Upside?

Hey.

I’m all in.

Into India.

Growth.

Emotion.

C-word. Rhymes with interruption.

Extremes.

Consumption.

Hunger for outreach.

Cut to high growth.

This being a non-linear entity.

Comes a phase where we might quadruple in six months.

That time is not now, I got that.

Time now is to get in.

When all bleeds.

That’s what I’ve done.

Downside?

Sure.

Can be down by 50%.

60%.

Would take some black swans though.

Won’t be the only one. All will go down in such conditions.

Sleep?

Well.

How can I take the strain?

Have 23 years of practice. Blood and biochem can take it and then some. I have that confidence in myself.

Any more downside?

Mood.

Emotional checks.

Good behaviour at all times, coming naturally.

No worries because markets fall.

Selling a weed upon fund requirement state of mind.

Don’t need more.

Upside?

Unlimited.

Paying the Price

Hey.

In the markets…

…our convictions fight against each other.

Cut to the ongoing core IT vs AI standoff.

With mega spends on standoff propaganda alone, currently, the AI lobby is winning.

Not…

…comprehensively.

I fight from the core IT lobby side, which, btw, is evolving, obviously not fast enough in the eyes of almost all, and the image badgering continues.

One admits to being wrong for a while.

Admission means action.

Low-conviction SaaS names bow out. Losses taken. From what remains, stronger names bought, in innovative arenas. Ballast. Bought. Clean balance sheets. Vision. Bought.

Coming to the high-conviction names, they will remain.

However, taking on the humiliation of admitting, accepting and dealing with low-conviction losers is something I am deliberately doing.

I’d much rather discuss my losers with you.

It doesn’t mean I’m not holding winners.

It’s just that I’m choosing to discuss my losers with you.

On purpose.

A little bit of humiliation everyday, admitted, acted upon, and gotten rid of, goes a very long way. One wakes up to holding multibaggers, one fine day, sooner than later, in this manner.

And on that day, some of my high-conviction IT names, if still around in portfolio when they beat the propaganda machines of the AI brigade by posting unexpectedly great results, will then also count amongst the multibaggers held.

On the other hand, if this doesn’t happen for a longish enough time, high convictions will turn lower, ultimately underceding a minimal threshold. Since I finance my expenses by selling losers, and put my income into fresh potential winners, underceders will eventually exit. That’s the price one pays for pursuing multibagger accumulation.

Point is, ultimately, losers find the exit door. Before they become losers, they get ample leeway, measured both in time, and in notional losses, since conviction is, for that long time period, high enough to not identify them as weeds. However, once mentality flips, the weed is born in the mind. Once the mind makes up its mind that something is a weed…

…that something needs to be weeded out, …

…only to be replaced with potential flowers, …

…again, and again and again.

An Anatomy of Loss Aversion

Just ask…

…a doctor…

…about the toughest course at medical school.

He or she will probably say…

…anatomy.

Well, cut to the stickiest field in market play.

You got it.

Loss aversion.

Is a thing, and is…

…not a thing.

Depending on the on-off switch.

Switch is off, and you don’t need to bother about how much your stock is down.

There is something in the story telling you that the broad market is wrong.

Gross discounting and mispricing.

So gross that you’ll buy more?

Maybe.

So gross that it scares you into capitulation?

Because you’ve lost faith?

Your story not sticking?

Welcome to a world where this particular switch has, for you, just turned…

…on.

And in this world, the Sun doesn’t shine so bright.

Your food doesn’t taste so good.

Your mood is below par at best.

Your ego just took a huge hit.

You were wrong.

Now you are either facing up to it, or…

…averting the gaze of your loss.

This is a common storyline. Happens all the time. To all of us. Please…

…don’t beat yourself up about it.

1). Since belief is gone, so must the stock … go.

2). From the remnants, buy into something where the story is rock solid, and where perhaps some margin of safety exists too. Basically buy where your maximum tick-marks hit.

3). Move on. There’s so much to do in life.

Once a switch goes on, please…

…keep the torture phase down to…

…zero.

By following steps 1). 2). and 3).

Till the time that a switch goes from off to on, till that time comes, please…

…enjoy your life in your world where the switch is off.

Please…

…don’t sacrifice off-time by behaving like it’s on-time.

Off-time means time and space to make some great calls elsewhere, those that come in handy, especially when a switch turns from off to on.

You know the next step.

Risk vs Reward

Hey.

I am not ashamed…

…of being fully invested…

…in equity.

Yeah. That’s the status.

Invested. Fully. In equity.

Dangerous?

Sure.

So is driving.

Flying.

Cycling.

Living.

It’s about first digesting the dangers mentally, and then acting.

So, what are the dangers?

Loss.

Hmmm. Notional loss at best. So’s that of one’s house, when its value goes down in price.

Notional.

Since requirement is a very small fraction of corpus, it can be pulled from corpus, when it surfaces.

What will be pulled?

Chunk or the whole of a loser.

Loser’s liquidation will fund expenses.

Any accrued income will go into creating future winners.

Good money chases good outcomes.

Bad money finances expenses.

Nothing stays loose in the bank.

Fixed deposits are passé composé. Baby.

A). Our currency depreciates by the day, geo-politically.

B). Inflation eats into FDs daily, as sure as a shot.

C). Why be subject to this double whammy?

Is being down 50%, or 70%, or 90% in stocks — even the overhang of such a possibility — a better outcome, you ask.

Well, it can happen, I’ll give you that.

In fact, every stock quoted will be down 50%+ once every 5-7 years, on average.

With such scenario, how can I sleep at night, you ask.

It’s ok. I sleep well.

You see, I’ve not pickled the funds away blindly.

Quality companies with shareholder-friendly managements. Impeccable balance-sheets. Minimal debt. Value. Growth at reasonable price. Higher growth at representable price. Some punts, yes, with very high growth at unreasonable price, but that’s what one pays for very high growth. This will yield results. Over time. That’s why I sleep…

…well.

What’s the max I can lose?

100%.

Correct. For max loss to happen, planet needs to be going down. In that scenario, stocks won’t be our worry.

Reasonable number?

A 50-75% max notional loss is always on the cards, temporarily, with the world on tenterhooks all the time.

Temporarily is the key word.

Growth markets swallow hiccups–fast. And, I’m invested 100% in a growth market. With hiccups. (Where are there no hiccups?) Soon to be a high-growth market. Watch.

What’s the max profit I can make, let’s try and answer that.

Do we even have a number here?

I don’t.

Minimal Leeway

Beats.

Bass.

Rhythm.

Swing.

Dancing.

Got my own groove going.

Background becomes…

…noise.

This…

…is the state of mind…

…mandatorily required…

…before entering an arena…

…called markets…

…in my opinion.

Now the noise can come.

It gets filtered through layers, and layers.

Most of it gets weeded before reaching.

That bit which makes it through, comes as whetted info that is required for action.

And action it is.

Need for action?

Switch on.

Action.

Done?

Switch off.

That’s it.

That’s markets where one wants them.

Any more leeway, and they have you.

Which version do you want?

Gracefully retiring CostFreeNess for Oneself

Hey.

Comes a time, when a concept has done its duties towards one.

One’s own philosophy has undergone many x.y upgrades, on the back of the wealth being created by a concept, …

… … one like … …

…CostFreeNess.

Why would someone then retire such a concept?

Perhaps requirements from the field of action have changed.

Yes.

That’s the one.

Let’s divide the timeline of action into before and after.

Before today, the day of retirement [of CostFreeNess, for me], I was getting established.

The extra boost supplied by CostFreeNess was…

…required.

It gave a feeling of doing something right.

I don’t need that validation anymore.

Walking towards different heights, climbing new peaks, setting forth in motion new paths, pioneering a new trajectory – casting off the transient and revealing the true – to quote a central axiom of Nichiren Buddhism – all this – requires walking free from older concepts that were once pivotal for one.

Were.

What’s coming is not where these are pivotal anymore.

Hence the retirement, for myself.

With lots of thankfulness and gratitude.

CostFreeNess is long not done for others, in different phases of their market trajectory.

CostFreeNess is a king-maker.

I remember describing it as the closest thing to a holy grail in the markets, starting the sentence with, if I remember correctly, that ‘although no holy grail in the markets exists, …’

In this space, you’ll find many, many pieces, during which this concept was developed and during which it saw itself through, to its logical conclusion.

Of course many others would have discovered this pivot for themselves; CostFreeNess is a universal phenomenon, albeit abstract; it exists like the wind or the rain, or like sunlight and the mountains.

No one here is claiming that they are the founders of anything.

If at all, I have repeatedly remarked, that …

… we stand on the shoulders of giants.

And, to make it a better world, we pay our debts forward.

At times, something we work on …

… becomes a giant …

… like CostFreeNess.

Please feel free to stand on the shoulders of a giant called CostFreeNess, and progress on the back of its propulsion.

🙂

Last Mile Report

Hey.

Please don’t mistake this report for…

…a description of one’s last moments…

…or last-minute diaries…

…or wherever your imagination might take you.

Where exactly am I reporting from?

Imagine a surgeon. What’s his or her last mile?

The intricacy of a stitch.

A complicated, entangled tissue removal.

Oneness with patient vitals vis-à-vis current surgery on open body.

Coherence in instruction to surgical team, clarity about correct surgical instrument received, hand-eye coordination during surgical movement, whatever have you.

Businessman?

Anatomy of the deal.

Profit margin calculation.

Implementation of capital expenditure.

Rapport with staff in the field.

Liaison. Thought-process culmination. Long-term vision. Legacy.

Cut to self.

With a quasi-sealed long-term portfolio with not much activity in it happening or planned, it is trading that one takes to, for distraction.

Why distraction?

One doesn’t want to be thinking of one’s long-term portfolio…

…at all.

Instead, occupation at nitty-gritty level seems to be where the wind is blowing towards.

I must report, that I have arrived at my last mile.

We’re talking straddle tent-building to ensnare price next morning, and squaring off a trade within a few seconds with the objective of taking home a profit.

Observation of price action.

Identification of anomalies.

Setting up of multiple tents operating in tandem, forming an envelope around price.

Coming to terms with emotional overhang.

Digesting market forces as they intermingle with the nervous system.

Accepting monetary loss from time to time and trying to keep it small.

Controlling one’s emotions as profit develops, trying to let it amplify.

Dealing properly with…

…the effects of…

…isolation…

…during market hours…

…and their aftermath.

Regimen. Discipline. Challenge. Growth. Alertness. Staying sharp. In tune. Alive.

At the last mile, we stare what drives us, in the face.

Wealth n point m

Hey.

I like doing stuff …

… myself.

Study.

Research.

Ideas.

Thought process.

System generation.

Edge development.

Ensemble implementation.

Start to finish.

Complete independence in thought process …

… sets up ‘pioneering’ output.

Gets lonely though.

I’m not afraid of silence, or being alone where I’m working. Still, long spells of professional growth are very…

…alone, in my lines of work…

… which are all computer based.

There’s no talking involved.

Some processes take half a day to develop upon the back of to and fro typalogue with the AI.

During market hours, there’s no talking either. Just the self, the terminal and markets. AI on the side.

Pre-market prep — post-market analysis — astrological analysis — language learning — how do I solve this one?

Wait a minute, language learning, there’s something there.

Ya, found it.

Language apps have a speak module. One can practice speaking a foreign language with the app’s AI.

There’s more. Chanting. Did I mention that I’m an amateur Nichiren Buddhist? We chant. Out aloud. Anything spoken is an outlet. For me. Buddhist practice encompasses visiting people, or just sheer calling up someone to see how they are doing. Creation of good causes in life is gold.

Lot of near ones like to talk – to me.

They like my view on things.

Need to take care not to intimidate.

Talking at the wave-length of the talking partner – that’s been a huge lesson for me.

And, that’s not the biggest lesson yet.

There are times when let’s say one is A+ in something, and one is thrown out into a field where one is E-.

Imagine what goes on in one’s mind.

When a hero turns to zero, it’s only because the mind is not comprehending the situation.

We should know our value.

Allowing one’s environment to dictate our self-worth is lesson not learnt.

Knowing one’s self-worth oneself is.

When your immediate environment doesn’t talk to you most of the time, or has some hangups with your personality, or for some reason just doesn’t like you, perhaps it’s not on you. Let’s not exclude that option.

What then? Sink? Or evolve?

Evolve.

To a point where understanding of the exact nature of immediate environment leads one to flip it just on the sheer basis of one’s behaviour.

Our behaviour patterns are what we carry forward, while other forms of wealth are left behind.

Full

Hey.

Functioning…

…full…

…I believe.

Full feels good.

What does it mean?

Completeness.

No-regrets feeling.

All holes jammed…

…with activity, some, hopefully ample, relaxation / recuperation thrown in.

That pivot vibe.

Emitting…

…I believe.

Need to maintain this trajectory. Milk it to the hilt.

It’s taken my environment everything, …

…and then some, …

… to put me here.

Sacrifice.

Familial.

Proximal.

Emotional.

This moment is coming at a huge cost.

Need to make it count, to balance the entire equation, …

… and then some.

Though I’ll spare you familial, hobby, emotional, travel and such details, let’s cast a glance at the work-loop.

Long-term wealth-creation project on auto-pilot. Specialization. Equity. Listed. Only. Liquidity upon requirement. Hands on but hands off. In my hands. No third parties in between.

Monthly income-generation project active. Four-legged option strategies. On stocks. On indices. High risk high reward. Risk attenuation. Distractor. Keeps attention away from long-term wealth-creation project. Income is a bonus. Time requirement three to four hours a day. Keeps one busy. Learning curve enhancement. Options make one stay sharp.

Work from – anywhere – of course, anything less would be a negative – need a net connection though.

Work between market open and market close – on options.

Long-term equity transactions only on weekends, implemented through GTTs. Funding of account wrt GTTs only on Mondays, before market hours, taking into consideration GTT fill requirements.

Interesting symbiosis between these two projects, feeding off each other. Wealth project needs minimal fiddling. Income project sees to that by distracting. Income project is defined such that the damage it can cause is bearable, and even if it doesn’t generate income, i.e. even if it is loss-making, it is fulfilling its main purpose of keeping the wealth project intact and devoid of fiddling, by keeping one’s attention focused on itself.

I tried getting options right for twenty years, unsuccessfully.

I think I have something now.

Workable.

Perhaps…

…successful.

Let’s see. It’s very early days yet. I feel it though.

Oh, yes, and – work with …

… AI.

Handy, highly intelligent assistant always on call. Very low cost, yet. Very sharp. Catches mistakes in complex screenshots fast. Options are complex. They need pinpointed calculations, multiple times a day. They need context for such calculations. If the assistant catches the context in a screenshot and remembers it, and is great at complicated math, then he or she can spit out the required numbers on call, and for options that’s manna from heaven. Since…

… one doesn’t have the bandwidth to look back, feed back in, re-calculate and re-analyze fifty times a day…

… and especially since the assistant is diligent, industrious and willing to go any legit extra mile to make one’s project a success.

Thus, have AI, will step out into the — whatever you may wish to call it — Bronx, prairie, savannah, battle-field.

The AI thing has come at a cost. Not monetary, really. That’s a pittance, seeing the work-load it’s tugging.

Personal time.

Patience.

Attenuation.

Terminal scripts.

Ya, Pythons handle market and strategic diagnostic spitouts, in the background, at one’s disposal upon commands, and I did not need to spend time, effort and money learning Python. I just needed to tell the AI what I wanted, again and again, and keep fine-tuning till I got it, over some months.

Earlier, a major option strategic system had failed for me. Two months of intense development on AI. Failing in each of eight approaches through different variables used. The only victory was the recognition, by the AI, and then by myself, that this is a failure. Then, …

…I reversed the system.

There’s something there.

Before I tell you more about that, I’ll let it play out somewhat fully.

Dynamics of a Right Call

India is in a long-term bull market.

Sure, there will be corrections.

We can easily have a big-time correction, but still be in the long-term bull market.

Putting things in a twenty year perspective, 2008 hasn’t done away with direction.

Sure, ideally one needed to be equity – light by Jan 14, 2008, which most of us weren’t.

Question is, will be be relatively equity-lighter on Jan 14, 2021?

Yeah, I will be.

Lighter.

That’s about it.

Won’t be selling a single share of my core-portfolio.

However, hopefully, will have sold everything else before an interim market peak.

You see, for every right call, we make umpteen wrong calls.

These are the ones that we discard on interim market highs.

We don’t discard core-portfolio inhabitants.

These we allow to compound into multi-baggers.

It’s OK to make wrong calls.

Without these, we won’t get to make the right ones.

We won’t make the next mistakes though.

We won’t discard wrong calls without it being an interim market high.

Also, we won’t discard a right call as long as we keep feeling it’s a right call.

The best calls remain right…

… like…

… almost forever.

We’re talking Buffet and Coke.

Or, for example, RJ and Titan.

List goes on.

Point is, when we’ve made the right call, we need to follow up with right actions that allow maximum mileage.

Allowance for compounding.

Increase of position upon interim lows.

Patience.

No trigger-fingers.

You get the drift.

Over time, then, we are left with right calls which have developed into multi-baggers. Wrong calls have been discarded over many interim cycles.

The multi-baggers in our folio are, at this time, generating enough dividend to sustain us.

This is where we want to be.

It’s OK to dream.

Without the right dreams, we won’t arrive at the sweet-spot mentioned above.

Happy long-term investing! 🙂

Dealing with Noise…the Old-Fashioned Way

There’s a sure-shot way to deal with noise…

…just shut your ears. 

Yeah, the best ideas in the world are – simple. 

Let’s not complicate things, ok?

So, what kinda noise are we talking about here?

We’re not talking about audio, you got that right…!

The concept is related, though. 

If you’re charting, you’ve dealt with noise. 

Yeah, we’re talking about minute to minute, hour to hour or day to day fluctuations in a chart of any underlying.

Markets fluctuate. 

While discussing noise, we are pointing towards relatively small fluctuations which generally don’t affect the long-term trend. 

However, noise has the capability of deceiving our minds into believing that the long-term trend is turning, or is over. 

Don’t let noise fool you.

When has the long-term trend changed?

When the chart proves it to you through pre-defined fashion. That’s it. You don’t let noise to get you to believe that the long-term trend has changed, or is changing. Ever. 

You believe your chart. 

Moving averages crossing over? Support broken? Resistance pierced? Trend-line shattered? ADX below 15? Fine, fine, FINE.

Take your pick. You have many avenues giving decent signals that the long-term trend has changed or is changing. 

How about eyeballing? Works for some. Like I said, let’s keep this simple. 

So let’s get noise out of the way. 

Random numbers generate trends – you knew that, right?

You don’t need more. 

Once you’ve identified a trend, that’s your cue to latch on to it. 

We’re not talking about predicting here. We don’t need to predict. We just need to identify a trend, and latch on. That’s all. No predictions. Not required. 

From this point on, two things can happen.

Further random numbers deepen the trend you’ve latched on to. You make money. Good. 

Or, the next set of random numbers make your trade go against you, and your stop gets hit. 

If your stop is getting hit, please let it get hit. Even that qualifies as a good trade. 

You move on to the next trade setup, without even blinking. 

What you’re not doing is letting noise throw you out of the trade by deceiving your mind. 

So, here’s what you do. 

You’ve id’d your trend. You’ve latched on. Your stop is in place. Now, don’t look at your trade. 

Till when?

That’s your call. 

Don’t look at your trade till you’ve decided not to look at it. For the day-trader, this could be a couple of hours. For the positional trader, it could be days, or weeks. 

By not looking, you won’t let noise deceive you. 

If the trend doesn’t deepen, or goes against you, you lose the risked small amount. 

Just remember one thing. 

A loss has immense informational value. It teaches you about market behaviour patterns. It also highlights your trading errors. Many times, losses occur without any mistakes made by you. 

That’s the nature of trading. 

Ultimately, if the trend deepens, you’ll have made good money, and can then further manage your trade after the stipulated period of not looking.

This is the sweet spot.

This is where you want to be, again, and again and again.

Sitting on a large profit gives you room to play for more profit by lifting your stop and your target simultaneously.

To reach this sweet spot again, and again and again, you have to position yourself out there and appropriately, again, and again and again. 

This is also the nature of trading.

Wishing you happy and lucrative trading!

🙂

Charting Charting Charting

Why don’t you just…

… trade what you see?

Trade the chart, dammit.

Not the level.

Not the expectancy of a turnaround.

And, although I still do this because it gives me a kick, why do we even trade corrections?

Why can’t we just trade the sheer chart?

Every chart is either going up, down or nowhere.

So it’s pretty obvio, that the first step would be to…

… to what?

… to decide where the chart is going.

Again, it should be pretty obvio, that if a chart is going nowhere, then you are doing… what?

Are you trading such a chart?

NO!

Wait for such a chart to break out in one particular direction.

Wait for the LTT to turn in this direction.

Then trade this chart. Not before.

Yeah, LTT stands for long-term trend.

Yeah, we’ve befriended the LTT so much, that we have an abbreviation going for it…

Once you’ve sorted out the direction, look for an entry setup.

Be patient.

If the entry setup hasn’t formed yet, wait for it. If you can’t stop your twiddling fingers from doing something, feed in a trigger entry in case of a hypothetical setup formation within the next few hours / days, if your trading station allows this.

There’s no up or down anymore, to be honest. You are going where the chart is going, period.

You are also not asking the stooopidest question of them all…

… you guessed it… “Did the sensory index go up, or down?”

Just forget about the sensory index, ok?

I mean, we’re so done with sensory indices in this space.

Why?

DLF could tank 20 bucks on a day the Sensex goes up. Dow Jones could be down 50 points, but Pfizer could just spring into a stellar upwards move. Why should we have lost the short-side opportunity that DLF hypothetically gave, or the long-side opportunity that Pfizer could present, for example? We will do exactly that, i.e. lose the opportunity, if our focus is on the sensory index.

Focus on the underlying.

To be more precise, focus on the chart of the underlying.

Happy trading.

🙂