Category Archives: Focus

Is Commodity Equity Equal to Commodity?

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Rohit likes Aarti, but has no access to her.

Priya wants to be friends with Rohit. Priya looks a bit like Aarti and behaves like her too, at times.

Rohit and Priya become friends.

Is Priya = Aarti?

Can this question be answered with a resounding yes or no?

Of course Priya is not equal to Aarti. Priya is Priya and Aarti is Aarti. Ask Rohit about it during one of Priya’s temper tantrums.

And, at other times, Priya is just like Aarti. At still other times, Priya is as calm as the Pacific Ocean. Even calmer than Aarti. At those times, Rohit feels he is even better off with Priya than he would have been with Aarti.

After this short diversion into human relationships, let’s study the correlation between commodities and commodity equity.

The average working individual does not have access to commodities as an asset class. He or she is not a farmer, and doesn’t have the time or the nerve to play futures and options, in an effort to put some money in commodities.

Is there any avenue such a person can access, to invest a piece of his or her pie in commodities.

It’s time to study the world of commodity equity.

For example, we are talking about agriculture stocks, precious and non-precious metal mining stocks, oil and natural gas stocks etc. etc.

Do such stocks always behave as their underlying commodity?

Can one put one’s money in commodity equity, and then feel as if one has put the money in commodities?

These questions can be answered in terms of correlation.

There are times when Gold moves x%, and Gold equity also moves x%, in the same direction. At such times, the correlation between Gold and Gold equity is 1:1.

At other times, the levels of movement can be mismatched. For example, the correlation can be 0.8:1, or 1.2:1. Sometimes, there is even a negative correlation, when Gold moves in one direction, and Gold equity in the other. At still other times, one moves, and the other doesn’t move at all, i.e. there is no correlation.

You see, Gold equity first falls under the asset class of equity. It is linked to the mass psychology of equity. When this mass psychology coincides with the mass psychology towards commodities, here specifically Gold, there is correlation. When there is no overlap between these psychologies, there is no correlation. When the public just dumps equity in general and embraces commodities, or vice-versa, there is negative correlation. These relationships can be used for all commodities versus their corresponding commodity equity.

What does this mean for us?

Over the long-term, fundamentals have a chance to shine through, and if there is steady and rising demand for a commodity, this will reflect in the corresponding commodity equity. Over the long term, the discussed correlation is good, since truth shines forth with time. That’s good news for long-term investors.

Over the medium-term, you’ll see correlation at times. Then you’ll see no correlation. You’ll also see negative correlation. Position traders can utilize this information to their benefit, both in the long and the short direction.

Over the short-term, things get very hap-hazard and confusing. It would be wrong to look for and talk in terms of correlation here. In the short-term, for trading purposes, it is better to treat commodity as commodity and commodity equity as equity. If you are trading equity, a gold mining stock or any other commodity equity stock might or might not come up in your trade scan. When such a stock does get singled out for a trade as per your scan, well, then, take the trade. Don’t be surprised if at the same time your friend the commodities trader is trading oil futures instead, or is just sitting out. That’s him or her responding to his or her scan. You respond to your scan. In the world of short-term trading, it is hazardous to mix and correlate commodities with commodity equity.

Phew, that’s it for now. It’s taken me a long time to understand commodity equity, and I thought that I’d share whatever I understood with you.

Options 1.0.3

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Has your stop ever been jumped over?

Yes?

Did it make you angry?

Yes?

It might make you angrier to know that Mrs. Market couldn’t care less about you on a personal level. It’s you who has to adapt, not Mrs. Market.

So, next time you see Mrs. Market moving many points in one shot, you have a choice. Either you can choose to take the chance of having your stop jumped over in the hope of huge rewards, or you can use options as an instrument to trade.

In general, a stop getting jumped over is a non-issue with options, because you are pre-defining your maximum loss here. Your option-premium is the maximum loss you will incur on the trade. Once you’ve mentally aligned yourself with this potential maximum loss, you are actually then asking Mrs. Market to do all the jumping she wishes to do. It just doesn’t bother you anymore. You travel, do other stuff, and then take a sneak-peak at your position.

Once your position starts making money, you might decide to fine-tune your trade-management after achieving your target. If you then make sure that your trailing stop is wide-gapped, you can still relax and do other stuff. Maybe one time out of twenty, Mrs. Market will jump even your wide-gapped trailing stop. Even if she does, you are well in the money, and you do not forget to install a new stop. Also, a little while ago, you were mentally prepared to forgo your whole option-premium, so giving back a part of your profits seems a piece of cake to you.

Welcome to the world of options. We have plunged right in. I believe that the best way to learn something is to plunge right in. Gone are the days of bookish learning.

The options market in India is just about coming into its own. At any given time, there will be at least 20 scrips on the National Stock Exchange showing very high options volume for long trades, and at least 10 scrips showing heavy volume for short trades. Bottomline: you can get into a liquid trade on either side, anytime you want. The number of scrips showing this kind of liquidity is picking up. We are still very, very far away from the mature options market in the US. What can be said is that the Indian options market will offer you liquid trades, anytime, both on the long and the short side. Frankly, that’s all one needs.

On the flip side, options on commodities have yet to come to India. Also, only the current month options are adequately liquid in India. Regarding options, the Indian market is getting there. Well, as long as you get a liquid trade anytime you want, who cares if we’re not as mature as the US options market? I don’t.

Over the last few months, options have been the instruments of choice, with unfathomable volatility abounding. I was dying to have a go, but have been caught up in so much other distracting stuff, that I’ve not traded for two months now. I like sticking to my trading rules. One of them is to not trade if I’m distracted. I really stick to this one.

Those who did trade the options market over this period would have done exceptionally well, because ideal conditions persisted. Big and quick moves, like a see-saw. The scenario would look like this: Long options give quick profits, short options simultaneously becoming very cheap, especially the out of the money ones. One sells the now expensive long options (which were picked up cheap), and stocks up on the now cheap out of the money short options. The market turns around and leaps to the downside, giving quick and large profits on the short options. One sells the short options and picks up now cheap out of the money long options, again. The repeat trades according to this pattern can continue till they stop working. When they stop working, what have you lost? Just your premium on some out of the money options.

Wish I’d had the frame of mind to trade options over the last two months. But then, one can’t have everything!

The Short-Term History of Idealism

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1989, Konstanz, Germany.

I’m quietly eating a Nutella sandwich in the commom-room of our student-hostel. There’s a commotion near the TV area. The Berlin Wall is falling. A few students rush to pack their bags. They are off to Berlin. The one’s not going, including me, request them to bring back a few extra pieces of the Wall. That’s one Nutella sandwich I’ll never forget in my life.

Slowly, communist infrastructure in the Soviet Union starts to fall apart too. With the exception of a few strongholds, most of it is gone today.

The most repeated pro-communism argument I have heard after the fall of the Wall is this: Communism failed (wherever it failed) because it was too idealistic for mankind. So, according to this argument, mankind could not live up to the ideals of communism. All people were equal, but some were more equal than others, to analogically quote George Orwell.

Maybe, maybe.

And here is mankind again, trying to be idealistic. The epicentre of this idealism is, well, Germany. Its leaders, including the Pope, are asking its citizens to dig into their pockets and support the Euro against breakdown, come what may.

No other European nation is financially capable of bailing out the Euro. France’s economic problems are visible. It is now up to Germany. The question that remains is: IS THIS FAIR to the German citizens, who will have to take on pressurizing austerities for the follies of others to achieve this idealistic goal?

Well, what’s fair in life and the History of the world? Sacrifices have to be made for the greater good. Is the existence of the Euro “greater good”?

There exist discrepancies between the Euro nations regarding work-attitude and work-ethics. Europe is NOT one nation with one government. We are looking at diverse nations with diverse needs. Some hate to work overall. One likes its retirement age to be 57. The call to behave like one nation to tackle bankruptcy is the imposition of an artificial existence. History has shown mankind, that artificial existences tend not to last.

Left to sink or swim, people much rather decide to swim. Although a sovereign default will impose upon the concerned nations huge austerities in the short-term, they will opt to stay afloat rather than sink. Long-term work ethics will change. Attitudes will change.

Never-ending bailouts will tend not to affect faulty or wanting work-attitudes. That’s the danger here, a repeat loop mechanism, till the bulk of Germany’s resources are drained in supporting the Euro. That’s what we are looking at. First there’s 370 billion Euros for Greece to clear. The figures for Spain, Portugal and Italy are still unclear to the common-man. Figures are being revealed one by one in the media, from mini-bailout to mini-bailout. How long can this go on? Is Germany some kind of holy grail with a never-ending supply of funds and resources?

The questions Germany and its leaders need to address are these: Is the short-term mayhem after a possible Euro collapse the worst-case scenario for Germany’s industry and people? Or is it the slow, long drawn sucking out of its hard-earned life-time earnings and resources, drop by drop, possibly to the last few drops.

Only after answering these two questions will German leaders be ready to vote for or against the Euro in parliament.

Jumping Jackstops

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Recently, Mr. Cool and Mr. System Addict decide to get into a trade.

Yeah, surprise surprise, Mr. Cool is liquid again!

They’ve decided to trade Gold, and are pretty much in the money already. Their trades have come good first up. Both are leveraged 25:1, which is common with Gold derivatives. Mr. Addict has bet 5% of his networth on the trade, and Mr. Cool, true to his name, has matched Mr. Addict’s amount.

Gold prices jump, and Mr. Addict’s target is hit. He exits without thinking twice, and is pretty pleased upon doubling his trade amount within a week. He pickles 90% of the booty in fixed income schemes, and is planning a holiday for his girl-friend with the remaining amount. Instead of trading further, he decides to recuperate for a while.

Meanwhile, Mr. Cool rubs his hands in glee as the price of Gold shoots up further. His notional-profits now far exceed the actually booked profits of Mr. Addict. When’s he planning to exit? Not soon. He wants to make a killing, and once and for all prove to Mr. Addict and to the world, that he rules. He wants to bury Mr. Addict’s trade results below the mountain of his own king-sized profits. Gold soars further.

Mr Cool has trebled his money, and is still not booking any profits. He picks up his cell to call Mr. Addict. Wants to rub it in, you know.

Mr. Addict puts down his daiquiri by the poolside in his hotel in Ibiza. His girl-friend has at last started admiring him. They’ve been swimming all morning. “All right, all right, he’ll take this one call. Oh, it’s Mr. Cool, wonder what he’s up to?” Mr. Addict is one of the few people in the world who are able to switch off. He’s totally forgotten about Gold and his winning trade, and is really enjoying his holiday.

Mr. Cool tries to rub it in, but receives some unperturbed advice from the other end of the line. He’s being asked to be satisfied and to book profits right now. Of course he’s not going to do that. All right, fine, if he wants to play it by “let’s see how high this can go”, he needs to have a wide-gapped trailing stop in place, says Mr. Addict. Of course he’s got a wide-gapped trailing stop in place, says Mr. Cool. Mr. Addict wishes him luck, cuts the call, and forgets about the existence of Mr. Cool, dozing off into a well-deserved snooze.

As Gold moves higher, Cool starts to think about that wide-gapped trailing stop. Let alone having one in place, he doesn’t even know what it means. A quick call to the broker follows. The broker is ordered to install a trailing stop into Mr. Cool’s trade. Since Cool doesn’t know what “wide-gapped” means, he forgets to mention it. The broker doesn’t like Cool’s attitude and his proud tone. He installs a narrow-gapped trailing stop.

Circumstances change, and Gold starts to drop. It’s making big moves on the downside, falling a few percentage points in one shot. Cool’s narrow-gapped trailing stop gets fully jumped over; it doesn’t get a chance to become activated in the first place, because it is narrow-gapped and not wide-gapped. The price of the underlying just leaps over the narrow gap between trigger price and limit price. Happens. Cool does not install a new stop. Stupid.

Next morning, Cool’s jaw drops when he sees Gold down 15% overnight. On a 25:1 leverage, he’s just about to lose his margin. The phone rings. It’s the margin call. Cool panics. He answers the margin call. His next call is to Mr. Addict, asking what he should do. Mr. Addict is shocked to learn that Cool has answered the margin call. He asks him to cut the trade immediately.

Cool’s gone numb. Gold drops another 4%. Phone rings. Second margin call. Cool doesn’t have the money to answer it. In fact , he didn’t have the money to answer the first one. In the broker’s next statement, that amount will show up as a debit, growing at the rate of 18% per annum.

Mr. Cool’s not liquid anymore. Actually, he’s broke. No, worse that that. He’s in debt. Greed got him.

A Fall to Remember (Part 2)

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Part 1 was when Silver fell almost 20 $ an ounce within a week. Like, 40%. Swoosh. Remember? Happened very recently.

And now, Gold does a Silver, and falls 20 % in a few days. These are the signs of the times. “Quick volatility” is the new “rangebound move”. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

The wrong question here is “What’s a good entry level in general?” Why is this question wrong?

When something new becomes the norm, there is too little precedence to adhere to. It becomes dangerous to use entry rules which were established using older conditions as a standard.

I believe there is one way to go here. The correct question for me, were I seeking entry into Gold or Silver, would be “Is this entry level good enough FOR ME?” or perhaps “What’s a good enough entry level FOR ME?”

Let’s define “good” for ourselves. Here, “good” is a level at which entry doesn’t bother YOU. It doesn’t bother you, because you are comfortable with the level and with the amount you are entering. You don’t need this sum for a while. It is a small percentage of what you’ve got pickled in debt, yielding very decent returns. If the underlying slides further after your entry, your “good” level of entry still remains “good” till it starts bothering you. You can widen the gap between “not-bothering” and “bothering” by going ahead with a small entry at your “good” level, and postponing further entry for an “even better” level which might or might not come.

If the”even better” level arrives, you go ahead as planned, and enter with a little more. If, however, your “good” level was the bottom, and prices zoom after that, you stick to your plan and do not enter after that. This would be an investment entry strategy, which sigularly looks for a margin of safety. Entry is all-important while investing, as opposed to when one is trading (while trading, trade-management and exit are more important than entry).

Trading entry strategies are totally different. Here, one looks to latch on after the bottom is made and the underlying is on the rise. Small entries can be made as each resistance is broken. It’s called pyramiding. Trading strategies are mostly the complete opposite of investing strategies. Please DO NOT mix the two.

Sort yourself out. What do you want to do? Do you want to invest in Gold and Silver, or do you want to trade in them? ANSWER this question for yourself. Once you have the answer, formulate your strategy accordingly. U – good level – how much here? U – even better level – how much there? U – no more entry – after which level?

Life is so much simpler when one has sorted oneself out and then treads the path.

Putting it all Together – The View from the Mountain-Top

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Remember getting into the driver’s seat for the first time?

It all seemed so difficult. You got the brake-clutch-accelerator coordination all wrong. Proper gear changes were a far cry. There was no question of looking into the rear-view or the side-view mirrors, since you were looking straight. And the shoulder-glance – just forget about it, you said to the instructor.

Slowly, it all came together, perhaps after a 1,50,000 km behind the wheel. Now, driving is a piece of cake. It’s all there in your reflexes. It’s as if the car is connected to your brain, and is an extension of your limbs.

It took time and effort, didn’t it? And why would it be any different in the markets?

Flash-back to 1988 – high school – our Chemistry teacher Frau Boetticher used to teach us to strive for the “Ueberblick”. Roughly and applicably translated, this analogical German word means “the view from the mountain-top”. In Street lingo, the Ueberblick is about life in the Zone. Frau Boetticher used to push us to get into the Zone. She knew that then, our reflexes would take over. She passed away before our A-levels, after a very fulfilling and successful lifetime of teaching. She was the best teacher to ever have taught me.

When your reflexes make you enter a market, or exit it, or decide on the level of a stop, or a target etc. etc., you’ve managed to put it all together. Doesn’t happen overnight, though. The ball-park figure of 1,50,000 km behind the wheel changes to roughly 7 years of market experience, before one can expect to put it all together on the Street.

Where does that leave you?

As a thumb rule, money-levels at stake in the first 7 years on the Street need to be low. When you’re getting the hang of things, you just don’t bet the farm. That’s common sense, a rare commodity, so I’m underlining it for you.

On the Street, you only learn from mistakes. They are your teachers, and they prepare you to deal with Mrs. Market. No books, or professors or college will make you fit enough to tackle Mrs. Market, only mistakes will. Make mistakes in your first seven years on the Street – make big mistakes. Learn from them. Don’t make them again. Get the big blunders out of the way while the stakes are small. Round up your learning before the stakes get big.

Once your reflexes all come together, you can start risking larger sums of money, not before. Also, in today’s neon age, it’s difficult to stay in the Zone for prolonged periods of time. Something or the other manages to distract us out of the Zone, whether it is internal health or external affairs. When you feel you’re out of the Zone, just cut back your position-size. When you feel you’re back in, you can scale up your position-size again.

It’s as simple as that. Useful ideas have one characteristic in common – they are simple.

Blowing up Big

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Derivatives are to be traded with stops. Period.

Stops allow you to get out when the loss is small.

Common sense?

Apparently not.

Who has common sense these days?

Also, the human being has embraced leverage as if it were like taking the daily shower. Bankers and high-profile brokers have free flowing and uncontrolled access to humongous amounts of leverage.

Apart from that, the human being is greedy. There’s nothing as tempting as making quick and big bucks.

Combine humongous amounts of leverage with large amounts of greed and brew this mix together with lack of common sense. That’s the recipe for blowing up big.

Every now and then, a banker or a high-profile broker blows up big, and in the process, at times, brings down the brokerage or the bank in question. In the current case at hand, UBS won’t be going bust, but its credibility has taken a sizable hit.

Bankers are to finance what doctors are to medicine. Where doctors manage physical and perhaps mental health, bankers are supposed to manage financial health. Bankers are taught how to manage risk. Something’s going wrong. Either the teaching is faulty, or the world’s banking systems are faulty. I think both are faulty. There exists a huge lack of awareness about the definition of risk, let alone its management.

Trained professionals lose respect when one of them blows up big. Such an event brings dark disrepute to the whole industry. Most or all of the good work to restore faith in the banking industry thus gets nullified to zilch.

A doctor or an engineer is expected to adhere to basics. I mean, the basics must be guaranteed before one allows a surgeon to perform surgery upon oneself. A surgeon must wash hands, and not leave surgical instruments in the body before stitching up. Similarly, an construction engineer must guarantee the water-tightness or perfection of a foundation before proceeding further with the project.

Similarly, a banker who trades is expected to apply stops. He or she is expected to manage risk by the implementation of position-sizing and by controlling levels of leverage and greed. Responsibility towards society must reflect in his or her actions. A banker needs to realize that he or she is a role model.

All this doesn’t seem to be happening, because every few years, someone from the financial industry blows up big, causing havoc and collateral damage.

Where does that leave you?

I believe that should make your position very clear. You need to manage your assets ON YOUR OWN. Getting a banker into the picture to manage them for you exposes your assets to additional and unnecessary stress cum risk.

In today’s day and age, the face of the financial industry has changed. If you want to manage your own assets, nothing can stop you. There exist wide-spread systems to manage your assets, right from your laptop. All you need to do is plunge in and put in about one hour a day to study this area. Then, with time, you can create your own management network, fully on your laptop.

Your assets are yours. You are extra careful with them. You minimize their risk. That’s an automatic given. Not the case when a third party manages them for you. Commissions and kick-backs blind the third party. Your interests become secondary. Second- or third-rate investments are proposed and implemented, because of your lack of interest, or lack of time, or both.

Do you really want all that? No, right?

So come one, take the plunge. Manage your stuff on your own. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it, and it will definitely teach you a lot, simultaneously building up confidence inside of you. Go ahead, you can do it.

One-Pointedness Finds its Niche

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At a certain stage in our market careers, the words “sounds like a plan” echo within the walls of our minds.

To reach this stage, individuals need to cross activation-barriers and pass tests. How many depends upon the individual.

These words are for those of you who have reached this point, or are in the process of doing so.

So, after suffering many losses and learning many lessons, suddenly, our market strategy becomes clear to ourselves.

And then, once one’s path has been painstakingly chalked out, one needs to follow it one-pointedly.

From this point onwards, all that’s required is sheer one-pointedness.

This focus of energy would be a waste if attuned to implement a faulty and immature strategy, and would lead to insolvency.

On the other hand, if this focus and burst of energy is utilized to push through a mature plan which is in sync with one’s risk-profile, then, dear friend, you are staring at financial independence in the face.

All the best!

Endgame

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There, I’ve done it again.

Done what?

Endgame, you know, Samuel Beckett, theatre of the absurd, blah blah blah, siphoned off the title in typical UN style.

I don’t think Beckett was absurd at all. Rather, the absurd mask was absurd, but perhaps absurdly necessary.

Well, isn’t this the Endgame? Physically, politically, and, last but not least, financially.

For me, it is.

If it’s not the Endgame for you, please wake up. Which world are you living in? I mean, are you blind?

Play it like you’d play an Endgame. Give it all you’ve got. If you don’t do justice to this mother of all Endgames, my friend, you really are wasting your incarnation.

And, if Beckett wouldn’t mind that I’ve siphoned off his title, well, neither should you.

Bumping into the Law of Conservation of Energy

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Back in the ’90s, I used to analyze spectra in the Chemistry lab. A spectrum is a piece of scientific information plotted in 2, 3 or perhaps more dimensions. In a nutshell here, one is trying to analyze a chart in an attempt to understand the underlying chemical structure, or the results of an experiment.

In the new millenium, I moved on to Astrology charts. Here, the underlying were human beings, and one was trying to understand their destinies plotted versus time. Again it boiled down to analyzing charts.

Over the last eight years, I’ve been analyzing market charts. As in, you know, the price of an underlying equity scrip, or of a commodity, or a currency pair, plotted versus time.

Over the years, it has been pointed out to me many times (by lesser minds) that I “wasted” a good part of my professional life in the wrong line.

To be really honest, the chart-reading acumen that started developing in the Chemistry lab only became stronger with the shift to Astrology, and grows from strength to strength with its current shift to the markets. Nothing has been lost. The law of conservation of energy has proven itself to me.

I’m writing this piece for traders who are suffering or have suffered a big loss.

Your first big loss consumes you. Let it do so for a bit, but then you need to pick yourself up.

Why do I say “let it do so”?

You need to know what a big loss feels and tastes like, preferably early in your career with the stakes still small.

At this stage, believe me, nothing is lost in the loss, because there is a tremendous learning experience. Open yourself to learn from the loss. Fine-tune your emotional sensors to detect the onset of loss-triggering emotions when they happen again, so that you can take early evasive action next time around.

If you learn from your loss, you will save yourself when the stakes are high. You might even go on to make a killing for all you know, because early evasive action boosts your confidence tremendously.

The law of conservation of energy bumps into every trader, even you. It’s telling you to start viewing your big loss as a learning experience, and to take it from there. How about listening to what it is saying?

Crowds Eventually Start Behaving in a Deluded Manner

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We’re human beings.

The majority of us likes forming a crowd.

Our crowd-behaviour eventually goes warped. History has shown this time and again.

In the market-place, I make it a point to identify crowds. The biggest money is to be made by capitalizing upon the folly of a crowd. That’s why.

So first let’s gauge very broadly, what the main aspects of market-study are, and then let’s see where crowd-behaviour fits in.

Market-study encompasses three broad areas. These are:

1). Fundamentals,
2). Technicals and
3). Sentiment.

You guessed it, crowd behaviour falls under “Sentiment”. Well, sentiment can knock the living daylights out of the best of “Fundamentals”. And, sentiment makes “Technicals”. Thus, for me, the most important factor while understanding market moves is sentiment.

A stock can exhibit the choiciest of fundamentals. Yet, if a crowd goes delusional, it can drive down the price of even such a stock for longer than we can remain solvent. Let’s write this across our foreheads: Delusional Crowds can Maraude Fundamentals.

Since we are now writing on our foreheads, let’s write another thing: Delusional Crowds can cause Over-Bought or Over-Sold conditions to Exist for longer than we can remain Solvent. There go the technicals.

A crowd thinks in a collective. All that’s required is a virus to infect the collective. A virus doesn’t have to be something physical. It can even be an idea. The space that we exist in is laden with disease-causing energies. Once a crowd latches on to a virus-like idea, its behaviour goes delusional.

Here are some examples of such behaviour. At the peak of the dot-com boom, in March 2000, a crowd of rich farmers from the surrounding villages walks into a friend’s office. They are carrying bags of cash. They tell my friend that they want to buy something called “shares”. They ask where these can be purchased, and if they are heavy (!). Since they are carrying their life-savings with them in cash, and plan to spend everything on this purchase of “shares”, they want to also effetively organize the transport of the “shares” to their homes in the villages. Thus they want to know if “shares” are heavy to transport!

In the aftermath of the dot-com bust, Pentasoft is down more than 90% from its peak. I think this legend is from 2001. A crowd of rich businessmen collects the equivalent of 20 million USD and buys the down-trodden shares with all of the money. The scrip goes down to zilch and today, one’s not even able to find a quote for it.

In the 17th century, people actually spend more than the price of a house for the purchase of one TULIP, for God’s sake.

You get the drift.

The current crowd is building around Gold. It’s behaviour as of now is still rational. In due course, it has high chances of going irrational.

Whenever that happens, we’ll definitely be able to see the signs, because both our eyes are OPEN.

Understanding Loss and Reacting to it in a Winning Manner

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In the world of trading, we deal with loss everyday.

We have no option but to deal with it.

If we want our performance to improve, we need to deal with it in a winning manner.

What is loss? I mean, apart from its monetary ramifications…

A loss has the propensity to suck the living daylights out of you.

That’s if you allow it to.

You see, in the world of trading, losses have the propensity to grow.

You need to cut them when they are still bearable. Period.

If you don’t, they can become unbearable.

You then still have the option of cutting the unbearable loss as opposed to letting the loss eat into your gut and cause insolvency. Choice is yours. I’ve seen it happening with my own eyes.

You see, losses not only suck out money, they also suck out emotional energy from your system. Your mind loses focus, and instead of concentrating on your A-game, your mind focuses on the loss. The result is that your A-game becomes a B- or a C-game. Unacceptable.

Health deteriorates and one is snappy around the family. Totally unacceptable. Just cut the loss, stupid.

In FY ’08 – ’09, my senior partners walked into my office. I was being consulted, hurrah, a winning moment by itself for me.

Our company was entered into a derivative USD hedge at the time. The trade had turned sour, and was showing a loss of half a million USD. I was being asked what to do.

In a situation like this, a trader does not dilly-dally. I advised my senior parners strongly to cut the loss as it stood, no ifs, and no buts. That’s what we did.

Two other companies in our town were involved in a similar hedge. They chose not to cut their losses at this stage, but to hope, pray and wait for a recovery.

Well, recovery did happen ultimately. This was that swing when the USD first went up to INR 38 and then down all the way to INR 52.50. Before recovery occured, let’s see what else happened.

One company declared insolvency, because it could not repay the 22 milllion USD loss in the hedge, because that’s the amount the loss had ballooned to at a later stage, before recovery even started. The other company, I believe, settled its losses at 25 million USD, and enjoys a cash-strapped existence today.

So that’s what. My training as a small-time trader came in handy, and I was able to help our family run export business in a major way.

This was also a big test for me. It showed me that I had understood loss as a trader, and was able to react to it in a winning manner.

And that’s the prequisite required to understanding winning and reacting to it like a champion. More on that when I’ve mastered this myself!

Baby-Stepping One’s Way Up the Financial Ladder

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Everyday, without fail, I get a few opportunities to make this a slightly better world. I’m sure you do too.

And I’m ok with that. No further ambitions. Just doing what comes my way. I’ve always done what I believe in. Have never followed crowds. Have never joint someone’s battle which I don’t fully understand.

Baby-step contributions are drops in the ocean. Nevertheless, they are contributions. I’m proud of the fact that opportunities to contribute come my way regularly. I don’t act upon all of them. Have become very discerning of late. Don’t want to be involved with any frauds whatsoever. And India is brimming with frauds. For me, the world of contributing is about baby-steps. I’m content with that.

I believe that baby-stepping is the way up the financial ladder too, as far as one’s investing or trading activity is concerned.

In the world of trading, there exists the concept of position-size (developed to the nth level by Dr. Van K. Tharp). In a nutshell, this concept teaches one to scale it up one baby-step at a time as one’s account shows a profit. Also, one learns to scale it down a notch upon showing a loss.

Common-sense? Then why isn’t everyone doing it?

Why does everyone around me behave as if he or she is gunning for the big hit? The bringing down of institutions. Of governments. The desire to make it big and in the limelight in one shot. The desire to bring about sweeping change within a week’s time. Ever heard of speed of digestion and incorporation? Metabolism? Assimilation? Speed of evolution?

Life takes time to happen. Let’s give it that time. Let’s not hurry it up with our over-ambition. Do we want life to blow up on our faces because of over-ambition?

Frankly, I want to evolve with equilibrium. Really, really not in one shot. My system will explode if it tries to evolve in one shot. Many people are going to find that out the hard way on their own systems.

And I’m really satisfied with baby-stepping it up the financial ladder, using the concept of position-sizing. Slow and easy, little by little, tangible progress, day by day. No nuclear blasts, no tense situations or mood-swings, lots of time for the family, small quantums of realistic progress and its assimilation… what more can one ask for?

You should try it too.

Nature’s Dilemna with a 100 Hundreds

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What after that?

That’s nature’s dilemna with a 100 international hundreds.

What could continue to make “God” strive, once even this milestone is achieved?

With that, natural course of events delay the milestone, just a wee bit more. Disappointing for us and him, but keeps Master Sachin going.

Another person many considered God was Ayrton Senna.

Senna’s car would perform at a level that was many notches beyond the capabilities of the car.

Senna single-handedly changed the face of Formula 1 racing between ’84 and ’93. His “pure and contact” racing style, at times, would crash headlong into the wall of politics. Ayrton would pick himself up and continue to strive.

At his peak, in ’94, Senna moved from Mclaren Honda to Williams Renault. Here was super-man meeting super-car. As to the calibre of Ayrton, there remained no question in the eyes of the world; he was totally from the stables of God. The self-balancing Renault he would drive in had reached electronic perfection under Frank Williams.

It seems at this stage nature was again forced to ask the question: what happens after this? What levels of achievement would there still be left to conquer?

Electronics were scrapped from all teams and the stripped cars were asked to go into the ’94 season without these major break-throughs in Formula 1 technology, so as to give all cars a level playing field. Also, there was this feeling that the game now was about electronics and not the driver, and this ruling would allow the driver’s talent to continue to shine.

Unfortunately, the Williams car, stripped off its electronics, was nothing short of a joke. It would over-compensate on a turn, and then under-compensate on a later turn, thus not allowing the driver to build up any confidence in the car.

Senna struglled. The car’s antics were knocking him out of races. Team Williams was working 24×7 to get their car back on track. Ayrton had always been a hands-on driver. He was working on the car along with the mechanics. They tried hard, so hard, that disaster happened.

Senna’s car failure at Imola leading to his death caused the worlds of millions of people to crash. Ayrton had gone down fighting, at the peak of his career, trying to make a joke of a car race-worthy. His fighting spirit was the spirit of kings, perhaps the spirit of God.

These are two stories of excellence where the barrier between human and super-human becomes redundant. At such times, nature can intervene in whatever way it deems fit.

On a much, much smaller level of achievement, I have felt over-confidence once, in January 2008. This is not to say that the above stories are about over-confidence – they are not. It’s just that in my case, when nature intervened, it was about over-confidence.

In January 2008 I walked with a swagger that was deafening. I felt that I had conquered the markets. Of course the natural course of events showed me my place.

That swagger has never come back and never will.

Now, whenever I feel that I’ve done well, I try and forget about it. Then I look for someone who hasn’t done well, in an effort to try and lift his or her game.

Resting on laurels is not part of any script.

Is it Over for the Long-Term Investor?

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Long-term portfolios are getting bludgeoned.

I can feel the pain of the long-term investor.

Is it over for this niche segment?

I really wouldn’t say that.

It’s not over till the fat lady sings, as somebody said.

What if someone trained hard so as to not allow the fat lady from starting her performance in the first place?

Well, for this breed, it’s not over by a long way. In fact, things are just getting started.

And what are the areas of training?

First and foremost, for the millionth time, one needs to understand what margin of safety is. In this era of black swans, one can fine-tune this area with the word “large”. So, simple and straight-forward: the long-term investor needs to buy with a large margin of safety.

This is a game of PATIENCE. Patiently wait for entry. Entry is the most important act while investing. If you cannot learn to be patient, change your line. Be a trader instead.

However scarce the virtues of honesty and integrity have become, keep looking. When you finally find them in a company, ear-mark the company for a buy. For you, managements need to be intelligent and shareholder-friendly too. They need to be evolved enough to take you into account as a shareholder. Keep looking for such managements, and you’ll be amazed at the unfolding potential of diligent human capital.

Before you enter this arena, answer another question please? Have you learnt to sit? If you don’t even know what this question means, you are by no means ready for the game.

So, when is one capable of sitting through some serious knocks, like now? If the money you’ve put on the line is not required for the next 5 to 10 years, you’ve totally helped your cause. Then, your risk-profile should fit the pattern. If a knock causes you an ulcer, just forget about the game and look for another game that doesn’t cause you an ulcer. Your margin of safety will help you take the knock. Knowing that your money has bought a stake with honest and diligent people who can work their way around inflation will help your cause even more.

If you are taking a very serious hit right now, you need to decide something. Are you gonna sit it out? Can you afford to, age-wise and health-wise? Yes? Fine, go ahead. I sat it out in 2008. If I could do it, so can you. It did take a lot. Taught me a lot too. I now know so much more about myself. Was a rough ride, is all I can say. Nevertheless, it’s a good option if age and health support you. If you decide to sit it out, please train yourself, from this point onwards, to do it right. Needless to say, don’t make the same mistakes again. Let’s be very clear about this point. If you are feeling pain at this point, it’s because you have made one or more investing mistakes. Don’t blame the market, or the times. This is your pain, because of your mistakes. Take responsibity for your actions. Do it right from here onwards.

If you can’t take the hit anymore, age-wise or health-wise, then you need to reflect. It’s none of my business to tell you to sell out. That would be inappropriate. All the same, as a friend, I would like you to ask yourself if you feel you are cut out for this niche segment. There are other very successful niche-segments. I know highly successful traders who started out as miserable long-term investors. So, just this one thing, get the questioning process started. Now. Then, listen to your inner voice and decide what you want to do.

There’s this one other point. Some people feel they can focus on both these segments simutaneously. You know, trade in one portfolio and maintain another long-term portfolio. Possible. People are doing it. I’m not about to start a discussion on focus versus diversification just now, because I’m leaving it for another day. Not because I don’t possess the mettle, but because I’m a little tired just now.

Wish you safe investing! 🙂

Is the Middle-person History?

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Motivations…

are the propellors of life.

One can’t be an expert at everything. So one hires others to do stuff for one.

Of course one has to make it worth the other person’s while.

And the person you’ve hired needs to do the best possible job for you.

This used to be the pattern in the business of money. After the turn of the century, things started going haywire.

The middle-person in the business of money used to be a long-term wealth enhancer. His or her primary motivation was the creation and appreciation of your wealth.

Now, his or her focus is on the commissions generated by maximal short-term churning of your portfolio. This is dangerous for you.

I don’t know any wealth-manager who will share your loss with you. If earlier the loss would be felt only emotionally / morally by your wealth manager, even that is gone. So now, there’s nothing that’s stopping investment advice from becoming a function of the commission offered to the wealth manager. If a product offers more commission, that’s the product being recommended.

Where does that leave you?

Frankly, I feel that one is better off without an investment advisor. The web offers enough information on any and every investment product in existence. All you need to do is invest your time.

No time, you say? Who’s money is it? Yours, right? Then you need to jolly well take out the time. Only you can do justice to the proper, balanced and judicious investment of your funds.

So come on, snap out of any laziness. One hour a day to carve out a trajectory for your hard-earned money is all that’s required. If for nothing else, do it for your kids.

Zoning in on the Zone

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What’s your favourite sport?

Baseball?

Ok, let’s say we were watching Babe Ruth hitting a home run. I know, I’ve got this habit of running up and down the axis of time. A little annoying, but please bear with it.

To hit home runs like a Babe Ruth, or for that matter to paddle sweep like Sachin Tendulkar, or to serve an ace like Roger Federer, a player needs to be in the Zone.

So what is this “Zone”?

Imagine a space where you are one with your environment. From within this space, your heightened senses are able to engulf any stimulus and respond appropriately to it as if on auto-pilot. Your reactions to your situation are “ideal”. If a ball is thrown at you, your nervous system motors your bat with perfect angle and speed to respond to the ball in a winning fashion. It’s as if your system is one with the trajectory of the ball and is anticipating its angle and speed. Such a mind-body space is called the Zone.

The Zone is multi-dimensional in nature. Beyond length, breadth and height, the Zone spans the dimension of potential. The Zone is capable of whizzing your mind-body continuum up and down the axis of time in a flash to select the best possible response to any and every given stimulus.

So how does one get into this Zone? If it were that easy, each one of us would be a Babe Ruth, or a Sachin Tendulkar, or a Roger Federer or for that matter a Warren Buffett. Obviously, getting into the Zone is privileged.

Practice helps. Immense practice. Of course talent has to be there. But what is talent? Nothing but the expression of latent potential accumulated by the mind-body continuum at an earlier point in its existence. And when the mind-body continuum accumulates potential, it has to work very hard for it. Nothing comes for free.

And is someone who has entered the Zone able to stay in it forever? Nope. Entering the Zone takes a build-up. Then in a flash one is in till external circumstances disturb one’s focus, which is when one is out of the Zone.

So what’s this got to do with the markets?

Well, try trading the markets from inside the Zone and you’ll see.

Investing in the Times of Pseudo-Mathematics

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First, there was Mathematics.

Slowly, Physics started expressing itself in the language of Mathematics with great success. Chemistry and Biology followed suit.

The subject of Economics was feeling left out. Its proponents wanted the world to start recognizing their line of study as a natural science. So they started expressing their research results in the language of Mathematics too.

Thousands of research papers later, it was pointed out that what mathematical Economics was describing was an ideal world without any anomalies factored in.

The high priests of Economics reacted by churning out a barrage of research papers which factored in all kinds of anomalies in an effort to describe the real world.

Where there’s money, there’s emotion. The average human being is emotionally coupled to money.

Either Economics didn’t bother to factor in the anomaly called emotion, or it couldn’t find the corresponding matrix in which it could fit human emotions like greed and fear.

And Economics started getting it wrong in the real world, big time. The Long-Term Capital Management Fund (run by Economics Nobel laureates as per their pansy and sedantry office-table cum computer-programmed understanding of finance) collapsed in 1998, with billions of investor dollars evaporating and the world’s financial system coming to a grinding halt but just about managing to keep its head above water. It was a close brush with comprehensive disaster.

The human being forgets.

The last leg of the surge in dotcoms in 1999 and the first quarter of 2000 did just that. It made people forget their investing follies.

What people did remember though was the high of the surge. Investors wanted that feeling again. They wanted to make a killing again. Greed never dies.

And Economics rose to the occasion. This time it was not only pseudo, but it had gotten dirty. Its proponents were not researchers anymore, they were investment bankers, who had hired researchers to develop investment products based on complex pseudo-mathematical models that would lure the public.

Enter CDOs.

For just a few percentage points more of interest payout, investors worldwide were willing to buy this toxic debt with no underlying and a shady payout source. People got fooled by the marketing, with ratings agencies joining the bandwagon of crookedness and giving a AAA rating to the poisonous products in question.

All along, the Fed (with the blessing of the White House) had been encouraging citizens to “tap their home equity”, i.e. to take loans against their homes and then to invest the funds in the market. (The Fed creates bubbles, that’s what its real job is). And the Fed, the White House, the leading investment banks, the ratings agencies and the toxic researchers were all joint at the hip, a very powerful conglomerate creating financial weather.

So, from 2003 to 2007, there was liquidity in the world’s financial system, and a lot of good money was invested in CDOs. Nobody really understood these products properly, except for the researchers who came up with them. Common sense would have said that something with no base or underlying will eventually collapse as the load on top increases. And there was no dearth of load, because the same investment banks that sold the CDOs to the public were busy shorting those very CDOs (!!!!!), with Goldman Sachs taking the lead. So a collapse is exactly what happened.

This time around, the now pseudo and very, very dirty economics (almost)finished off the world’s financial system as it stood. It was revived from death through frantic financial-mathematical jugglery and a non-stop note-printing-press, with the Fed looking desperately to bury the damage by creating the next bubble which would lure good money from new investors in other parts of the world which were less affected for whatever reason.

That’s where we stand now. Certain portions of the world’s finance system are still on the respirator. Portions are off it, and are trying to act as if nothing happened, shamelessly getting back to their old tricks again.

I get calls reguarly from Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse, StanChart and other investment banks. The only reason why Goldman hasn’t called is probably because my networth is below their cold-call limit. Anyways, it doesn’t matter who let the dogs out. Point is, they are out. And they are trying to sell you swaps, structures, forwards, principal protected products, what-have-yous, you name it. I remain polite, but tell them in no uncertain terms to lay off.

As a thumb rule, I don’t invest in products I don’t understand.

As another thumb rule, I don’t even invest in products which I might eventually understand after making the required effort.

As the mother of all thumb rules, I only invest in products that I understand effortlessly.

That’s the learning I got in the 2000s, and I’m happy to share it with you.

Uncharted Territory : The Tough get Going

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These are unprecedented times.

I mean, you’ve got 10-Sigma events occuring at a frequency that’s nobody’s business.

It’s time for the tough to get going.

All other investors are gonna get slaughtered.

So what makes one a tough investor, someone who can take hits and still remain standing?

Firstly, there’s holding power. If you don’t possess holding power, don’t enter the markets.

Then there’s patience. A rare commodity.

Discipline. Play to a strategy. Pick a strategy that’s in sync with your risk profile.

That brings us to the most important point. Know yourself. Know your risk profile. Your strengths and weaknesses. Invest accordingly. This one might take a while.

With time comes the power to pinpoint buying opportunities. Just as the exit strategy is crucial for the trader, the entry point is all-important for the investor.

Wins give confidence to double up on one’s position size.

Sight of one’s goal keeps one away from noise and a dangerous thing called tips.

An otherwise balanced life keeps one occupied elsewhere so that one’s not tempted to try other stunts in the market.

You can complete this list. It’s really not rocket-science.

It’s time for the tough to get going.

Learning to Sit

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One of the first things a baby learns is to sit.

And sitting is probably the last thing that an investor learns. Some investors never learn to sit. Their long-term returns are disastrous.

Wanna make a killing? All right, first learn to sit.

To be able to sit, one needs to create proper conditions. One needs to take “jumpiness”, or volatility, out of the equation. This is done by buying with a margin of safety.

Having bought with a margin of safety, market blow-ups affect your bottom-line lesser. You can sit thru them.

And that’s all you need to do, to allow a multi-bagger to unfold.

Wish you lucrative investing!