need to begin it’s fall immediately, just because it is too high. That alone is not a valid reason for a big fall, but the moment you couple the height with factors like improvement in world economics, turnaround in equities (if these factors occur) etc., then the height becomes a reason for a big fall. Something that can fall very big knocks out stability and peace of mind from an investor’s portfolio. The investor needs to bring these conditions back into the portfolio by redefining and redesigning the portfolio’s dynamics.

How?

By selling the gold, for example, amongst other things.

What’s a good time to sell?

Well, Diwali’s a trigger.

Right.

Then, there are round numbers, like 35k.

What about 40k?

Are you not getting greedy?

Yeah – but what about 40k?

Nothing about 40k. Let 35k come first. I like it. It’s round. It’s got a mid-section, as in the 5. It’s a trigger, the more valid one, as of now.

Fine, anything else?

Keep looking at interest rates and equities. Any fall in the former coupled with a turnaround in the latter spells the start of a down-cycle in gold.

Is that it?

That’s a lot, don’t you think?

I was wondering if you were missing anything?

No, I just want to forget about gold max by Diwali, and focus on equities.

Why’s that?

There are much bigger gains to be had in equities. History has shown us that time and again. Plus, there is human capital behind equities. Human capital helps fight inflation. What more do you want? Meanwhile, gold is going to go back to its mean, as soon as a sense of security returns, whenever it does.

And what is gold’s mean?

A 1 % return per annum, adjusted for inflation, as seen over the last 100 years.

That’s it?

Yeah.

And what about equities?

If you take all equities, incuding companies that don’t exist anymore, this category has returned 6% per annum over the last 100 years, adjusted for inflation.

And what if one leaves out loser companies, including those that don’t exist anymore.

Then, equity has returned anything between 12 -15% per annum over the last 100 years, adjusted for inflation.

Wow!

Yeah, isn’t it?

The Frog That Lived in the Well

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Once upon a time, there was a frog.

It lived in a well.

Its cousin, however, lived in the ocean, and this particular cousin came to visit.

Cousin froggy was stunned. How could one thrive in such a small space? Our original froggy, however, did not believe that one’s world could get any better. It loved the well, and only after much coaxing did it agree to see what the ocean was like.

Upon seeing the magnitude of an ocean, our original froggy’s head exploded. This story’s from Paramhans Yogananda. 

I’m sure you’ve heard this story from someone. Something similar probably happened to you too, of course on a much smaller scale of magnitude, with no head explosions and all that.

I used to walk around pretty smugly with my Blackberry, thinking that I was like there, connected. Experienced kind of a head explosion upon moving to an Android smartphone.

What is it about us humans?

Why are we so limiting?

Why do we create barriers around our life-experience, around our possibilities?

Market conditions keep changing. Just as we get tied up into a rut and define a market as range-bound and going nowhere, it breaks out. Are you able to cope?

Be honest.

Can you adapt to such changes in conditions?

Are you quick on your feet? Or are you lethargic, and full of inertia?

What’s that song by The Black Eyed Peas?

“don’t…don’t…don’t … … don’t-stop-the-party!”

I know you’ve been humming this song during your continuing debt market party, but there is more to the scene than just the debt market. The debt market is not where things start and end in the world of investing. There’s more.

The world of investing is like an ocean.

The next buzzing market will make itself known. It’s only a matter of time. Be ready for it. Don’t remain clogged up within the claustrophobic walls of one market only, out of sheer laziness and a false sense of security.

Get out there.

Experience the ocean, without your head needing to explode.

I know a guy who knows another guy who knows this guy…

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Well, congratulations.

So you’re well connected.

You probably play golf with the CEO of Big Balls Incorporated.

We’re not even going into how you wangled the slot.

You probably feel, that because of your connectedness, you can get away with anything in life.

Well, almost anything.

That’s the bottom-line.

You can get away with almost anything in life.

Here are two areas where your connectivity counts jack. As in El Zero. Nadda.

One is before the Almighty (presuming that God exists). Buying a slot with God using connections isn’t gonna cut it with the big guy. You can’t buy personal time with deities using money and / or connections, even if you think you can. Also, that “bought” time, when you shoved everyone else out of line, well, that time’s not going to make your life any better, or richer. You’ve just established yourself as someone who shoves others out of line using connections….that’s how your deity is going to view your performance. So, what you’re going to understand from this space is that before deities – the Almighty – God – the Metaphysical – or whatever you might want to call what I’m talking about, connections don’t work. You only end up scoring negative in your deity’s books.

Which brings us to the more relevant matter – where else do connections not work?

In the marketplace of course, my friend.

Don’t believe me? Fine, find it out for yourself, the hard way. Or, read on.

You see, in the marketplace, insiders have an agenda. All insiders. They have an agenda.

That agenda is personal. It includes them. It doesn’t include you … … if you’re not connected to the insider. Once you are, and you use that connection to fish for “lucrative” inside information, that’s where the insider’s agenda starts to include you. The information you get is as per the agenda of the insider. If a promoter wishes to off-load huge quantities of stock, you will be told that the stock’s a good buy, because blah-blah-blah-blah-blah. On the other hand, if the promoter wishes to buy back large quantities of stock, because of attractive valuations, you’ll be told to sell the stock owing to tricky prospects in the future. You are not getting quality information when you fish for tips. You’ll only find yourself getting trapped if you follow insider tips.

There are good insiders too … is that what you are saying? Ok, fine, some insiders are good human beings. They are not vicious, and they wish you well. They might even want to do you a favour, wishing that you make some money from the information they are letting out. All true. Question is, does it really work?

No.

Why?

You see, an insider never functions alone. When a company experiences a turnaround or a great quarter comes along with excellent earnings, white-collared people connected to the functioning of the company obviously know this, and they leak this information out (for a price) to smart researchers and investors. These smarties (along with their entire intimate circle of connectivity) buy into the company’s prospects. The money moved is called smart money. Smart money registers / reflects on the traders’ charts. The scrip might show a bounce-back from a low with huge volume, or a resistance might be broken, or a new high could even be made (all coupled with large volume). Traders latch on. Price movers higher. All this is happening before the CEO has announced quarterly results, mind you. Finally, a few days before the results, the corresponding results-file lands on the CEO’s desk. He or she congratulates his or her staff on the spectacular performance, and over a round of golf, the information is shared with you. The CEO is obviously thinking that the market is going to react positively to the earnings surprise that’s going to be announced.

Well, the earnings are not going to be a surprise. The market already knows, and earnings have thus already been factored into the price, before results are announced. Announcement time is generally selling time for traders, who tend to sell all stock upon the first spike after announcement. With no more buying pressure (since traders are out of the scrip), the inflated scrip tanks despite the good news, leaving you stuck with a peak-price buy. Well done, well done indeed.

See, that’s why. Don’t listen to insiders, even if they mean well.

In the marketplace, you really are on your own. Isn’t that exciting? As in challenging?

All the best, my friend. Learn to rely on your own judgement.

Getting Too Comfy For Our Boots, Are We?

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What a party we are having in the debt-market, aren’t we?

Exceptional payouts, day after day, week after week, month after month, it’s almost going to be year after year.

Are you getting too comfortable? Lazy, perhaps?

Meaning to say, that when you can get a 10 % return after tax without having to move your behind for it, it is a very welcome scenario, right?

People, scenarios change.

It isn’t always going to be like it is at the moment.

Are you flexible enough to change with the scenario?

Or will you be lost in the current moment, so lost, that you will not recognize the signs of change?

What would be these signs? (Man, this is like spoon-feeding….grrrrrr&#*!).

Inflation begins to fall.

The country’s central bank announces back to back interest rate cuts.

Too lazy to read the paper? Or watch the news? Ok, if nothing else, your online liquid mutual fund statement should tip you off.

How?

The payout, dammit, it will have decreased.

Also, something else starts performing.

What?

Equity.

Smart investors don’t like the debt payout anymore. They start moving their smart money into value equity picks.

Slowly, media stops reporting about a gloomy economy. The buzz gets around. Reforms are on the way.

Foreign direct investment picks up. The media latches on to it. It starts speaking about inflows as if the world begins and ends with inflows.

Now, the cauldron is hot and is getting hotter.

Debt payouts are getting lesser and lesser. Equity is already trending upwards, and has entered the meat of the move.

If the trend contnues, a medium to long-term bull market can result.

There you have it, the chronology played out till just before the start of a bull market of sorts.

Be alert. Recognize the signs early. Be mentally in a position to move out of the debt market, if the prevailing scenario changes.

Otherwise…

… you miss a first run in equity. Boo-hoo. When stocks cool at a peak, and start falling, you make multiple wrong entries into them.

You get hammered by equity, having caught it on the down-swing.

You missed the correct entry time-point in equity because the debt-market made you too comfortable. You were late to act. When you acted, finally, you caught a correction, and took a hammering.

One or two more hammerings like that, and you’ll be off equity for the rest of your life.

And that, my dear friend, would be a pity.

Why?

Because, in mankind’s history, it is stocks that have given the best long-term returns. Not gold, not debt, not bonds, but stocks.

You need to approach them properly, and timing is key.

Power of Compounding II – The Curious Case of Switzerland

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What comes to mind when one thinks of Switzerland?

– Blood Money – world’s haven for,

– “Neutralness” – has never fought a war in modern times,

– Beauty – it is God’s own country, with its mountains, meadows, valleys, lakes, trails…,

– Discipline – blessed with the works, punctuality, law and order, you name it,

– Technological supremacy – for example their watch-technology, or their advances in heavy mechanical engineering,

– Culinary supremacy – as in their chocolates, or for that matter their herbal know-how, superior quality of their milk, and of course, their cheese,

– Love for their country – the Swiss really look after their country, are loyal to it, and would probably die for it willingly.

Only the first factor has a negative sound.

Well, they do provide a safe-haven. I mean, look at all the other factors. People feel that their money’s safe in a swiss bank. You can’t blame a country for being a safe country.

Most of the world is not safe today. So, most of the world’s money flows to locations that are considered safe. A good percentage of the world’s money is blood money, but that’s how it is. When foreign funds flow into a country, a country doesn’t ask questions. Do we in India ask questions? No. For all we know, it is Mafia money flowing into our country, inflating our markets. Nobody cares as long as it is coming in.

When foreign funds flow into a country excessively, as is the case with Switzerland, such a country can dictate the interest-rate it pays out for such funds. For many, many decades, Swiss banks have been in demand because of the safe-haven quality of their country, and the interest-rate doled out is a pittance, something like 0.5 % or perhaps 1% per annum, something in that range. I could be making a mistake of an odd 1 % here or there, but, you see, people don’t store their money in Switzerland so that it accumulates to an even bigger amount. They store it there so that the principal stays safe. Switzerland doesn’t participate in wars. Thus, wealth is not destroyed. In fact, during wars elsewhere, fund-flow towards safe-havens heightens.

And that’s the game. Almost unlimited inflow, pittance of a payout, loan the money further on 6%, 7%, 8%, huge differential, year upon year, decade upon decade, humungous compounding, enough to spark-off, inculcate and fully support massive all-round development – couple this with all the other factors given above about Switzerland, and you have a hugely positive n-th loop. A hugely positive n-th loop is the exact opposite of a hugely negative vicious cycle. Switzerland sets the framework for the all-round blossoming of life, and the inflow provides lubrication and fuels development. After a while, they don’t depend upon the inflow anymore. In fact, the Swiss were probably self-sufficent even before the inflow began. That’s how they were able to provide a stable system. The inflow is just a bonus. Due to the power of its compounding, all the other diamond qualities of CH sparkle even more brightly.

Living in India, with its legacy of corrupt leaders who have siphoned off most of our wealth towards safe-havens, how should one react?

It is not the fault of the safe-haven. We need to evolve and make our own citizens feel comfortable with keeping their funds here. Our system needs to provide that safety.

Only then will the funds stay here. If our funds are not staying in our own country, it is our own fault.

“Don’t Turn Around – Der Kommissar’s in Town”

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There’s activity within our slow-poke government.

Yup, we just got a new finance minister. PC’s back. Or, as the newspaper said, PC reboots.

He’s probably reinforcing backdated taxation.

He’s hinted at interest-rate cuts.

He’s after more service-tax candidates.

He’s transferred lots of portfolios.

He’s trying to dish out motivational quotes, so that the economy revives.

“Alles klar, Herr Kommissar?”

The last time PC was in town, there was volatlity in the markets. First they went up and up and up, and then they went down and down and down. Mr. Chidambaram is a by-word for volatility.

How does he do it?

Frankly, I don’t care.

If I’m getting volatility, I’m taking it.

Not that India as a market lacks any volatility without PC.

We Indians are emotionally volatile people. When we are happy, we are sooooooo happy. When we are down and out, man, we are totally gone. No surprise that our markets reflect our topsy-turvy and dramatic emotional nature. Yes, the trader in India is blessed with a volatile trading scenario by default.

So, PC or no PC, volatile trades make themselves available to us in the Indian markets regularly. What PC does is, he gives the system’s volatility a turbo-boost. Our market’s “beta” goes up wth PC, and it goes up fast, quite fast.

Man, how does he do it?

You know, I still don’t care, but if I did, I think this would be the correct answer.

Der Kommissar seems to do it in two steps. First he creates carrots, lots of carrots. These are dangled before India Inc. Things start hotting up. Foreign investment wakes up – demand – buying pressure – our markets go up. Then, when the balloon is inflated, der Kommissar will appear on television and will let out comments (implementation of stick, like the backdated taxation thing) which the market takes exception to. Or, he might give some interview in the media which India Inc. interprets negatively. Well, down we come crashing. Frankly, I still couldn’t care less. Upwards or down, there’s a trade to be found.

Just a few days in his seat, and pivot points are leading to bounce-backs, supports are holding, resistances cracking (it’s the carrots), and technicals are very, very initially changing from “range-bound” to “trending”.

Fine, let’s just trade the Kommissar while he’s in town.

I’ve quoted Falco above and I’m quoting him again : “Alles klar, Herr Kommissar!”

Finding the “Switch-Off” Button

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Gadgets have a switch-off button, right?

Whatever for, have you ever wondered?

Do we have one too?

If we do, is it clearly marked, i.e. is it easy to find?

If we do, and if it isn’t clearly market, where and how can we find it?

Why is it essential to find it?

What if we don’t have a switch-off button?

First, let’s observe the Master. Sherlock Holmes. Master at the art of switching off.

Observe Holmes when the next obvious lead will take a day to obtain. Since the case is going nowhere, Holmes will take the day off. He will play his violin, trip on some coke to study its effects on mind and body (he’s Holmes), go to the art gallery, or what have you. The case at hand has gone into oblivion. Attenuated. What happens when it is time to pursue the case again? Holmes switches on. He is fresh. Alert. The switching-off really helped.

Remember the “attenuate” button on your car’s stereo?

Why do you think it is there?

So you can take that call without getting disturbed by the music. The music is still there, but upon pressing this button, it becomes really soft. So soft, that you don’t get affected by it. You conduct your business on the phone, and then press this button again, and the music comes back on in its full glory.

Same goes for the markets.

Once you are in a trade, market-forces are connected to you.

If you cannot attenuate them during off-market hours, you can ruin your evenings, nights, weekends, health and family life

Big, big price to pay.

Not worth it, so get busy and learn to attenuate the market’s connecting force once you switch your terminal off. Rest assured, it will come blaring back at you when you switch your terminal back on, but that time between terminal off and terminal on is oh so precious. That time belongs to you, and not to Mrs. Market. Don’t allow her that extra privilege. Use that time for things that you wish to do in life. Use it for your family. Mrs. M will be getting your undivided attention during the next market session anyways. Let her be content with that. Keep her in her place.

Just as any gadget needs rest, so do you.

Sometimes, the markets go nowhere, and / or are choppy. It doesn’t pay to trade. Switch off from the markets. Take a holiday. Do something else, till conditions become better for trading.

Yes, we do have a switch-off button. It is not clearly marked. It is located in the mind. One activates it indirectly. By switching on to some other relaxing activity that has the ability to grab the mind’s interest.

Switching off is a skill, and this skill needs to be developed. We don’t necessarily come with it. Most of us need to learn it. Otherwise, we’ll become tired, erratic, irritable etc. etc., scale up to commit big blunders, and then we will eventually burn out. That’s if the Street doesn’t throw us out as paupers before a looming burn-out. Also, our family lives will have gone for a toss. Our children will remember us as dreadful parents. Yes people, we need to find the switch-off button asap, and then we need to learn to activate this button at will. Essential.

And please don’t worry about not having such a button. After all, it was the human being who put such a button into all gadgets. Well, the idea must have come from somewhere. From inside our own mind, perhaps, where our own button exists?

What Exactly is a Decent Trade?

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A decent trade should yield you money, right?

Not necessarily so.

Am I crazy?

No.

So why am I saying this?

Am I not in the business to be in the green?

Of course I am, so let’s delve a little deeper.

As is slowly becoming clear to you, Mrs. Market is a schizophrenic. Her behaviour is mostly looney, and more often that not, she traverses an unexpected trajectory.

In the business of trading, there lie before you a set of circumstances, and your trading decisions are based upon these.

Thus, you outline your trade.

You plan the entry.

You plan the exit.

You define the reward : risk ratio.

You draw up a trade management plan, as outlined by your system. You preplan your response to all possible movements of Mrs. Market.

Can you do more?

No.

Can you predict Mrs. Market’s future behaviour?

No.

You have an idea about what she might do, based upon past behaviour, but does that make her future path certain?

No.

So that’s it, you enter a trade offering a high reward : risk ratio, based upon information from the past and a probabilistic idea about the future. A high reward : risk means that if there is a payout, it will be high in comparison to the loss you might bear if the trade goes against you. Something like 2 : 1 (possible profit : possible loss), or at least more than 1 : 1.

So what’s going to make your trade decent?

Just stick to your systematic plan, and you’ll have traded well.

Notice, no talk of any money here.

We’ve only spoken of sticking to our system-outlined trading plan.

We are not focusing on money. We are focusing on trading well.

Money is a side-effect to decent trading.

Trade decently, do the right thing, and money will follow as a side-effect, seen over the long run.

If your trade-management plan says you are cutting the trade below point X, and if point X is pierced by Mrs. M as she moves against you, well, the right thing to do would be to cut the trade.

So what if the trade didn’t yield you money?

It was a trade well executed, AS PER YOUR SYSTEM-OUTLINED TRADING PLAN.

What would have made this trade an indecent one would be if you hadn’t cut the trade below point X, irrespective of where Mrs. M went after that.

Why would the trade then be “bad”?

Because you didn’t follow your system’s advice.

You second-guessed yourself.

That means that you don’t have faith in your trade-management abilities, and / or that you succumbed to your emotions. You begun to hope that Mrs. M would start to move your way after piercing point X during her move against your trade direction.

If you did follow your system, you actually didn’t let any hope enter the equation.

Decent.

You had faith in your system, and did not second-guess yourself.

Very decent.

Such faith in one’s system is absolutely essential, and you’ll realize that as you start to scale up in trade-size.

Let’s look at the other part of your trade-management plan.

Let’s say that you decided that if Mrs. M moved in your directon, then you would stay in the trade till you saw the scrip giving at least one sign that it was stagnating. Only then would you book profits, upon such a signal from Mrs. M.

Assume then, that after entry there’s a spike in your direction, and you are in the money.

What do you do now?

Do you get greedy, forget about your trade-management plan, and book the trade? Would such a money-yielding trade be considered decent?

No.

Firstly, you got greedy.

Indecent.

Then, you forgot about your system-outlined trading plan.

Very indecent.

So what if you made money?

Sticking to your system’s advice would have given you the chance to make more, perhaps much more.

It is difficult enough to pinpoint a scrip which is about to explode.

Then, when you land such a scrip, the last thing that you want to be doing to yourself is nipping the explosion in the bud.

You nipped potential profits, even if you took a portion home.

Very, very indecent.

There you have it, people.

Use your common-sense, and, trade decently.

Do You Believe in You(rself) ?

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Still not hit the success button?

Suffering from an inferiority complex?

Market got you down?

Is it over for you?

Which brings us to the more important question : Do you believe in YOU?

Wrong English, I know, I know. Sometimes I misuse the language for effect. The effect is more important to me than how silly I look because of bad grammar.

Ok, so you want to succeed, make it big in the markets, blah blah blah.

Who doesn’t?

You obviously can’t last out if you don’t believe in yourself. Markets are draining, and tend to suck the living blood out of one’s body, so one needs to last. Market forces exhaust the system. It’s something about them, something electronic. This something consumes your stamina. So, no two ways, you need to last out. 20, 30, 40 years maybe…

I’m not saying it’s going to take you that long to succeed. For all I know you’re the next Jesse Livermore in a few years. Getting there is one thing, but staying there is another. Consistency. Maintaining success for many years in a row. That’s big. Something like that can be, and probably is, a trader’s lifetime goal.

It all starts with belief.

Baby steps.

First, weave a safety net around you. This involves the creation of a regular source of income to sustain your family’s basic needs. Such income needs to be independent of the market, any market. Your trading is not really begging you to earn your basic income. It can well do without that extra pressure. A comfortable slot for your trading to be in is when it can generate additional and bonus income for you. That’s the sweet-spot, and you want to be in it, with a comfortable safety net around you, free to trade the markets with no extra pressure.

Then, create a reliable system to trade the markets.

This can even take many years. I mean, some of us take seven odd years to recognize their basic risk-profile. Good, at least we are recognizing our risk-profile, because everything else is going to be built up on top of that.

As your system starts to perform, your belief in yourself gets stronger. Good going, stranger, now do humanity a favour and support others who are struggling to find themselves. In any way you can. It’s good Karma, and will help you further on your own path.

Then, you hit it big-time, your system catches some huge market swings, and you are there.

Now, other things start happening. Success brings with it its own entourage.

Remain on the ground, please. That’s how you are going to last out. Keep trading. Hitting the magic spot is not enough, you need to milk it as long as possible. Your new status of “successful” will bring many to your doorstep. The crowd wants to acquire the magic formula from you. People want your time. Deal with it, buddy. In a manner that still keeps you performing in the Zone, trade after trade. Also, in a manner that keeps you from hurting anybody’s feelings. I know, thin line, difficult to do, but you don’t additionally want the remnant emotional baggage of hurting people to affect your trading.

Apart from fame, there are other members in the entourage of success, and I’m just classifying them ad-hoc under the header “extra-curricular activities”. Yup, these will come your way. That’s part of being successful and famous. Well, do what you want, you’re a grown-up, nobody’s going to tell you where to draw the line. All one can say is, that if any extra-curricular baggage starts seeping into your trading, you’re going down Sir. Period.

Oh, where did it all start? Belief, right. Look where it can get you.

So come on, get up from your drawdown. Drawdowns happen. They are part of the learning process. The earlier they happen, the better it is for you. Now, you probably won’t let them happen when the stakes are big. When a future drawdown looms, you are prepared, and nip it in the bud. You don’t let it grow into an ulcer. That’s what your earlier drawdowns have taught you.

So get up and give it another shot.

All it takes is a bit of belief.

Mentally Speaking

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The trader’s biggest enemy is…

…his or her own mind.

The good news is, that one’s mind can be trained … to become one’s friend.

Between these two sentences lies a path.

Some never make it.

For some, this path is arduous.

Other, more disciplined ones make it through.

However, that’s not the end.

Once there, one needs to stay there.

Emotions get in the way.

Fear. Greed. Hubris. Hope. Impatience. Insecurity. Despair …

… you got the drift.

Knock them out, people. Once in the market, stamp all emotion out of your (market) life.

Listen to your system. First make your system.

It doesn’t matter if it’s a technical one, or a fundamental one, or whether it is techno-fundamental, or for that matter funda-technological.

It is your system.

You have spent time putting it together.

You have lost money recognizing its pitfalls, and have tweaked these pitfalls away after they were recognized by you.

Since it has reaped you rewards, you have begun to trust it.

Stay with the trust. Don’t let your mind play tricks on you. It likes to.

Once your trusted system identifies a setup, take it. Period.

Your mind will suddenly switch on. What if this, and what if that?

Ignore.

Only use the mind’s intellect portion to perfect your system. That’s the friendly part for you. Together with it, you construct a system that is capable of identifying setup after setup, from one properly executable trade to another.

You see a setup, and you take it. No ifs, no buts, no what-ifs.

Similary, when your system identifies a stop or a target, and when this is hit, you are out of the trade. Period.

No procrastination. No waiting. No fear. No hoping. No greed.

No mind …

… from entry to trade management to exit.

Switch your mind back on when you have wound up your market activities for the day.

Switch your mind on amidst family. It’ll be fresh.

That’s the path between the two sentences at the top.

Here’s wishing that it’s an easy one for you.

The Cat that Survives Curiosity

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So, what are the Joneses upto?

Or the Smiths?

Naths?

You know something, who cares?

You’re trading, right?

Fine, then just mind your own business, and focus on your return.

I mean, people, let’s just go beyond poking our noses into others’ businesses.

Don’t we have our own businesses to take care of?

Isn’t that enough for us?

If not, and if we start poking around, seeing what kind of return XYZ has made, or for that matter how many winning trades ABC has pulled off, well, we are doing ourselves a great disservice.

For starters, we don’t seem to have much confidence in our own trading system, if we’re poking around like that.

You should be pulling off the winning trades, you.

And XYZ’s or ABC’s performances should have no meaning for you.

They are trading according to their system. Let them be. What’s good for them is not necessarily good for you.

You are trading according to your system. Period.

Not minding your own business can seriously affect even a successful system which has temporarily hit a string of losing trades.

Random losses in a row happen. A winning system can well yield ten losses in a row, for example. Improbable, but not impossible.

Ask a coin, which functons at 50:50. On average, you’re flipping heads and tails equally. Nevertheless, you could land heads (or tails) ten times in a row over many, many coin-flips. Part of the game. Accept it.

Since you have a system, you’re functioning well beyond 50:50, right?

Thus, chances of a large number of losses in a row are even lesser for you.

Tweak at your system if you feel it’s lost its market-edge.

To remind you, an edge starts occurring when one functions beyond 50:50.

After a while, one gets bored, and tells oneself, that from now on, one wants to function at 55:45 and beyond (for example), come what may.

One then tweaks at one’s system, and raises the bar.

Tweak at your system if you feel the urgent need to raise the bar.

Keep raising the bar to your comfort level.

Leave other people alone. Don’t bother with their systems. Focus on your own trading.

Be the cat that survives curiosity.

Coin-Flipping in the Marketplace

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Are you good at darts?

Actually, I’m not.

I’ve even removed all darts from our home. Hazard. Children might hurt themselves. Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m paranoid. Tell me something new.

Well, just in case you fancy playing darts, here’s a market exercise for your consideration.

Take a newspaper section, and pin it on the wall.

I know, I know, you’d love to take pot shots at your favourite corrupt politician’s picture. Please feel free to do so, let out all your venom. When you’re done, we can resume with the market exercise.

Now substitute whatever picture you’re shooting darts at with the equity portion of your newspaper’s market segment.

Take a dart. Shoot.

You hit some stock or the other. Let’s say you hit XLME Systems.

Now take a coin. Flip it.

Go long XLME Systems if you flip heads. Short it if you flip tails.

You have a 50:50 chance of choosing the correct trade direction here.

This is still a winning system, if you manage your trades with common-sense.

Cut your losers short, quite short, yeah, nip them in the bud. Let your winners ride for as long as you’re comfortable.

These two sentences will turn your little darts cum coin exercise into a winning market system.

Try out a 100 such trades, coupled with proper, common-sensical trade management. You’ll see that you are in the money.

Now, whoever turns towards me and starts to talk about trading systems, well, that person needs to be very crystal clear about one thing.

He or she needn’t bother discussing any trading system with worse results than the above-described trading system.

I mean, come on, people, here’s nature, already presenting something to us which doesn’t require any formal education, just an average ability to aim, fire, flip, trade, and manage with common-sense. This small and natural system is enough to keep us in the money.

So, if we want to spend any time discussing trading systems with an edge, we need to be sure that these systems are functioning at beyond 50:50. At par or below is a waste of time.

Good trading systems with a market-edge function at 60:40.

In the Zone, you maneuver your evolving edge to function at 70:30 and beyond.

Frankly, you don’t need more. You don’t need to function at 80:20 or 90:10. Life at 70:30 is good enough to yield you a fortune.

Getting to 70:30 is not as difficult as it sounds. First, get to a 60:40 trading system. Out of every 100 trades, get the trade direction of 60 right. Comes, takes a bit, but comes eventually.

Now you’ve got your good trading system with a decent edge, it’s working at 60:40, what next? How do you extract that extra edge.

Well, tweak. Adapt. Fine-tune. Till your edge becomes that something extra.

Still want more?

If yes, the game becomes a story about you. How disciplined are you? Are you with the markets regularly, as a matter of routine? Are you with the flow? Can you sense the next move? Are you slipping into the Zone? Can you stay in the Zone for long periods? Once you slip out, can you get back into the Zone soon?

The answers to these questions lead you to 70:30 and beyond.

Wisdom of the Lull

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It’s awfully quiet.

Are you enjoying the silence?

Or are you fretting and fuming, that there’s no action?

There’s a buzz to silence. It’s charged.

And you can harness that charge.

What for?

For the storm of course. Which is to follow. Don’t you want to be ready for it?

Cycles, people. Finance moves in cycles.

In the ’00s, I used to move from market to market. Action here, action there, action everywhere. Result was, well, I became a “Jack of all trades”, and a master of none.

Well, that’s changed now. With time, I’ve zeroed in on the markets I wish to master. I stay with these markets. No abandoning.

Tell you a secret – every market has idiosyncrasies. These four words take long to find out. Lots of hits. And then one learns these magic words.

Nuances, markets have nuances. Market A will have nuance Z, and market B will have nuance Y.

To master a market , you need to stay with it. Don’t abandon it when it is quiet. You do want to master it, right? So stay. Watch. Don’t do anything if you don’t wish to, but watch. Recognize the idiosyncrasies and their patterns.

Welcome to the wisdom of the lull.

A lull gives you time to consolidate and get your action-plan ready. It allows your nervous system to recharge. You can catch up with stuff you’ve missed out on. Financially, you’re not worried, even if you’re not trading.

Why?

Because your trading corpus is giving you fixed income when its units are not being utilized for trading, silly. And, this fixed income is large enough to support you and your family and then some, remember? That was a basic tenet we had carved out for ourselves before we got into serious trading. Don’t forget the basics. Keep reminding yourself. Financially, a lull needs to give you enough income to support your family and then some, such that you are not required to pull a single trade. Trading 1.0.1. If that’s not the case, first muster up a large enough corpus that fulfills this condition, before you get into serious trading.

Why?

A lull should not have you jumping in your pants, eager to implement dozens of trades in an effort to get basic income going. When Mrs. Market goes nowhere, your trades will eventually keep getting stopped out, because of money stops or time-stops. That’s how you recognize a lull. Now you can shut shop, recharge, watch, and your corpus is still generating basic fixed income, allowing you to harness the full wisdom of the lull.

This is also a time to go over previous trading errors. Let me tell you a story. Remember Jesse Livermore? Well, Jesse was eccentric. Geniuses are eccentric. Jesse was a genius trader. Since there would be no trading action around the end of December and the beginning of January, Jesse used to lock himself up in a bank-vault during this period, stocked with ample food and drink supplies . He would then go over all his trades implemented in the previous year, trying to understand the mistakes he had made. He would come out of the vault when the previous year’s trading had been fully digested by his system. When he emerged from the vault, he was ready to take on the new year.

Why a bank-vault, you ask?

Jesse said he wanted to get a physical feel for money. He wanted to be with it for a while. Trading was too abstract, and one lost touch with reality. By living with real money in a closed space for a few days, Jesse’s system was acknowledging that trading has to do with real money, real losses, real profits.

Yeah, I’m sure the vault had a washroom. Jesse Livermore could pull any stunt with his bankers.

Jesse Livermore was the first trader to realize and harness the wisdom of the lull.

Thanks, Jesse.

The Thing with the Goldman Attitude

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The Goldman attitude is making me puke.

My reaction to it is similar to that of Louis de Funes in this link.

Numbers make the world go round. The human being will do anything to bring home the right numbers.

Investment banks, normal banks, brokers…are lining up for your account. So that their company’s balance sheets look presentable, they have one thing in mind – brokerage generation. Your prospereity is no longer their foremost thought.

So, to be fair, it’s not exactly a “Goldman attitude” only, it’s fairly universal. Lately, it’s gotten publicity after an ex-Goldman employee spilled the beans.

The thing is, where does that leave you? You used to depend upon sound advice from your trusted broker, right?

Well, not happening anymore. You’re in this on your own. Sink, or swim.

The thing with successful business over the long-term is that it needs to be practised with a “win-win”
ideology. If one party loses, one time too many, it then rightly backs off from the business. Brokers and investment bankers worldwide are noticing this backlash.

Why should I be someone who grudges a broker his or her brokerage?

Nope, I’m not such a person. A broker can make all the brokerage he or she wants as long as business remains ethical. The line for me gets drawn when lousy, synthetic, losing investments start to get touted.

And now we come to the public. Frankly and ultimately, it’s the public’s fault. People want to invest their money, but many don’t know the first thing about investing. That’s when they start throwing their hard-earned money at Mrs. Market, and that’s when they make big mistakes.

How long does it take a brain-surgeon to master his or her art? A good 10 – 12 years, right? Similarly, playing the markets successfully over the long term also takes a long time to master. Markets are complicated too. The difference between brain-surgery and Mrs. Market is, that anyone can take a pot-shot at Mrs. Market without the least bit of preparation. This anyone still has a coin-flip (50:50) chance of success. Early, unqualified, lucky success lures this unfortunate person into huge and back-breaking losses later.

Why, people?

When we’ve decided to do something, why can’t we do it well? And, why can’t we take the time to do it ourselves?

Too busy, you say?

Well, there’s no excuse for lack of that minimum threshold involvement in an investment, even if it’s being handled for you by your bankers or brokers.

Let’s say someone really close to you is receiving critical medical treatment. Don’t you get involved? As in, surf the net, find the best doctor, hospital, clinic, keep yourself updated about the progress of the treatment etc. etc. Why do you not behave in the same manner when your own money goes out to earn?

What makes you hand it over to a third party blindly?

Enough said already.

The thing with the “Goldman attitude” is, that it is a wake-up call.

For all of us.

To get our act together.