Category Archives: Hubris

Task

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Pockets…

…burn.

Other ones are still stable.

There’s no telling when…

…some of these will start to burn too.

Such are the times, that a new war commences within hours.

Meanwhile, our subconscious immunity to newsflow reaches new highs everyday.

That’s a huge marker for over-confidence.

Those entering propped markets in full flow are showing this trait in vast degrees.

At a time like this, where do we need to be, financially?

A 1.0.1. tenet that applies here is that basic finances need to be at our beck and call. No 48hr+ lags please.

Also, one needs to be in things one understands oneself. Ulterior motives rule amongst all financial institutions in extreme times, and the helm needs to be firmly in our hands, even if part of our finances are in theirs. So, nothing discretionary, please. Don’t leave yourself at the whim and fancy of a fund manager. Funds are yours. You will do a better job, specifically because your lifeblood is on the line.

Let’s plan for…

…entries, …

… exits, …

… continuity, …

… and legacy.

When it comes to personal finance, the job required is nothing short of thorough, solving for all nuances possible and conceivable.

Wishing you happy and lucrative investing!

🙂

Gaugers

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Hey.

We gauge…

…situations, …

…sentiment, …

…reactions, …

…anomalies, …

…hubris, greed, fear, depression, …

…and, amongst other things, also the tendency of the human being…

…to give advice.

Sometimes, we find ourselves giving advice too, randomly, unwarranted. We gauge that too.

Our effort focuses on identifying market pivots.

Why?

We act on pivots.

These are the most lucrative points in a market’s trajectory.

These are also very difficult to predict in advance.

However, because of our mental tuning resulting from constant gauging, we are somewhat in a position to recognize pivots when they have started to develop, or when they are just about to finish developing.

That’s the cut-off.

Meaning, that if action goes in any later than that, rewards lessen.

Once the whole world knows that a pivot is in play, price zooms or tanks from there rapidly. We want in or out before the zooming or tanking, respectively.

So, apart from technicals and fundamentals, comprehensive gauging allows for better thought synthesis and thus better market action.

Whilst gauging, we learn a lot about human beings and the psychology that drives our financial life.

Markets teach us so much, that they become a fulfilling profession.

Wishing you safe and happy wealth multiplication!

🙂

Wires

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In a one-liner…

…the ‘magic’ formula…

…to crack the market would be to…

…’buy low, sell high’.

Reading this line in a normal mental condition, it is natural for us to say…

…’oh, so simple?!!’

That’s just it.

Cracking Mrs. Market is a ‘simple’ process… … … .

However,…

…the question that screams for our attention is…

…’pray who is in a normal mental condition?’

And the answer is this.

When it counts, almost no one.

When does it count?

At lows and highs.

At lows we are in a frenzy. Panic. ‘Blood’. No one considers buying, even remotely. Those who want to, and would have, are not liquid. Exceptions take the plunge.

At highs, we are exuberant. We know it all. We are the kings. Please don’t tell us to sell. We’re not selling. ‘Hubris’. Those who want to sell, and would have sold, are told irrefutably by family members to forget about even thinking of selling. Exceptions ward off the pressure and make the sale.

We want to be those exceptions.

How do we get there?

It’s about wiring.

Our normal wiring makes us act normally, in a manner where big profits can’t be made.

We need to rewire.

We need to be uncomfortable when markets rise, uncomfortable enough to at least take our principals out. During lows, we need to find comfort in the very idea of entering, thus redeploying our freed-up principals.

How does one rewire?

By being in the market…

…small…

…for long…

…learning to lose small…

…and to win big by letting profits run.

Perhaps very big, over time, by allowing one’s cost-free-ness to remain in the market for a very long hold.

Beta

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We’re not afraid…

…of beta.

In fact, we want beta to be there.

And, we want it to be big.

Beta is part of wealth-generation through cost-free-ness.

Why…

…are we not afraid of beta?

When we make an underlying cost-free, there are two parameters that are of prime importance, in the game that we are playing.

First up, speed of cost-free-ness.

How much time has it take us to reach the desired stage?

Too much time?

Work at the strategy.

Short time?

Great.

With large betas, we take lesser time to reach cost-free-ness.

Cost-free-ness is a state of mind.

Also, it is a function of parameters prevailing.

As a result of internal synthesis, we know in our mind when it’s time for cost-free-ness creation.

Once cost-free-ness is created, we move on to the next play with the same objective.

Next up, we have quantum of cost-free-ness created, per capita time.

Higher the quantum, in lesser time, why, that’s optimal.

Again big beta.

Without big beta, there’s not much chance of achieving large quantum in less time.

How do we exploit big beta to attain objective?

Get in on huge margin of safety. Get principal out when exuberance prevails. Scrips being played are those of which you are convinced. Meaning, that you are mentally in sync with very long-term holds of cost-free-ness created in these scrips.

Also…

…as a general game-enhancing practice…

…get in and out with multi-day or multi-month triggers. Don’t look at the markets while they’re on. Take emotion out of play. Nil market forces out of your equation.

Here one sees, how, amongst other factors, a big beta allows one to generate long-term wealth through cost-free-ness while…

…acting on one’s own terms.

Unfortunately, Cost-Free-Ness doesn’t do away with Greed

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So, one’s cost-free in the markets, and still gloating.

Let’s not gloat.

Much rather, let’s be watchful.

Watchful?

Yeah.

Why?

A still rising market is going to play tricks on our mind.

FOMO…

…missing-the-bus-syndrome…

…greed…

…call it what one will.

It is happening, or is going to happen, to us.

Without mincing any words, let’s have the lowdown laid out straight-up.

There are two things in our path that are now stopping us from the creation of multibaggers in our portfolio.

First-up, there’s the play-out of destiny.

Circumstances could occur that force us to reduce our cost-free-ness, or completely cash it out, to finance something immediate, if funds are not available elsewhere.

Please let’s create systems to avoid dipping into our cost-free-ness, if we can help it.

Cost-free-ness is a very hear-earned commodity.

One’s taken knocks to achieve it.

Yes, it’s cost sweat and toil.

We’re not letting go of it if we can help it.

Then…

…there’s greed.

This is the one thing which can cause us to cash out of our cost-free-ness, just like that, for nothing, except for the gratification…

…of itself (our own greed).

What’s the anti-dote of greed?

Practise giving.

Yes.

Do charity.

Everyday.

In some form or the other.

Cash, effort, emotion, support…

…give of yourself.

Give others joy.

Experience the joy of giving.

Greed will subside.

One’s hard-earned cost-free-ness will stay intact…

…and multibaggers will develop in our cost-free cum high-quality portfolio.

Happy Investing to you, and blissful cost-free-ness.

🙂

Dance the Bawwdy Music!

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..dance the body music

makes you feel so happy

dance the body music

music makes you happy

hear the music play

feel your body sway

hear the dj say

oh what a big smash big smash

dance the body music…

 

Osibisa, was it, late ‘70s?

Yup. 

What an cool swingy number, sung by an unforgettable band!

Disco beat. Rhythm. Easy peasy lyrics. Synth. Floor’s going crazy. Song’s all over the people. People are all over the song. 

Euphoria. 

Why are we talking about it?

Music or euphoria?

Euphoria. 

I used the music element to paint a picture of euphoria in your mind.

What is it about euphoria?

Why does it push me on alert?

Is it that I don’t wish to enjoy my life?

What could I have against euphoria?

I’ll tell you. 

Before I tell you, I’d like to mention that I love the feeling. 

It fantastic being in the feeling. I’ve got one eye on my alerts though. 

WHY?

We make our biggest mistakes when hit by Euphoria. 

Yes. 

Surprised?

Don’t be. 

Under the influence of Euphoria, our biochemistry is so, so different. 

We’re far from peak. 

Our defences are down. 

We are highly capable of plunging into…an abyss…oblivion…call it what you feel is befitting. 

We let go of safety. 

We bet big. 

We bet dangerous. 

We bet the farm.

That’s what euphoria can do to us. 

I do feel euphoric, at times. 

A trade’s gone well. 

A deal’s come through. 

Stability at home. 

Euphoria. 

However…

…as I told you…

…one eye is on my alerts. 

If even a single thought emerges of betting big, bigger than my normal size, well, my predefined red-alert also goes up with such a thought. 

I see my alert’s red flare, and the unwanted thought subsides. 

I am able to sick to within the confines of my position-size rule.

If even one thought emerges of trying a new untested line, just because all current lines are doing ok, well, my predefined strategy saturation alert also goes up with such a thought. 

I remind myself that I’ve decided upon financial strategy saturation, and don’t plan to add a new line, at least not in a hurry or upon an impulse. 

I’m able to stick to my strategy saturation decision. 

Are you understanding what I’m trying to tell you?

If yes, I’m so happy for you. 

You’re not leaving it for later. You’re understanding it without being hit by the aftermath of a decision taken under the influence of euphoria. 

Cheers mate!

🙂

Holding the Line

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Your systems are in place.

They’re implemented. 

Basics are going. Life basics. Family basics.

Then you’ve got your income basics. They’re safe. They generate income. This income goes towards comfortable upkeep of your family. Some of it is saved. 

Your investment portfolios are firing. Savings have built these up. You don’t touch these, but keep adding to them upon opportunity. 

You’ve just finished implementing all your trading systems. 

Some of these are on auto-pilot. 

The other ones demand a little of your time each day. 

They keep you sharp and all there. 

Nothing much. 

Just fifteen to twenty minutes each. 

Skin off your teeth. 

You tackle them with your bed-tea. 

In other words, you are set as far as being income plus plus plus. 

Good. 

Now what?

Now you need to hold the line. 

What does that mean?

It means everything. 

It means no blow-ups…

…no crazy decisions that impact folios and family…

…basically nothing insane coming from you that will threaten your hard-earned situation or worse. 

Holding the line means making sure basics stay intact…

…folios keep growing…

…and new systems keep developing that add to these. 

It’s really that simple. 

When you hold the line, your next step either maintains status quo or adds to you. Preferably, it adds to you.

However, the simpler something is, the more difficult it is to follow. 

What are the demons that can slay you?

Over-confidence.

Over-ambition.

Hubris.

Greed.

Showmanship. 

Debt.

One-up-on-the-Joneses-ideology. 

This stuff looks pretty harmless at first, but is enough to give rise to cracks. 

Cracks grow… 

…till you’ve either come back to your senses and filled and sealed them…

…or till they’ve destroyed you right down to beyond your basics. 

Yeah, a full blow-up is never really far away, once cracks start to appear. 

Therefore…

…while holding the line…

… you keep reminding yourself about what you’re doing…

…why you’re doing it…

…and that you’re never going to blow up, come what may…

…and that you’re going to keep holding the line, come what may…

…and that your next step is always going to add to you.

Happy Holding!

🙂

Pioneering One o One

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Sure, who am I to write about this?

Valid question.

However, I don’t really care.

I’ve got something to say.

And I’m saying it.

If you’re still wondering about the validity, well, I’m treading two paths where the textbooks say only so much. After the textbooks have signed off, I’m pretty much left groping in the dark. Whether or not I come up with something big, that time will tell. Meanwhile, here are some comments from along the path.

It’s lonely.

I walk alone.

I listen to no one.

That’s the price of it all.

That’s ok.

I don’t mind walking alone.

Challenge of the path keeps me awake, alert and alive.

There are chances I’ll die out in oblivion, without having found anything significant.

That’s also the big risk of pioneering.

Without taking this risk, I won’t be able to tread the path.

Yeah, it’s fine.

This is the extra mile.

It will cause one to stretch extra.

Some feel life’s boring without such a challenge.

At times one gets disheartened.

Strategies don’t pan out.

Systems fail.

Map isn’t being charted.

One is getting nowhere.

This happens many times.

At such times one wishes one were doing something else.

Yeah, only human.

Wanting to be super-human?

Why not?

Is it a crime?

At times one can forget one’s responsibilities.

Then it’s a crime.

Coming back to zero is required then.

Hubris.

Highly avoid.

Sure, you’ll eventually become great, a pioneer and all. Hubris will bring you down.

Remember Sir Isaac Newton investing twenty thousand pounds in a company at its peak, just before the company went bust…? He went around having a law passed that no one was allowed to utter the name of this company in his presence.

Grounded.

Stay grounded.

Works best.

That’ll keep you focused.

Go, Pioneer.

Discipline or Brilliance, what would you have?

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Both?

Ha!

Getting cocky already?

That’s brilliance for you.

Over-confident, lazy, show-offy, indulgent, holier-than-thou…, the list goes on.

These are some of the things brilliance also leads to, apart from displays of itself.

Would you still have it?

Many would.

The average being likes being spared the spade-work.

And you know what? I don’t even desire it in this form, with all these poisonous side-effects.

However, it’s acceptable to me in a different form, without the poison.

How does that work?

Ever slogged?

Hard work and discipline, people?

Heard of these?

These two have the side effect of – sparks of brilliance, without the poison.

How?

Bell curve of human effort – imagine.

You’re working at it’s edge.

Miniscule parts of you stray over to its beyond.

Rest of you eventually asks – hey, where are those miniscule missing parts?

Back they come.

They’re bring back vibrations from beyond the bell-curve.

These vibrations diffuse into you.

Some of them get absorbed. The rest dissipate.

Those getting absorbed find thought patterns they can cling to. That is how they are absorbed.

This energy from outside of our three perceivable dimensions, now fused with nascent but constructive thought patterns – what does it do?

It brings these thought patterns to fruition and to their logical conclusion.

Such actions are perceived as sparks of brilliance by humanity.

Such actions change humanity for the better.

That’s the kind of brilliance to strive for – through hard work and discipline.

Endgaming?

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What’re we up to, in this world?

We’re endgaming.

Am I crazy?

No.

Why am I saying so?

Look at our policies.

It’s not just finance.

Everything.

We’re endgaming everything.

Good or bad?

Whether good or bad, we’re in it.

Where does that leave you?

You’re part of we.

You’re in it too.

How should you react?

Build a strategy for an endgame.

Live like there’s a tomorrow.

Your system needs to incorporate endgame parameters.

Distance yourself from those who live like there’s no tomorrow.

Save.

Build structures.

Spread your frugality.

Help.

Teach.

Donate some of your surplus. Spread hope, and goodness.

Create positivity. Let its protective bubble go big. So big, that it protects in a radius of kilometers.

Play like you’re playing for your life.

Everything’s at stake.

Give it all you’ve got… and then some.

Ignore your aches and pains.

Lend vital support to those tumbling around you.

This is it.

There’ll only be a tomorrow if there are more like you.

Happy Fifth Birthday, Magic Bull!

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Turning 5, tick-tock, how time flies!

Has the game changed? 

No. 

What are we in it for? Why do we play?

Bread and butter. Security. Children, their future. Ourselves. Goals. Luxury. Whatever makes us tick. 

Each time we tick, let’s tick better. 

Mistakes mean learning. We’re seeing them as tuition fees, because mistakes cost money. They are the only real learning. You learn when you’re hit. You learn from the pain. 

All other learning is – paper learning. It doesn’t translate into our DNA easily (or at all). For DNA-translation, there needs to be a biochemical change in the body. Metamorphosis. If paper-learning does that for you, well, you’re lucky. Count your blessings. To be envied. 

Rewards bring hubris. 

Hubris makes us vulnerable. 

How?

We get lazy and are caught napping. Off-guard. Hubris-condition coupled with big market-mistake can mean downfall. Don’t want to take names, but exactly this has happened to many. 

What is it about success? What does it do to the human being? Why do we stop being ourselves once we succeed? Why do we stop learning once we succeed?

Yet, each one of us strives for success. 

Can we remember to behave ourselves once we succeed? 

What kind of behaviour are we talking about?

The same behaviour that paved the way for success. Can we maintain that same standard of behaviour? Why is that difficult? It becomes difficult because the after-party causes hangovers. Let’s just scrap the after-party. Let’s continue to be ourselves even after we succeed. 

Instead of the after-party, let’s do something for society, for example. We can even pursue a constructive side-game, which has nothing to do with the main-game. It keeps us ticking on a different level. 

It’s important to tick. The opposite of that is stagnation. Ticking means evolution. 

Evolution means that the next time you take a shot, you’ve better at your game. You’ve evolved because of past learning. You are human capital, remember?

Happy Ticking!

🙂

Emotion in the Marketplace – Enemy or Ally?

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Either or…

… choice is yours baby.

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

We do.

We need to make these work for us.

Everyone feels exhilaration upon winning.

We’re down after a loss. 

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

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

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

Arghhhhhhhhhhh@#$%^!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How does one nullify this particular emotion? 

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

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

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

Otherwise, they become your enemy. 

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

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