Category Archives: Emotions

Manipulation / Fraud / Ponzi – I Reject You

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I detest manipulation, and manipulators. 

I like people who are straight-forward, without hidden agendas. Simplicity is gold. Simplicity breeds success. Simplicity gives satisfaction from within. 

All the twisting and turning, wheeling and dealing, wangling and dangling of manipulation makes me want to puke. 

Therefore, manipulators, frauds, Ponzis, I reject you. Manipulation doesn’t make the manipulator happy. Try it and see. I’m 100% sure your story won’t have a happy end.

Rejection is a simple process. When you reject something, you stay away from it. You get out of its way when it is in the vicinity. You head off elsewhere when that something is headed in your direction. Everyone’s probably been rejected sometime or someplace, so everyone probably understands rejection. 

Well, rejection is one thing, but how does one recognise a manipulator, fraud, or Ponzi?

Recognition is key. 

This breed of people talk sweet. They appear harmless. They don’t lose arguments. Quick, witty, sharp. Fast thinkers. They keep you hanging. Give ambiguous answers. Mostly, they like to not answer at all, so as to keep you dancing around them, making you more vulnerable to their schemes or ulterior motives. If you’re interested in their something, they use silence as a weapon. You’re hot, you’re interested, they’re silent, makes you hotter, makes you more interested. The idea is that ultimately, when the manipulator breaks the silence, you lap up whatever you’re getting. Also, they keep you hungry for more. Manipulators are vicious, vile people. 

Where manipulators push you to act, slowly, but steadily, by twisting and turning your world in the manner they consider appropriate (since you’ve given them that power), frauds outright present a reality which sucks you in to sign the dotted line. Frauds sell a dream. It’s a great dream. You want to be a part of it. It overwhelms you. It’s almost too good to be true.

Ponzis are frauds. They sell the dream of unrealistically large returns. They count on greed to cloud your vision. They lure new sets of investors by distributing investorial proceeds from one set of investors as dividends to slightly older investors, and so on and so forth, till the bandwagon is overloaded with thousands of investors paying full-throttle only to see the Ponzi vanish next day, with everything, never to be heard of again. 

When someone doesn’t give you a straight-forward answer, walk the other way. Don’t bother with benefit of doubt, just walk the other way. With very high probability, you’ll have avoided a manipulator. When someone uses silence as a weapon, walk away ten miles. Warn everyone of a mega-manipulator in the neighbourhood. Analyze sweet- and smooth-talk ten times. Is there any truth in what’s being said, or are the words an eye-wash, hiding a fraud behind themselves? If you’re not greedy, you won’t fall for a Ponzi. Don’t be greedy. Period. 

You’ve hit full cycle. 

You’ve understood the existence of the breed we speak about. It has dawned upon you. Let’s call this “internal realization”.

Then comes “external recognition”, of the breed being in your vicinity, and trying to exercise its powers upon you. 

Lastly, comes “complete rejection”. 

Well done. 

You’ve saved yourself from lots of emotional and or monetary trouble. 

Spread the word. 

Not in the Mood?

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Right, good.

You don’t have to be. And good that you’ve recognized it.

Mood sets the tone for success… or failure.

For example, just now, I’m not in the mood to conduct due-diligence. There’s one company which has sparked my interest, a few days ago. Work needs to be done, to decide whether I’m investing or am out. Quality of work needs to be of the highest order. Otherwise I might take a wrong decision, meaning that I might invest in a dud, or might reject a multibagger. And what happens? I’m not in the mood to conduct any kind of due diligence. For whatever reason. What’s to be done?

Nothing.

I just don’t conduct it.

Period.

What if the opportunity goes away?

So be it. Another will come along. When? Whenever. World is full of opportunities.

Why am I so pricy about my behaviour?

Well why not? It’s called being in the sweet spot. You call all the shots. Including working when in the right frame of mind. Such a condition enhances the probability of success.

When will I be conducting the due due-diligence?

When would that be?

Whenever it happens naturally, without artificial pressure.

Am I just born lucky, to be in a position to work when I want?

Well, I’ve definitely had my share of great luck, and continue to have it, by the grace of Nature. On the other hand, and to put things in perspective, I also have, over the last twelve years, worked hard to create a situation for myself where I only invest when I wish to. There’s no pressure on me to invest. My bread and butter isn’t dependent on it. I call it being in the sweet spot.

Work towards your sweet spot.

Now.

You, and Your Purpose

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Who are you?

Yeah, that question again…

Frankly, I’m not too bothered about who you are.

Yeah, I’m too busy trying to fathom who I am.

Guess who needs to be concerned about finding out who you are?

You!

Nobody else.

In addition to “Who are you?”, here’s another one that goes with the flow…

Where do you fit?

Not stopping…

What’s your purpose?

Yeah, why are you here?

What drives you?

Where do you start?

And sure, where do you stop?

What’s the gauge? How do you gauge where you stand with all these questions and their answers.

Luckily for you, Nature hid this gauge inside you.

Connect please.

You’ll feel… comfortable where you fit.

You’ll know where to start. When to stop. From inside. Below all the huff and puff, in the stillness of mind, lie answers. Find them. Talk to yourself. It’s not crazy to talk to yourself. In fact, those who don’t are crazy.

Where you’re happy doing stuff lies your purpose. That which causes maximum happiness and satisfaction, in you and around you – that’s your purpose.

Your behavior in multiple situations tells you who you are.

Align who you are with your purpose.

Once you know who you are, you can go about defining and delineating your risk-profile.

Small Things are Big Things

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You’ve covered lot of ground, and are now cleaning up the field. 

You’re tying up the loose ends. 

Your small acts here count big. 

Please see them through to their logical conclusion. 

Don’t get up without completing full action. 

An act at or towards the end leans on the main piece of action which you’ve already fulfilled. 

It’s loaded on a spring. It’s effectivity is enormous. However, you are tired. You’re looking to close up. Hashtags, man, what are these hashtags!? Why do I have to put them, you’re saying to yourself. What purpose do they serve? Let me just forget about them.

No.

Hashtags are just one thing. A small thing, but then, a big thing. 

Tying your act into your own seamless sphere is another such thing. 

I know, it’s a pain…but seamlessness is a beautiful feeling. 

I like to imagine that seamlessness is the equivalent of free-falling in a mad, mad world. Maybe that’s a nonsensical analogy, but that’s what I like to imagine. Seamlessness gives you a huge advantage in today’s world. Take it. Make the effort to keep yourself seamless. 

Backing up, yeah yeah. Who likes backups? You’ve got to do them, however. No pain, no gain. I’ll talk to you after some data-loss. Only bother hooking up with me if you’re well backed-up. I don’t have the energy to lend a shoulder that withstands your tears in the event you weren’t back-up. 

Where hashtags stop, that’s where your organisational skills should take over. Meaning, that one hashtag-search could give a thousand results. How do you still find what you’re looking for? Logic. You’ve used your logic while organising your work. Logically, your file should be somewhere, and that’s the somewhere you look. 90%+ you’ll find it there. Follow seamless logic. The first logical avenue that comes to mind…take it. Yeah, your seamlessness also stands on your own seamless logic. 

Staying with what counts is a small thing, but again, it’s a big thing. 

On the path, one strays. One is distracted. What do you do?

The mind is like a baby. 

Don’t deny it outright. 

Trick it. 

Let it stray for a bit. 

Then, when its defences are down, bring it back to the main path. 

Keep bringing it back, until it starts getting a rooting righ by returning to home-base every half an hour. That’s the sweet-spot.

Don’t lose yourself into lost causes. 

Achieve. Fine. Set goals. Sure. Get them done. Great. Move on. 

Moving on is one small step. However, it’s a big step. Not many have the strength or the mental capacity to move on. Make sure you do. 

How?

Open your eyes and see the world. 

If you feel that your one achievement is going to make it spin, fine, stay on there, good for you. If not, please move on to your next achievement. Keep doing this till you find that one big, big thing for yourself. By that time, you’ll have many small things going on auto-pilot anyways. 

Get a grip. Nip something small when it’s small. Get to the big. Go for it. 🙂

Who’s the Driver?

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Are you an artist?

If you are, you’ll already perhaps know who the driver is. 

Or, maybe, you’re in the process of finding out. 

Ultimately, whatever you’re doing can become an art. 

What drives you?

Are you understanding what I’m trying to ask?

What pushes you on, with the art? What makes you want to create… more? What makes you want your art to be more… bombastic? Powerful? Impactful? Meaningful? Lucrative perhaps? What?

Is it mere ambition?

Naehhhhh, mere ambition is not enough. 

There has to be some kind of… pain. 

You have to ache somewhere, to let it out elsewhere. 

Pain drives. 

It can drive you beyond… itself. 

That’s the thing with pain. 

Slowly, you get used to pain, quantum by quantum. Your system doesn’t feel that particular quantum anymore. It’s feeling the surplus, though. How’re you bearing the surplus? By hanging on to your art. Your art takes you away from the surplus pain that you would have felt. You channelize the force of surplus pain into your art. Your art shines. On the side, you don’t feel a lot of pain anymore. 

It’s really important to understand where there will be learning, and where there probably won’t be. 

I’m not saying non-learning areas are to be avoided. They’re comfortable areas. Nobody likes to avoid comfortable areas. Sure. Nor do I. I’m just saying that comfy areas won’t really be enhancing your learning process. Let’s just be clear about it. If you have any art to express, any kind of art, full expression probably won’t come through if you entrench yourself in a comfort-zone. 

Know what I mean?

Yeah?

Good. 

You don’t need to ask who the driver is. You’ve worked with the driver. 

Take that –>@&%# Mr. Peer Pressure

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Dear Mr. PP,

I don’t give in to you, never have, never will.

You’re not that important.

I don’t spend my time thinking about you.

I don’t respect any entity without a backbone, and you certainly don’t have one.

I’ve met you many times.

At first, I felt you, and was taken aback. You wanted me to do something I didn’t wish to do. You were strong.

I was stronger.

When you don’t know anything about the reputation of your opponent, frankly, you don’t give a d*m*. You fight. Till you fall or till the other fellow backs down.

I won my first head to head with you. Thank my stars.

After that I found out who you were. Yeah, who was it exactly that I didn’t succumb to?

After I’d grown up and all, and fully realized your devastation potential, I always leaned back on my first head to head. I mean, you were beatable. Period.

Yeah, I was lucky to have beaten you first up. It’s been a huge psychological advantage.

I’ve carried over this advantage into my market life.

Take a hike, Mr. PP.

[As far as market related activities go, I follow and advocate an unbiased, singular and customized path which doesn’t follow any crowd or any myths as such.

This path certainly does not let me invest under any kind of pressure.

Where there’s pressure, there are vested interests.

Please beware of investments which don’t suit your risk profile and are touted to quench vested interests].

I Don’t Want the Cancer

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Are you hurt?

A.

Do you want the cancer?

B.

I do get hurt. Yeah, things hurt me. I’m an emotionally penetrable human being.

Fine. That’s me.

What I definitely don’t want is option B.

Who wants option B?

Can’t think of anyone.

Who gets option B?

Many.

But who?

Those who can’t forget the hurt. Yeah, people who’re unable to move on.

To forget the hurt and move on, simultaneously saving ourselves from the cancer, we need to forgive.

Someone’s misbehaved. Hurt you. Are you going to ruin your future days? No.

Forgive. Forget. Move on.

Just remove the mould in which cancer can potentially set in.

What makes you think it’s different in the markets?

A loss is a hurt.

Need I say more?

You can do the math.

Dealing with “Situation Change”

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When does a situation change?

For example, one could move on to a new field in finance.

Or, a particular goal could have been achieved. Now, one’s approach is supposed to incorporate predefined changes for financial strategy post goal-accomplishment.

Family dynamics could be responsible for situation changes too.

Sure, health. Never underestimate the power of health. It can make you, and it can break you.

Emotion. Fell in love? Going crazy? Outbursts? Hot flashes? Preggers?

Logistics? Moving? New girl-friend in New York?

Night duty?

Looking after your parents in their old age?

Wife wants to party all the time? Lack of sleep?

Promotion? Demotion? Fired? Jobless? Suddenly self-employed?

Gone single? Date-circuit? Got married? Had a kid?

Situation changes come to all. Not once, but many times in life.

Why are we talking about them?

They have an effect on our financial strategy. That’s suffices.

I’ll tell you how I deal with situation change. You can then BODMAS your way to your own approach, using my approach as a broad outline.

My first approach is to put on auto-pilot as many of my financial activity as possible. Going paper-less helps. Trusted auto-bill-pay channels are assets. Fixed-income generators with auto annual-alerts give financial security with zero involvement. SIPs and dividend pay-ins are further examples of having gone auto.

Then I look at what is left. What has not yet gone on auto-pilot? Can it? Ever? If there’s a chance, I go for it. For example, I’m currently developing a software robot to automate my forex trading.

Lastly, I size up what is not pushable into auto-mode. Do I want to keep it? Can I do without it? Weigh, weigh, weigh, scrap A, scrap B, C is something I just have to do, manually, period, so keep C. Eventually, C, G, P, X and Z are five manual financial activities I keep, having scrapped the others (that refused to go on auto) out of my life, since I didn’t consider them burningly essential. C, G, P, X and Z are the ones that’ll weigh me down when my situation changes. I’ve kept them on doable levels. Some are on semi-auto but do require manual intervention. The others are fully manual.

My situation changes.

My auto-pilot activities continue their smooth run. They are my assets, my stars.

P, X and Z are on semi-auto. I barely gather the energy to look into their manual aspects, just about managing to keep them going with reasonable results.

C and G are bogging me down. Can’t keep up. No energy. No motivation. Situation change has drained me. Relentlessly, I try. C has turned a loser. Beginning to feel sick. I shut down C. Losses.

G is sucking me out. Emotionally. It’s a winner, though. Can’t keep up. Can I turn it into semi-auto? It required constant monitoring till it started winning big. I’ll still need to feed in my stop daily. That’s the manual part. I stop looking at G. Problem with equity orders is that your stop has little technical value overnight. A new day requires renewed stop-considerations. Ok, five minutes daily for G. Open terminal, set trigger-stop 9.99% below opening price, close terminal, don’t look left or right, done.

Phew.

Save health. Don’t fall sick.

If sick, rest.

Recuperate.

Regain health.

Get used to new situation.

Normalize.

Gear up for next situation change, whatever it is, whenever it comes.

Gear up now.

And…How Much Connection Time Exactly?

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Well, somebody’s got to ask these questions…

Don’t see very many around me doing so, so I just thought what the heck, let it be me…

This one’s not for all you test-tube jocks in the lab, you know…

Answer’s not about the math really; it’s more about feeling, again…

Nevertheless, this is a very important question.

Answer it wrongly for yourself, and market-play will wreck your life – all avenues of your life, that is. 

And, answer it correctly for yourself – lo and behold, you’ll actually start enjoying your market activity.

The human being ultimately excels in anything he or she enjoys doing. 

This means that if you answer this question correctly, your market activity will yield you profits. 

Told you. This question is important. Answer it.

Let me tell you how I’ve answered it for myself. 

Before that, please understand, that my answer doesn’t have to apply to you.

However, for those who don’t know where to begin while trying to answer the question, it’s a start.

I detest giving Mrs. Market too much power. This was my clue initially, and I built up on this fact. 

Initially, Mrs. M used to take over my life. She used to govern my emotions. It started to rub off on my family. I knew I had to draw a line. 

I started to trade lightly – amounts which my mind could ignore. Then, I did one more thing. 

I started to connect minimally. The was the key step, and it swung the emotional tussle in my favour. Mrs. M’s days of emotional control were over. 

What does minimal connection mean?

You only connect when you have to. Period. 

When you don’t have to connect, you just don’t.

I’ll tell you when all I connect to Mrs. M.

Order-feed – 0 to once a day. Very rarely twice for this in one day. 

Connection for me is having my trading terminal on, and seeing live price-feeds face to face. 

My market research is all offline, so that’s not a connection for me. 

Squaring-off a position – again 0 to once a day. Very rarely twice a day.

Watching the live price-feed – 0 to once a day, and only if if I’m unclear about the buying-pressure versus selling pressure ratio.

That’s it. 

When I don’t identify a potential trade in my offline research, I don’t connect at all. 

When do I connect next?

Whenever I’ve identified the next trade, or a squaring-off situation, all offline. 

There can be two or even three day stretches when I just don’t connect. 

I use options, because they allow me this kind of play for Indian equities. 

Why am I stressing upon the value of minimal connection? 

Connection means exposure to the “Line”. You’ve met the Line before. If not, look up the link on the left (“The Line”). 

Connection to the Line taxes your system, because market forces interfere with your bio-chem. 

Keeping the connection minimal keeps you healthy, and you can go out and do other stuff in life, which rounds you off and refreshes you for your next market-play. 

Keeping the connection minimal detaches you from Mrs. M. You are able to detach at will. This lets you focus on your family when your family members require your attention. 

Keeping the connection minimal makes the task of swallowing your small losses smoother. 

Lastly, keeping the connection minimal helps you let your profits run. 

So, how does one define minimal?

Do the math, and come out with rules for your minimal connectivity, like the ones I’ve come out with above, for myself. 

After that, while sticking to your rules for minimal connectivity, only connect to Mrs. M when you feel the burning desire to do so, like for example upon the identification of a sizzling hot trade, or for the order-feed of a trigger exit after a profit-run or something like that. 

Yeah, you minimise even after your rules.

That’s your minimal connection.  

So…What Does Trade Selection Hang Upon?

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Feeling.

Feeling first, feeling last. 

Math in the middle. 

That’s my recipe for trade selection. 

For me, trading is an art. 

I rely a lot on gut. 

Many people tell me that’s wrong. 

Everyone’s got a right to their opinion. 

What works for Jill might not work for Jack.

People tell me to get emotion out of the way.

Emotion can be an ally too. 

Just try and get the hang of your gut feel. 

Let the trade speak out to you. 

You’re looking at a chart, and the chart should shout out to you – “Trade me!!”

That’s what I call “Feeling First”.

There’s something about first impressions. 

I mean, whoever made that proverb about first impressions sure knew what he or she was talking about. 

So, after your first impression tells you that a chart is tradeable, you then need to see some kind of a mathematical fit going for you. 

You plan your trade.

You try and fit some mathematical model into the underlying’s previous behaviour, and plan the trade into the near future based upon the future-play which your model spits out. 

You calculate a stop according to your money-management rules. Just more math. 

Now comes “Feeling Last”. You look at your chart, which contains the entire map of your trade.

At this stage, your gut must speak to you. 

Yes or no. 

Nothing else. 

Are you pulling the trigger or are you not pulling the trigger.

If not, then no whys. It’s a no. Learn to take a no. Look for another trade setup, elsewhere. 

If yes, then again – no more whys. It’s a go-ahead. Have the guts to follow through. 

Keep it simple. 

The best ideas in the world are – simple. 

Speed of Rise vs Speed of Fall

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Specifically, equity markets have this one repetitive characteristic.

Their average speed of rising is lesser than their average speed of falling. Much lesser, I would say. 

Why?

Falling has to do with selling pressure being more than buying pressure. Selling pressure is connected to fear. Add caution to fear, and one has already sold out. 

Rise has to do with buying pressure being more than selling pressure. Buying pressure is connected to optimism. As markets keep nudging higher, slowly, optimism turns into euphoria, with a hint of caution. This caution slows the speed of rising, till greed takes over in the last stage of the rise, and one fails to see any caution anymore. At this time, the speed of rising is the highest, but is still lesser than the speed of falling at the nadir. Why?

What is the prevalent situation at a nadir? There’s blood. People are running for their lives. They take action before asking questions, and before looking here or there. 

Many times, you come across someone holding a stock which he or she has inherited from a parent. This someone comes to you with the ubiquitous query – what to do, sell it now? You look at the chart. Whoahhhh! You see the buy price, one and a half decades ago. You look at the current level. You calculate the profit. Along the time axis of the chart, you also see that the stock fell back to its buy price or below in a market crash, all within a month and a half. After this, the stock has recouped its losses of the crash, and is showing a healthy profit again, six years after the crash. During the crash, how long did it take the stock to fall below the buy price of one and a half decades ago? A month and a half. Holy moly!

That’s the equity playground for you. 

It’s directly connected to human emotions. 

Anything can happen on this playground, so keep your eyes and ears open, and…

… be prepared. 

How to Swallow Small Losses…

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… as if nothing has happened … is one of my biggest trading goals.

You see, our society teaches us not to lose. 

It doesn’t teach us that we can lose a bit 5 times, and after that we can win big, recovering all our losses and making money overall.

No. 

It teaches us to try and win all the time. 

That’s the exact reason 90%+ of all society members actually lose in the markets. They’ve not learnt how to lose small, move on, and take the next trade.

Mrs. Market won’t budge an inch for you. You’ll have to make the adjustment. 

So how does one take a loss in one’s stride?

Only one type of loss is immediately digestible – a small one. Therefore, define your risk in the market. Cut and scoot when required. Don’t get married to your trade.

Then, once the small loss has happened, and has been taken, it will nag you. 

It’ll be there, trying to bite your brain in the background. 

Focus on your next trade. 

Identification – Implementation – Entry – Management – Exit – Next Trade Identification – Implementation – Entry – Management – Exit – Next Trade Identification – Implementation – Entry – Management – Exit – … … [what’s the difference between implementation and entry? Well, you could be implementing the trade through a trigger, which is not equivalent to entry yet].

Don’t let the nagging bother you by keeping yourself busy with Identification – Implementation – Entry – Management – Exit – Next Trade Identification – Implementation – Entry – Management – Exit – Next Trade Identification – Implementation – Entry – Management – Exit – … … 

Ultimately the nagging will die out, as your mind starts to revolve around your current trades. 

If you give in to the nagging, it will grow, and will slow you down. You might snap at a family member. You might go into depression. You might freeze. DON’T. Don’t give in to the nagging. Don’t let it grow. Don’t let it slow you down. Maintain your family equilibrium at all costs. Move on. 

The nagging is worst if there’s been a close below your stop, and the market is to open the next day, or after the weekend. You have to deal with this one. If you’re not able to deal with this particular situation, you’ll either need to expose your mental stop prematurely and feed it in intraday (before there’s been a close under it), or you’ll need to follow the progress of your trade from half an hour before next market open onwards.

Yes, this last one’s tough, and you need to absolutely work your way around it. 

You can do it with a bit of practise. 

🙂

Emotion in the Marketplace – Enemy or Ally?

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Either or…

… choice is yours baby.

I’m not going to pretend we don’t have emotions.

We do.

We need to make these work for us.

Everyone feels exhilaration upon winning.

We’re down after a loss. 

Before you enter the marketplace again, dump all this somewhere …

… which, btw, is the most difficult thing in the world.

Didn’t anyone tell you that? What about your professor in financial college? Oh, I forgot, he or she never had his or her own money on the line, so he or she didn’t know this one. 

Arghhhhhhhhhhh@#$%^!

Don’t learn anything about finance from anyone who doesn’t have his or her own money on the line, and that too regularly on the line (((financial theory is worth mud unless it is realistic, applicable, and ultimately…profitable). 

So, what is this “line”? [More about “The Line” here – https://magicalbull.wordpress.com/2012/01/13/the-line/ ].

The line is an invisible connection between the vicissitudes of the marketplace and our emotional centres in the brain. 

The line gets activated once one is in a trade, or once one has initiated an investment. 

Once the line has been activated, we need to deal with its effects upon our systems. For optimal efficiency, we need to nullify the effects of the line on our systems. After that, we enter the marketplace again. 

So, acknowledge whatever emotion you are experiencing. Then deal with it. 

Dump the emotion of a loss in a safe place, to be nullified by a big future win. 

Dump the emotion of a big win in another safe place, lest it causes you to exit improperly and prematurely. 

How does one nullify this particular emotion? 

You see, your next activity in the marketplace can make you blow up, if there is any remnant hubris from a previous big win. 

You close your eyes, tell yourself that under no circumstances are you going to suffer the humiliation of blowing up, you centre, focus, you identify the next trade, and then you just take the next trade, as if nothing has happened. 

You have to work yourself around your own emotions. In the marketplace, emotions are your allies only if and when they are properly dealt with before the next market activity. 

Otherwise, they become your enemy. 

Loss can lead to depression and ultimate exit from the marketplace. One needs to understand and accept the concept of taking small losses. Why small? Why not small? You can define your loss. You can cut it when it’s small. Once one has understood and accepted the idea of taking small losses, these won’t bother you any more. That’s how you set yourself up to win big. Big wins, unless dealt with properly, lead to hubris, which can cause one to blow up permanently. We work ourselves around the negative potential of big wins through visualisation. 

Once you’ve sorted out the emotional angle…well, just take the next trade. Don’t wait. Just take it. 

Taking the Pan out of Panic

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Panic – Pan = ic = i see = I SEE.

Times are unprecedented.

We’re breaking new lows of evil everyday.

Ours looks to be a hopeless nation.
Is it over for us?

Shall we pack up our bags and migrate?

Just take a deep breath. Bear with me for a moment. Try and cast your panic aside. Try and think clearly.

I’ll share with you an observation. Take any Indian. Doesn’t have to be an outperformer. Take an under-averagely performing Indian, for all I care. Weed him or her out of our pathetic system, and place him or her in a nation with good governance.

Lo and behold, our candidate will start performing. Not only that, soon, he or she will be outperforming. After a decade or so, he or she will probably have mastered the system and punctuated it with innovative short-cuts.

Get my point?

We are a resilient race. We might look fickle, frail and harmless superficially, but we can struggle, bear, survive, and finally break out. Just give us good governance.
Don’t panic. We’re not going down that easily.

What’s happening currently is a purge. Yeah, it’s a catharsis with a big C. While it continues, asset classes across the board will probably get hammered.

What does that mean for you?

Only one thing.

Stay in cash. Accumulate it. Learn to sit on cash. Sit on it as long as the purge lasts. Let its value depreciate, doesn’t matter. Park it safely with a conservative private bank. Fixed deposits would be the instruments of choice. Yeah, you don’t want to leave unattached cash lying around. Potentially, unattached cash could be susceptible to online fraud. Attach your cash, safely, and keep it before your eyes. Put some watch-dogs in place, as in sms and email alerts. Password-change attempt? You are immediately alerted. New payee added? You are immediately alerted. Watch-dogs bark.

As per my instinct, though we probably won’t go bankrupt as a nation, we might just go a long way down before the purge is over. After the purge, there will be tremendous bargains on offer, across the board, in all asset-classes. Cash will be king. Save your cash and sit on it – for that day.

Meanwhile, your wealth-manager will try to push you into panic purchases with your cash. As in, buying gold at 32k, and the USD at 65. Don’t listen. These are crazy levels. One doesn’t invest at crazy levels. These are not even normal trading levels. Yes, they are institutional trading levels. One does not invest at institutional trading levels.

It’s time to use your common-sense and maintain a cool head.

You can only do that by refusing to panic.

The Art of Emotional Recycling

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Taken a hit?

If yes, at least admit it… to yourself and for your own sake.

People take hits at various times in their lives.
That’s the way of the market.

That’s how it teaches us to make money next time.

Think of your loss as tuition fees.

In my opinion, the best way forward is to take lots of small hits in the first seven years.

Then, in nine cases out of ten, you won’t fall for the big ones.

Big hits can decapacitate a player, especially when they come late, since there is no time for full recovery. Besides, emotional breakdown at a late stage is very difficult to get out of.

Make it a point never to take a big hit.

That’s only possible, if at any given time, the capital that is risked is within reasonable limits.

Let’s say you risk not more than 1% of your networth at any given time. What’s the maximum hit you will take at one time? Right, 1%.

That’s bearable.

That’s something you can shake yourself out of, and move on.

Moving on is a huge quality to possess in the markets.

Taken a hit?

Move on and make your next trade.

All this while, you are putting any remnant emotional hurt in cold storage.

Yeah, there’s a certain portion of emotional hurt that won’t be nullified by family time, vacations, hobbies etc. We’re talking about the hurt to your ego. Only a big win will wash that away. Only then is your emotional recycling complete.

Put yourself in line for that win.

After a hit, rest, recuperate, grab your wits, focus, and…

… put on the next trade.

A Chronology of Exuberance

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The biggest learning that the marketplace imparts is about human emotions.

Yeah, Mrs. Market brings you face to face with fear, greed, exuberance, courage, strength, arrogance … you name it.

You can actually see an emotion developing, real-time.

Today, I’d like to talk about the chronology of exuberance.

In the marketplace, I’ve come face to face with exuberance, and I’ve seen it developing from scratch.

When markets go up, eventually, fear turns into exuberance, which, in turn, drives the markets even higher.

What is the root of this emotion?

The ball game of exuberance starts to roll when analysts come out with a straight face and recommend stocks where the valuations have already crossed conservative long-term entry levels. As far as the analysts are concerned, they are just doing their job. They are paid to recommend stocks, round the year. When overall valuations are high, they still have to churn out stock recommendations. Thus, analysts start recommending stocks that are over-valued.

Now comes the warp.

At some stage, the non-discerning public starts to treat these recommendations as unfailing cash-generating  opportunities. Greed makes the public forget about safety. People want a piece of the pie. With such thoughts, the public jumps into the market, driving it higher.

For a while, things go good. People make money. Anil, who hadn’t even heard of stocks before, is suddenly raking in a quick 50Gs on a stock recommendation made by his tobacco-seller. Veena raked in a cool 1L by buying the hottest stock being discussed in her kitty party. Things are rolling. Nothing can go wrong, just yet.

Thousands of Anils and Veenas make another 5 to 6 rocking buys and sells each. With every subsequent buy, their capacity increases more and more. Finally, they make a big and exuberant leap of faith.

There is almost always a catalyst in the markets at such a time, when thousands make a big and exuberant leap of faith into the markets, like a really hot IPO or something (remember the Reliance Power IPO?).

Yeah, people go in big. The general consensus at such a time is that equity is an evergreen cash-cow. A long bull run can do this to one’s thinking. One’s thinking can become warped, and one ceases to see one’s limits. One starts to feel that the party will always go on.

Now comes the balloon-deflating pin-prick in the form of some bad news. It can be a scandal, or a series of bad results, or some political swing, or what have you. A deflating market can collapse very fast, so fast, that 99%+ players don’t have time to react. These players then rely on (hopeful) exuberance, which reassures them that nothing can go wrong, and that things will soon be back to normal, and that their earnings spree has just taken a breather. Everything deserves a breather, they argue, and stay invested, instead of cutting their currently small losses, which are soon going to become big losses, very, very big losses.

The markets don’t come back, for a long, long time.

Slowly, exuberance starts dying, and is replaced by fear.

Fear is at its height at the bottom of the markets, where maximum number of participants cash out, taking very large hits.

Exuberance is now officially dead, for a very long time, till, one day, there’s a brand new set of market participants who’ve never seen the whole cycle before, supported by existing participants who’ve not learnt their lessons from a past market-cycle. With this calibre of participation, markets become ripe for the re-entry of exuberance.

Wiser participants, however, are alert, and are able to recognize old wine packaged in a new bottle. They start reacting as per their designated strategies for exactly this kind of scenario. The best strategy is to trade the markets up, as far as they go. Then, you can always trade them down. Who’s stopping you? Shorting them without any signals of weakness is wrong, though. Just an opinion; you decide what’s wrong or right for you. The thing with exuberance is, that it can exercise itself for a while, a very long while – longer than you can stay solvent, if you have decided to short the markets in a big way without seeing signs of weakness.

At market peaks, i.e at over-exuberant levels, long-term portfolios can be reviewed, and junk can be discarded. What is junk? That, which at prevailing market price is totally, totally overvalued – that is junk.

Formulate your own strategy to deal with exuberance.

First learn to recognize it.

Then learn to deal with it.

For success as a trader, and also as an investor, you will not be able to circumvent dealing with exuberance.

Best of luck!

How Does One Position-Size?

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What is the singular most lucrative aspect of trading?

Any ideas?

Want a hint?

Ok, here’s the hint. It is also the safest aspect of trading.

Give up?

Here’s the answer. It’s called position-sizing. (The pioneer of position-sizing is Dr. Van K. Tharp, @ www.iitm.com, and I have learnt this concept through him).

Surprised? I would be surprised if you weren’t surprised.

Yeah, trade selection is important too, but other things are more important while trading.

For example, trade management is more important than trade selection. So is exit. Entry might be paramount to an investor, but to the trader, entry is run of the mill. It happens day in, day out. The trader … just enters a selected trade. There’s no deep thinking involved. The trader knows this. Crux issues are to follow. The trader is saving his or her energies for the crux issues.

So far, we’ve spoken about the chronology of a trade, i.e. entry – management – exit.

Before entry, you decide how much you want to trade with, and how much you want to risk. That’s the size of your position, or your position-size. Remember, for the concept of position-sizing to make any sense, your stop-loss percentage must remain constant from trade to trade. Only your traded value goes up or down.

What does the level of your traded value depend upon?

It depends upon HOW WELL YOU ARE DOING.

If you’re on a roll, your traded value for the next trade goes up. The increment is proportional to the profits you are sitting on. Since the stop is a constant percentage, the amount risked is also higher. Return is proportional to the amount at risk, and the long-term net return of such a trade will also be higher. All this means, that the more you make, the more you set yourself up to make even more…!

Take a coin. Flip it millions of times. There will be a stretch, where you’ll flip tails 5 times in a row, or six times in a row, or maybe even ten times in a row. The 50:50 trade called “coin flip” can well result in a series of back to back losses. You are an experienced trader. Your trade selection ratio could be 60 winning trades to 40 losing trades, or perhaps a little better, let’s say 65:35. Even a trade selection ratio of 65:35 will result in back to back losses. As a trader, you need to take large drawdowns in your stride, as long as you are confident, that in the long run,  your system is working. What’s working in your favour during the large drawdown?

Your position-size is.

You see, as trade after trade goes against you, and your losses pile up, your position-size KEEPS GOING DOWN. Your stop percentage remains constant. This means, that the more you lose, the more you set yourself up to lose lesser and lesser, trade after trade. Yeah, position-sizing gives you the safety of losing less. Nevertheless, because of this safety assurance from your position-sizing strategy, you keep yourself in the market by just taking the next trade without too much deep thinking (and with no melancholy whatsoever), because your next trade could be the one decent trade that you are looking for. Yeah, your very next trade could cover all losses and then some. TAKE IT.

Now, two things can happen.

Firstly, if you keep losing, and hit your loss cut-off level for the month, well, then, you just stop trading for the rest of your month. You then spend the rest of the month reviewing your losses and your system. You tweak at whatever needs tweaking, and come back fresh and rested the following month. Position-sizing kept you in the market, ready to take the next opportunity to earn big. The auto-cut takes you out of the market for a while. That’s why, in my opinion, while position-size is still activated, it provides more safety, because it keeps you in the market to recover everything and then some, starting with your VERY NEXT trade. Having said that, auto-cut is auto-cut. It overrides position-sizing.

The second thing that can happen is that your losing streak ends before your month’s cut-off is reached. Yayyy, position-sizing is still activated! You’ve lost lesser and lesser on each losing trade as long as you were in the losing streak, and now that you are winning again, each win sets you up to win more in the trade that follows.

After many, many trades, just cast a glance at your trading corpus. It will boggle your mind!

Your position-sizing strategy has kept raising your corpus, because your system is 60:40+, and you win more than you lose. Ultimately, your corpus has become substantial. Its size exceeds your expectations BY FAR.

All thanks to position-sizing.

And How Are You This 20k?

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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.

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! 🙂

The Road to Greatness

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” time goes by

so naturally

while you receive

infinity “

– (Guru Josh Project).

Are you systematic? Punctual? Disciplined? Persevering? Large-hearted? Do you think out of the box?

All of the above?

Relax. You are already on the road to greatness.

So what if the world hasn’t recognized you…yet?

Why do you want the world to recognize you?

Why does the world’s opinion of you matter to you?

Why do you need a stamp of approval to feel you’re on the right path?

Frankly, if you’re treading a new path, where no person has gone before, well, then, nobody’s qualified enough to give you that stamp of approval.

Right, the road to greatness is paved with identity crises.

Greatness is achieved, if you do something differently, and do it well. With the passage of time coupled with your perseverance, you discover and outline a new dimension in your field. You’ve struggled along the path, because it’s a new path, with no roadmaps. People have made fun of you and have ridiculed you, because you are different, and refuse to conform to a norm set by “average” society. Exactly that’s the struggle.

Averageness is comfortable. For greatness, one needs to pull the extra distance.

Alone.

Because one is not average, one needs to discover who one is. This happens along the path.

The path to greatness is not comfortable.

Nevertheless, it is enjoyable.

Yes, after a while, struggle starts to get enjoyable, once you become used to it. You start enjoying being pushed to your limits. The biochemistry of your body’s peak-performance state can actually give you a huge kick, as in a “high”. Try and stay there, as long as you can. This “high” is only happening to you. Stay there, as “(the) time goes by, so naturally, while you receive … … infinity.“ – (Guru Josh Project).