How Does One Position-Size?

Posted on January 16, 2013 by Uday Nath

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.

Due Diligence Snapshot – IL&FS Investment Managers Ltd. (IIML) – Jan 14 2013

Posted on January 14, 2013 by Uday Nath

Price – Rs. 23.85 per share ; Market Cap – 499 Cr (small-cap, fell from being a mid-cap); Equity – 41.76 Cr; Face Value – Rs. 2.00; Pledging – Nil; Promoters – IL&FS; Key Persons – Dr. Archana Hingorani (CEO), Mr. Shahzad Dalal (vice-chairman) & Mr. Mark Silgardo (chief managing partner) – all three have vast experience in Finance; Field – Private Equity Fund managers in India (oldest), many joint venture partnerships; Average Volume – around 1 L+ per day on NSE.

Earnings Per Share (on a trailing 12 month basis) – 3.55

Price to Earnings Ratio (thus, also trailing) – 6.7 (no point comparing this to an industry average, since IIML has a unique business model)

Debt : Equity Ratio – 0.35 (five-year average is 0.1); Current Ratio – 1.05

Dividend Yield – 4.7% (!)

Price to Book Value Ratio – 2.1; Price to Cashflow – 5.1; Price to Sales – 2.2

Profit After Tax Margin – 32.85% (!); Return on Networth – 35.24% (!)

Share-holding Pattern of IL&FS Investment Managers – Promoters (50.3%), Public (39.2%), Institutions (4.9%), Non-Institutional Corporate Bodies (5.5%). [The exact shareholding pattern of IL&FS itself is as follows – LIC 25.94%, ORIX Corporation Japan 23.59%, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority 11.35%, HDFC 10.74%, CBI 8.53%, SBI 7.14%, IL&FS Employees Welfare Trust 10.92%, Others 1.79%].

Technicals – IIML peaked in Jan ’08 at about Rs. 59.50 (adjusted for split), bottomed in October of the same year at Rs. 13.60, then peaked twice, at Rs. 56.44 (Sep ’09) and Rs. 54.50 (Aug ’10) respectively, in quick succession, with a relatively small drop in between these two interim high pivots. By December ’11, the scrip had fallen to a low pivot of Rs. 23.30 upon the general opinion that the company wasn’t coming out with new product-offerings anytime soon. A counter rally then drove the scrip to Rs. 32, which is also its 52-week high. During the end of December ’12, the scrip made it’s 52-week low of Rs. 23. People seem to have woken up to the fact that a 52-week low has been made, and the scrip has risen about 4 odd percentage points since then, upon heavier volume.

Comments – Company’s product profile and portfolio is impressive. No new capital is required for business expansion. Income is made from fund management fees and profit-sharing above designated profit cut-offs. Lots of redemptions are due in ’15, and the company needs to get new funds in under management by then. If those redemptions are done under profits, it will increase company profits too. Parag Parikh discusses IIML as a “heads I win (possibly a lot), tails I lose (but not much)” kind of investment opportunity. His investment call came during the mayhem of ’09. The scrip is 42%+ above his recommended price currently. What a fantastic call given by Mr. Parikh. Well done, Sir! Professor Sanjay Bakshi feels that IIML has a unique business model, where business can keep on expanding with hardly any input required. He feels, “that at a price, the stock of this company would be akin to acquiring a free lottery ticket”. I opine that the price referred to is the current market price. Before and after Mr. Parikh’s call, the company has continued to deliver spectacular returns. The company’s management is savvy and experienced. They made profitable exit calls in ’07, and fresh investments were made in ’08 and ’09, during big sell-offs. Thus, the management got the timing right. That’s big. I have no doubt that they’ll get new funds in under management after ’15, alone on the basis of their track record. Yeah, there’s still deep value at current market price. Not as deep as during ’08, or ’09, but deep enough.

Buy? – Fundamentals are too good to be ignored. They speak for themselves, and I’m not going to use any more time commenting on the fundamentals. Technicals show that volumes are up over the last 3 weeks. People seem to be lapping the scrip up at this 52-week low, and the buying pressure has made it rise around 4% over the last 3 weeks. If one has decided to buy, one could buy now, preferably under Rs. 24. The scrip seems to be coming out of the lower part of the base built recently. There is support around Rs. 23 levels, so downside could be limited under normal market conditions.

Disclaimer and Disclosure – Opinions given here are mine only, unless otherwise explicitly stated . You are free to build your own view on the stock. I hold a miniscule stake in IIML. Data / material used has been compiled from motilaloswal.com, moneycontrol.com, equitymaster.com, valuepickr.com, safalniveshak.com and from the company websites of IIML & IL&FS. Technicals have been gauged using Advanced GET 9.1 EoD Dashboard Edition. I bear no responsibility for any resulting loss, should you choose to invest in IIML.

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

Posted on January 12, 2013 by Uday Nath

Growth is not uniform – it is hap-hazard.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PHEW!

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

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

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

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

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

Be safe! Money will follow! 🙂

So, … … , When’s Judgement Day?

Posted on January 5, 2013 by Uday Nath

The “fiscal cliff” thingie has come and gone…

Gone?

People, nothing’s gone.

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

What is required for healing?

Remedial medicine, and time.

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

Now, what’s left is time.

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

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

Hey, what exactly are we talking about?

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

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

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

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

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

Under the circumstances, there can’t.

So, what’re we building up to?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bring it on.

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

Posted on December 29, 2012 by Uday Nath

Yeah, we’re digging deeper.

How does an investor arrive at an investment decision?

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

So, what’s the exact story here?

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

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

What are fundamentals?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How does price behave with regard to time?

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

What patterns are emerging?

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

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

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

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

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

Simple. Scans.

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

Do you now see how different both games are?

I’m glad you do!

🙂

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

Posted on December 28, 2012 by Uday Nath

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Intermingling and confusion will burn you.

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

Choice is yours.

Cheers. 🙂

Anatomy of a Multibagger

Posted on December 14, 2012 by Uday Nath

Wouldn’t we all like to rake it in?

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

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

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

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

What are we looking for?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

🙂

Why Emergency Fund?

Posted on December 5, 2012 by Uday Nath

Why do you wear a seat-belt while driving?

Why do you purchase medical insurance?

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

Why do you keep your spouse happy?

So you can live in peace, right?

Peace of mind – so important…

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

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

That’s why emergency fund!

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

That day, your emergency fund will feed your family.

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

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

It needs to be sufficiently large.

Its contents should be safely parked.

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

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

Why am I being so extreme about all this?

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

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

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

Unless there’s an emergency fund.

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

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

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

A Critical Look at Debt on the Balance-Sheet

Posted on December 4, 2012 by Uday Nath

Borrowed money needs to be paid back.

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

From current reserves and /or earnings, of course.

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

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

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

By now, I’m really throwing up.

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

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

I detest manipulation. Prefer it straight-forward.

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

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

Fine. Borrow.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here’s wishing you wary and successful investing!

Cheers! 🙂

The Ideal Entry

Posted on December 3, 2012 by Uday Nath

What kind of destiny do you prefer?

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

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

What’s that? The latter?

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

Why didn’t you choose the former path?

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

Why?

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

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

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

Aha.

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

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

Ahaaaa!

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

Ha!!

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

The second path, obviously.

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

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

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

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

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

Due Diligence Snapshot + Technical Cross-Section — Ador Fontech Limited — Nov 27 2012

Image

Price – Rs. 81.30 per share

Earnings Per Share projected on the basis of quarter ended Sep 30 2012 – Rs. 12.62

Price to Earnings Ratio (thus, also projected) – 6.44

Price to Book Value Ratio – the stock is selling at approximately 2 x book value currently

Debt : Equity Ratio – Nil

Current Ratio – 2.73

Profit After Tax Margin – 12.51%

Return on Networth – 32.54 %

Pledged Shares %age – Nil

Face Value – Rs. 2.00

Dividend Payout – 50% -150% of face-value.

Average Daily Volumes – around 5 – 6 k / day on BSE.

Product – Reclamation of alloys, fusion surfacing (preventive welding), spraying and environmental solutions.

Promoters – JB Advani & Company Pvt Ltd (of Advani-Oerlikon fame) + a group of other Sindhi business-people.

Share-holding Pattern – Promoters (35.4%), Public (58.9%), Institutions (2.0%), NICBs (3.7%).

Technicals (see chart below) – This is a very low volume scrip, so there could be slippage. The scrip has corrected from its June 2011 peak of Rs. 150.90 to a pivot of Rs. 73.25 within about one year. This low pivot lies bang in between the 50% and the 61.8% Fibonacci levels of correction on the weekly chart. Currently, the scrip is quoting at Rs. 81.30, just below the Fib. 50% level. Volumes are average, with one high volume peak every 7 odd trading days. The scrip is trading in a broad band between Rs. 73.25 and Rs. 93.90. Perhaps it is trying to establish a base.

Comments – Fundamentals are good, and the company’s corporate governance is considered clean. Market for the company’s niche is considered small, and people view that as a long-term growth concern. Technically, correction has taken place, and thus value shines out fundamentally. Debt is nil. Dividend is excellent. Projected PE is low, though P/BV is a bit high. Cushion is there, and profitability and returns are exemplary. Future investment would be required to keep niche-segment status alive.

Buy? – I like the theme – reclamation and preventive welding. Contrary to what others say, I feel the market is going to grow phenomenally, as earth and rare-earth metals become difficult to source, and need to be reclaimed. Valuations are excellent, governance is great, payouts are great too, and a technical buying level has presented itself. Yes, it’s a long-term buy right now. Remember, this is not a trade we are speaking about, so we are not going to talk in terms of a stop-loss. This is a long-term investment, and we’ve been speaking in terms of margin of safety, which I’m sure you’ve noticed. Also, while buying, one needs to show caution regarding slippage, which is invariably going to occur owing to the low-volume nature of the scrip.

Disclaimer and Disclosure – Opinions given here are mine only. You are free to build your own view on the stock. I have bought a miniscule stake in Ador Fontech today. Data given here has been compiled from motilaloswal.com, moneycontrol.com and equitymaster.com. Technicals have been gauged and shown using Metastock Professional version 9.1 by Equis International.

Due Diligence Snapshot – Mindtree Limited – Nov. 24 2012

Posted on November 24, 2012 by Uday Nath

Price – Rs. 665.25 per share

Earnings Per Share (projected on the basis of quarter ended Sep 30 ’12) – Rs. 70.61

Price to Earnings Ratio (thus, also projected) – 9.42

Price to Book Value – 2.82 (it’s ok for small to mid-sized IT companies to have a high price to book ratio, because book value doesn’t reflect human capital, and small to mid-sized IT companies are more about human capital than about real-estate, hardware etc. Thus, since the real book value is not going to be available, the given price to book ratio could be treated as an artefact, unless it is unreasonably high, which is not the case here).

Debt : Equity Ratio – 0.03

Current Ratio – 2.10

Profit After Tax Margin – 12.11%

Return on Networth – > 25 %

Pledged Shares %age – Nil

Face Value – Rs. 10.00

Dividend Payout – 25% – 30% of face-value.

Average Daily Volumes – around 1 Lakh per day on NSE.

Product – Product Engineering Services, IT Services, worked on Bluetooth technology, also worked on UID (Aadhaar) project.

Promoters – Mr. Bagchi (set up Six-Sigma services at Wipro) and Mr. Soota (has now retired from Mindtree, ex-Wipro, amongst others, responsible for Wipro’s phenomenal growth). Mr. Natarajan is co-founder and current CEO, and is also ex-Wipro.

Share-holding Pattern – Foreign Promoters (3.5%), Indian Promoters (15.9%), Institutions (33.0%), Non-Institutional Corporate Bodies (30.2%), Public (15.7%).

Technicals – IPO days in March 2007 were big, with the scrip peaking at Rs. 1023.30 very early into its launch. By March ’09, though, Mindtree had bottomed out at Rs. 187.05. It then made a high pivot of Rs. 747.00 in Jan ’10, fell to Rs. 321.00 by August 2011, and is currently on the rise, forming a cup and handle pattern on the weekly chart, with the handle having broken out in Sep ’12 to 770.00 on average volume. This was a false breakout, and the scrip came down, to then move in a band between Rs. 633.80 and Rs. 699.90. Currently, Mindtree is quoting at Rs. 665.25, and Friday (Nov. 23rd, 2012) saw it rise by approximately 1 % on volume that was three times its 50-day moving average and many more times its 10-day moving average.

Comments – I like all the fundamentals. Couldn’t find any scams or frauds related to the company, looked only online though. Debt-equity ratio almost nil, great! Ex-Wipro people are the promoters. CEO is ex-Wipro. Friday’s higher volume has gotten me on alert. If all-round conditions in the markets remain stable, the scrip could break-out to beyond Rs. 770 soon. Glassdoor has “OK’d” work culture at Mindtree, with the same rating that Infosys has received. Salaries are considered on the lower side, though, at Mindtree. Also, some employees feel that company is stagnating. Reasons why Mr. Ashok Soota left the company are unclear to me. On the other hand, corporate governance still seems to be decent at Mindtree.

Buy? – Hmmmm, I like almost everything, except the salary and the stagnation bit. Mr. Soota’s presence would have been a bonus. I can take a “stagnating” company that generates good numbers. The ratios are all good, and profitability is decent. There’s almost no debt on the balance-sheet. No shares have been pledged. Dividend is decent. Excellent return on networth. Company does R&D too. Question is, will the scrip correct another 30 to 40 bucks to the lower end of it’s current band, so that one can pick it up 5 odd % cheaper? Anybody’s guess. One could actually go and pick it up now. Earnings are good, and so is the projected PE, well below the industry average, actually.

Disclaimer and Disclosure – Opinions given here are mine only. You are free to build your own view on the stock. Currently, I don’t hold a position in Mindtree Limited, but am considering long-term entry on the basis of what I have found and liked. Data given here has been compiled from motilaloswal.com, moneycontrol.com and equitymaster.com, and technicals have been gauged using Advanced GET 9.1 EoD Dashboard Edition.

A Tool By The Name of “Barrier”

Posted on November 2, 2012 by Uday Nath

Come into some money?

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

Have the decency to at least save something.

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

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

Have some discipline in life, pal.

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

Barrier? Huh? What kind of barrier?

And why?

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

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

Why am I so against spending, you ask?

Well, I’m not.

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

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

Then, your basic corpus needs a growth strategy.

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

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

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

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

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

A stingy spouse can be a barrier.

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

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

Posted on August 30, 2012 by Uday Nath

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.

What Exactly is a Decent Trade?

Posted on July 31, 2012 by Uday Nath

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.

Mentally Speaking

Posted on July 24, 2012 by Uday Nath

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.

Coin-Flipping in the Marketplace

Posted on April 17, 2012 by Uday Nath

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.

This is Getting Murky

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Uday Nath

Have you actually seen China’s account books?

Has anyone, for that matter?

How does the US pay for its imports from China?

With treasury-note IOUs?

Are Chinese GDP numbers doctored?

If yes, for how many years have the Chinese cooked their books?

How many more bailouts is Greece going to require?

Isn’t the amount of financial maneuvering increasing from bailout to bailout?

It feels as if real debt is being made to “go away” synthetically.

Things are getting murky in the financial world.

When that happens, the stage is set for tricky synthetic products to be offered.

It’s time to go on high alert.

You see, for the longest time, banks in the “developed” world have not been clocking actual business growth. However, their balance sheets are growing on the basis of trading profits. In almost all cases, the “float” is not increasing significantly from clients’ savings, or from new business. Instead it is increasing from good trading.

However, trading can go wrong for a bank. All that is required is one rogue trader. Blow-ups keep happening. For banks, good trading is at best a bonus. It is not something solid and everlasting to fall back on for eternity.

Well, that’s what most or all “developed” international banks are doing. They are relying on their international trading operations to see them through these times. (((Compare this to an emerging market like India, where an HDFC Bank generates 30%+ QoQ growth, for the last 8 quarters and counting, on the basis of actual business profits from new accounts, savings and fresh real money that increases the float))).

While the scenario lasts, what kind of synthetic products can one expect from the plastic composers of financial products?

And we are going to get something plasticky soon, since “developed” international banks have gotten into the groove of trading, and since trading is their ultimate bread and butter now.

So what’s it gonna be?

The conceivers of plastic in the ’80s still had a conscience. For example, Michael Milken’s “Junk Bonds” still had actual underlying companies to the investment. That the companies were ailing, and could probably go bust, was a different issue. In lieu of that, junk bonds were giving returns that beat the cr#p out of inflation twice over, and then some. Though investors knew that these underlying companies were ailing, greed closed their eyes, as crowds lapped up the product. We know how the story ended.

In the ’90s, anything with the flavour of IT ran like an Usain Bolt. The conceivers of plastic products here were tech enterpreneurs, coupled with bankers that pushed through their IPOs. One had a lot of shady dotcoms with zero or minus balance-sheets clocking huge IPOs, apart from being driven up to dizzy heights by greedy public, from where their fall began.

By the ’00s, whatever 2 pennies of conscience that remained were now out the window. Products like CDOs did the rounds. These had no actual underlying entity, like a bond or a debenture. They were totally synthetic, mathematical products, assembled by bundling together toxic debt. The investment bankers that conceived these products knew that the debt was toxic, and were cleverly holding the other end of the line, i.e. they sold these products to their clients as AAA, and then shorted these very products, knowing that they were bound to go down in value because of their toxic contents.

We are well into the ’10s.

What’s it gonna be?

I think it’s probably going to be a “Structure”.

There is going to be an underlying. The world is wary about “no underlyings”.

The catch is going to come from the quality of the underlying, as in when it’s ailing badly and the world thinks otherwise (in the ’80s, the junk value of the underlying was no secret. Here, it probably will be).

Where is the product going to be unleashed?

Emerging markets. That’s where money has moved to. Also, investors there are not as savvy, since they’ve not been properly hit.

Why is the time ripe?

Interest rates are kinda peaking. Investors have gotten used to sitting back and raking in 10%+ returns, doing nothing. When interest rates start to move down, that would be the stage for the unleashing of the product in question.

Lazy, spoilt investors would probably lap up such products offering something like 13%+ returns, with “certified” AAA underlying entities to the investment.

So watch out. Don’t be lazy or greedy. As and when interest rates start to move down, move your money into appropriate products that are not shady and that have safe underlyings. From knowledge, not from hearsay.

Be very selective about who you let in to give investment advice. Even someone you trust could be pushed by his or her employer institution to aggressively sell you something synthetic with a shady underlying.

Be very, very careful. Do your due diligence.

Don’t get into the wrong product, specifically one with a lock-in.

Dealing With a Bully

Posted on February 24, 2012 by Uday Nath

I know a way of dealing with a bully – sock the bully a real tight one in the solar plexus. Inside, there’s only air, and that one tight punch is going to burst the balloon and reduce the bully to his real self, i.e. a meek failure.

What if this bully is the government itself?

Let’s just caste a very quick glance at the track-records of the governments of independent India till date.

Education has been a total failure. Whatever meaningful education is being imparted in India is being done so mostly by private institutions, at least till high school level, if not even after that.

Healthcare – another very big failure. The government’s hospitals, just like its schools, are a disgrace.

Left to the government, infrastructure would have been a massive failure too, which it was, till the private sector stepped in.

Let’s not even start speaking about the governmental airline carrier, Air India. Words fail me here.

You want to avoid the police lest they stick you one at a time when you have other problems.

You want to settle any disputes out of court, because the semi-dysfunctional judicial system will, in all probability, stretch the issue over decades, with much ensuing harassment.

I mean, I could go on and on. Point of the matter is, governance in independent India has been an overall and disastrous failure.

We are not a democracy – we are a joke.

Over the last few years, these and more blunders are coming to light. They are being flashed over the papers and on television, nationally and internationally. People are getting to see and know the quality of people that has been governing the country. Citizens are disgusted.

Instead of charting a course of rectification, what does the bully do?

It tries to hide its own failures by passing on the responsibility to private institutions. Governments and governments have robbed common citizens of their basic rights to education, healthcare etc. over decades. Now, when the deprivation has become too glaring, they want private institutions to accomodate the deprived, and that too quasi-free of cost. I’m talking about the current developments in the education sector. Rest assured, other sectors will be affected too, if one goes by the governmental mind-set.

The government is bullying private schools into reserving 25% (number could vary for different states) of their capacities for kids from backward classes. The government says it’s going to pay for this partly, but knowing the value of its words, this money is never going to come. Basically, it wants want private schools to lift this burden and pay for it too. Unbelievable.

The government’s massive failure in the field of education has caused downtrodden classes to finally start asking, “What have you done for us?” and “Where is our education?” and “Why is the quality of the schools built for us by you so pathetic?” and “Where does the education cess go, which you charge along with every monetary transaction in the country?” and again, “Where is our education?”

Now the government gets really cute, and says, “You see those private educational institutions over there, look at them, they are doing so well, they will make your kids rise, we will steam-roll them into admitting your kids, there is your education!”

Laws in India are basically stacked up against private institutions and in favour of the government. One false move here or there, and you could be breaking a law as a private player. Hence, as a private player, you are always in the government’s grip. To function smoothly and not show a loss, you could end up slightly bending a rule or two. The government agrees to look the other way, and lets you function, but then you have to mutually agree to get bullied by it every now and then. Sometimes, the bullying takes on ridiculous levels, like it has for the education sector. My remedy to deal with a bully (given at the top) like the government is not going to work, because I just wouldn’t know how to implement it. I wouldn’t even know what to implement.

And that’s the story, people. India Inc. is heavily burdened by its failure watchdogs. You need to incorporate this fact into any investment strategy that concerns India Inc. Right within its purchase price, any investment in India needs to discount for the governmental failure that will inevitably be patched onto the private institution that you are planning on buying into.

What does that mean for governmental institutions as investments? Frankly, looking at the mess, one can’t even think of buying into these, unless one wants to own companies with Ph.D.s in inefficiency and mismanagement.

Betting Your Monsters and Checking Ace-High

Posted on February 22, 2012 by Uday Nath

Blah, blah, blah, I know, poker terminology yet again…

Can’t help it, people, it’s just so valid…

When you’re holding a monster hand, you bet out on the next street to build up the pot. Similarly, when a trade starts to run, you’re looking to load up some more on the scrip at the appropriate point.

When you’re holding air, or a mere bluff-catching hand like ace-high, you check it down through the river. Likewise, if the scrip you’ve just bought into stagnates, or moves a bit down, you do not double up on your trade. Instead, you just wait for your stop to be hit, or if before that your time-stop has run out, you square-off the trade.

An aggressive-passive style?

Who cares?

Recipe for winning in the long run?

Yes.

Right, then we’re taking it.

Two out of ten trades may start to run big. It’s taken you time, money and effort to identify those two. You are in the trade. You can feel the adrenaline pumping. Now’s not the time to sit passively. Spade-work’s all done. Right, put some more money on the winning scrip. Point is, when?

Additional points of entry are tricky.

I prefer a little margin of safety here. I like to double up at a point where there’s been some correction, and possibly when a Fibonacci level has been hit. After that, I want to see the scrip going up back through the level, and I’d like to see volume go up simultaneously. That’s my point of second entry.

You can be more aggressive, no one’s stopping you.

You can even choose to enter the second time above some kind of a previous high or above the breaking of a resistance with volume.

Risky?

Yes.

You do, however, stand a good chance of catching a big move in a very short time.

You see, at this particular point, where you’re choosing to enter, the scrip is pretty hot. People are plunging in. There is no resistance from above. Upward movement is smooth.

Downside is, that those who’ve been sitting on notional profits might start to book these anytime. When that happens, the scrip might plunge well below your high entry and hit your stop. That’s a risk you have to take, since you have decided to enter above a high.

No risk, no gain.

At my more conservative second entry point, the scrip is not as hot. It is meeting with overhead resistance from recent entrants who entered high to then find the scrip correcting, and who are now happy to exit at their entry points as the scrip retraces its upward move. So, I will have to wait longer for a possible second run of the scrip to develop, and this might or might not develop. That’s a chance I have to take. That’s the price of being conservative during second entry. I’m comfortable.

Staying in your comfort-zone at all times adds a lot of value to the rest of your life, even after you shut down your computer. One does carry over one’s emotions, and it’s best if these are under control when you reach home. By trading in your comfort-zone at all times, you make sure that you come home in an emotionally balanced state.

If you can take the second entry above a high or above a resistance while still remaining in your comfort-zone, by all means, please do so. It’s an exciting play, capable of yielding large and quick rewards. I’ve tried it at times, but cannot get a grip on the excitement levels. Thus, I normally choose the more conservative play mentioned above. It’s just a personal choice.

Similarly, I’m very comfortable checking my ace-high trades down through the river. If I’m in a trade and it’s not running, I don’t jump about trying to pull stuff out of a hat in an effort to make the trade run.

If it’s not running, it’s not running. Feed in a trigger stop and shut the computer.

Once you are alerted that the stop’s been hit, look for a new trade.

Keep it simple. That’s another recipe for winning.

magic bull

finance strategy meta-game psychology application

Category Archives: Entry

How Does One Position-Size?

So, … … , When’s Judgement Day?

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

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

Anatomy of a Multibagger

Why Emergency Fund?

A Critical Look at Debt on the Balance-Sheet

The Ideal Entry

Due Diligence Snapshot + Technical Cross-Section — Ador Fontech Limited — Nov 27 2012

Image

Due Diligence Snapshot – Mindtree Limited – Nov. 24 2012

A Tool By The Name of “Barrier”

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

What Exactly is a Decent Trade?

Mentally Speaking

Coin-Flipping in the Marketplace

This is Getting Murky

Dealing With a Bully

Betting Your Monsters and Checking Ace-High

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