Category Archives: Opportunity

Making it Count

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You’re playing a big one.

What’s foremost?

Make it count. For heaven’s sake.

Why?

Big plays don’t come too often. When they do, you have to catch them. You need to have energy left, to play. Then you just go all the way. Till the play plays itself out.

Life is an accumulation of knicks and knacks.

At first, you don’t know what you’re good for.

When you do know it, you start out as a net-net loser in whatever you’re good for, because every rookie needs to pay tuition fees. These are the costs of your mistakes.

Then you start getting the hang of something you’re naturally good at. Tricks of the trade – you learn them. You succeed in making your activity applicable, perhaps even financially viable.

Next step is to scale up.

You need to make your successful model count. Period.

Tired? Want to do other things? Need to borrow? Too big a pain? Time-issues? Overdose? Bureaucracy?

Whatever.

Don’t lessen the flow. Hold on. Ask the Universe for reserves. See the play through.

One life can mean just a few big plays.

When you’ve latched onto one, and have set it up so beautifully, now’s the time make it count.

Best of luck!

🙂

Small Things are Big Things

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

You’re tying up the loose ends. 

Your small acts here count big. 

Please see them through to their logical conclusion. 

Don’t get up without completing full action. 

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

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

No.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The mind is like a baby. 

Don’t deny it outright. 

Trick it. 

Let it stray for a bit. 

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

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

Don’t lose yourself into lost causes. 

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

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

How?

Open your eyes and see the world. 

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

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

Plusses & Minuses of a Cloud-Society

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Where do we stand today?

What’s changed compared to yesterday?

Are we better off?

What’s not better off?

Where is all this heading to?

Lastly, what’s your takeaway. 

People, questions, questions and more questions. It’s good to ask questions. Those who don’t, well, they don’t evolve. Stagnation in today’s day and age is owing to being late for a bus because nobody was there to put your shoes on for you, so that you could catch the bus. You didn’t attempt to put on these yourself, and you didn’t attempt to run-off bare-feet either. You kept waiting for someone who would put your shoes on for you. People, forget it and wake up. This party’s hot, and it’s moving very fast. Keep moving with it. It’s a hell of a ride. 

The word “Cloud” is very big today. 

“One needs to be in the Cloud, blah blah blah” etc. is heard at parties. 

Humans have realised the vulnerability of hardware. Data in the cloud is probably safer. Yes, Cloud it is . Cloud is the future. HOWEVER…

a). Keep multiple backups on your own hardware also. Accidental deletion on the cloud could sync across all your devices. Where do you stand then? Most cloud backup softwares throw in backing up to additional hardware for free. Use this. It’s a legitimate freebie. You’d be a fool not to use this. Btw, of course you’ve got your time-machine or similar backups going on the side too. BE WELL BACKED-UP.

b). Don’t necessarily keep sensitive data on the cloud. You can very easily manually back up your password-bank (for example) across multiple devices. Sensitive data needs to be password protected. Period. Music and photos can fall into different categories here. Depends on you. 

c). The norm with contacts is that they start backing up to your main email ID. Great. Losing one’s contacts becomes that much harder. Don’t store sensitive stuff in your contacts. 

d). Your main email ID becomes hugely important. Make sure it’s not hacked. Keep changing it’s password. Remember it’s password. Update it in your password bank. Use your email ID to search. Old emails, files, attachments, photos, anything. Today, the whole repository goes along with your email. 

e). Have a balanced approach towards social media. Don’t upload stuff you’ll regret. Try and circulate your family photos within controlled circles. Be wary of social media, and teach your kids of its dangers. 

f). THEN, Cloud is one thing, and accessibility to it and being well-organised on it is another. You could be fully in the cloud, but what use is your stuff to you in the cloud, if it’s not accessible across all your devices seamlessly, at a button-click. There are many software-services doing this for you. Your software-service needs to have a lightning search-functionality, which goes through your search-words and hashtags at a super speed [((btw you are not functioning without hashtags today, so that you can easily sift through your stuff, and call up something in a flash))]. Of course the whole thing costs. Just pay and BECOME SEAMLESS. What’ll you be set back by? 50 USD pear annum? Don’t be penny-wise pound-foolish. DO THIS. 

g). Please don’t forget your Internet-Security along the path. Use a pay-service, on you mobiles and your computers. People, why do we forget the basics?

h). Guard your eyes. Wash them. Use a moistener. Use Ayurvedic eye-drops on the side. Do eye-exercises. 

i). Guard agains neck pain (back-pain). Swim. Walk. Posture. Don’t overdo media. 

j). Guard agains index-finger pain. Mobile and desktop typing and touch has made the index finger of supreme importance. However, it is susceptible to pain and disease if you are not careful. 

k). Guard against heart-attack. We are a sedantry lot now. Almost all day, we vegetate. Most of us, that is. Get a band. Programme it to buzz every hour that you are in your seat. When it buzzes, move. Follow your daily steps. 10-15,000 steps per day is the need of the hour. Couple the band to your diet. Follow its calorie-burning module. Teach your band, till it comes out with intelligent suggestions. A band is like a pet. 

l). Guard your karma-balance. Be a contributor. Don’t only be a free user. Contribute freely on the web. Add to the world. Take the world forward. You are using so much stuff off and on the web, for free, that if you are not on your guard, you might end up exhausting a lot of karma. Thus, generate fresh positive karma too, to keep levels up. 

m). Lastly, it all depends on the internet connection you have, and how much you remain connected as you move. Spend well here, have access to more than sufficient data allocation and speed, both on your computer and on your mobile. An adequate internet connection with ample data-allocation is the lifeline of being in the Cloud. 

YEAH, use your Cloud well and optimally. Fine-tune your Cloud-effectivity. Keep in good shape. Be Cloud-proud! 🙂

Understanding and Assimilating the Fear-Greed Paradox

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Holy moly, what are we talking about?

Let’s say you’ve done your homework.

You’ve identified your long-term stock.

Fundamentals are in place. Management is investor-friendly. No serious debt issues. Earnings are good.

Valuation is not right.

You wait.

How long?

Till the price is right.

What happens if that doesn’t happen.

You don’t pull the trigger. It’s difficult, but you just don’t pull.

Let’s say the price is becoming right.

You are looking for an extra margin of safety.

You are waiting to pounce. How long?

What’s your indicator?

Your gut?

Many things have been said about the gut.

It does feel fear.

Look for that fear.

Scrip is near a very low support, but holding. You are afraid that this last support might break and that the scrip might go into free-fall. Look for that fear. There goes your buying opportunity, you are probably saying. Intraday, support is broken. You are now sure it’s gone. Look for that feeling. Intraday, scrip comes back. Closes over support. Large volume. This chronology is your buy signal. You pick up a large chunk. Scrip doesn’t look back.

You don’t have to go through this rigmarole. You don’t have to bottom-pick. This exercise is for those who want that extra margin of safety.

Now invert the situation.

You’re sitting on a multibagger.

Lately, you’re not agreeing with the company’s business plans. You want out. Best time for you to exit would be now, sure. But, scrip is in no resistance zone, and is going up and up and up. What do you do?

Look for greed within yourself, when you start saying “Wow, this is going to be the next 100-bagger!” Look for the moment during this phenomenal rise when you’re getting attached to the scrip and don’t want to get rid of it, despite having concluded that you don’t agree with the vision of the promoters. Look for the time you start going “My Precious!”

Sell.

This chronology is your intrinsic sell signal.

Sure, radical.

I agree.

Sure, I’m combining trading techniques to fine-tune my investing.

I’ve stood on the shoulders of giants.

I’ve seen from their heights.

It’s time I start contributing.

What’s the Intrinsic Value of Inflation – FOR YOU?

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Pundits taught about Inflation.

It ate into you.

Did it discriminate?

Nope?

Did life discriminate?

Or was it your Karma?

So you made it to HNI, without perhaps knowing what HNI stands for.

You’re a high networth investor, bully for you.

Here’s a secret. You’re not really bothered too much about Inflation.

What?

Yeah. Don’t bother too much about it. 

Why?

It’s eating into you, given, right. 

By default, you need to look into something that’s eating into you, right?

Well, right, and then, well, wrong. 

You had a hawk-eye on inflation till you made it to HNI. Well done, correct approach.

Now, you’re gonna just use your energies for other purposes, for example for asset allocation, fund-parking patience, opportunity scouting, due diligence – to name just a few avenues. 

Why aren’t you using even a minuscule portion of your energies to bother about the effects of inflation?

Well, simply because it’s not worth the effort – FOR YOU – now that you’re an HNI. 

Sure, inflation will eat into you. However, the way you handle your surplus funds will defeat its effects and then some, many times over. Use your energies to maximise this particular truth. 

What makes you an HNI? Surplus funds to invest, right?

Surplus sits. 

It waits for opportunities. 

An entry at an opportune moment gives maximum returns.

You’ve sifted through the Ponzis. You’ve isolated multi-bagger investments. You’re waiting for the right entry. 

Meanwhile, old Infleee is eating a few droplets of your wad. Let it. Focus on what we’ve discussed. A multi-bagger investment entered into at the sweet-spot could well make ten times of what old Infleee eats up. 

Go for it. 

Hanging On to a Structure

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How does one build a wall?

Brick upon brick, right?

One doesn’t usually take out the brick two layers below to use elsewhere. Common-sense. 

Why should it be any different while building a rock-solid portfolio?

Well, it’s not. 

Those who feel it is will soon realise… that it’s not.

You set up an investment.

You then see it through to its logical conclusion. 

You don’t let it go in between… …unless we’re talking about a life and death situation.

Apart from this one caveat, you just don’t let the investment go. You see it through… to its logical conclusion. Period. 

Meanwhile, other opportunities arise. 

You are tempted to get into them. That’s what opportunities are for. 

Now you need to be creative. 

You’re not letting one structure go for the sake of creating another. 

You are going to keep the former and create the latter. 

How?

Dig into your reserves.

How were the reserves created?

They were created by former structures that were seen through to their logical conclusion. These contributed along their paths and upon their culmination. 

Reserves not enough?

Borrow agains a former structure. 

Don’t borrow big. Borrowed amount should not be big enough to harm the former structure, but big enough to couple with your reserves and see your new structure through. 

Still not enough? Requirement for new structure not being met?

Let the new structure go. 

Opportunities keep coming and going. No one’s got a copyright on opportunities. 

Save up for the next one. 

Brick by brick, remember. Without sacrificing the bricks below. 

🙂

Harnessing FD-Power within your Meta-Game

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Everyone’s heard of fixed deposits (FDs). 

Are they so non-lucrative?

I believe that in some countries, you need to pay the bank to hold a fixed deposit for you. 

Why does our system shun savings? 

What are savings, actually?

On-call cash. Ready for you when an opportunity arises. 

That’s exactly it. The system doesn’t want you to have ready cash when an opportunity is there. 

Why?

Because finance people have already dibsed on your cash. They want it when opportunity is there. The cash should be available to their institution, not to you.

That’s why, your bankers generally try and get you to commit whatever spare cash floats in your account. They try for commitment towards non-access for a specific period of time.

I don’t know how things are in other parts of the world, but in India, a fixed deposit is still considered ready cash, because one can nullify one’s FD online, in a few seconds. Some banks charge a penalty for such nullification, but this penalty is charged on the interest generated, not on the principal. Therefore, in India, you have access to at least your FD principal (plus a part of the interest generated) when you really need it, all within a few seconds. 

What’s the meta-game here?

You “lock” your money in an FD for one year, for example. Let’s suppose that within that one year, no opportunity arises for you. You cash out with full interest. In India, as of now, if you’re in the top taxation bracket, and are a senior citizen, you’re still left with a return of between 6.6%-6.8% after tax, whereby we are not looking at the effects of inflation here, to keep the example simple, though I know, that we must look at inflation too. We’ll go into inflation some other day. 

Meanwhile, your FD has been on call, for you. Let’s assume that a lucrative investment opportunity does arise within the year, and your break your FD after 6 months, reducing earned interest to 4% annualised from 9.5-9.75% p.a. However, your investment yields you 20% after tax, because it was made at the most opportune moment.

You do the math.

Do you see the inherent power of ready money?

Your FD has thus worked for you in multiple ways. 

It has worked as an interest-generator, yielding a small return. Simultaneously, it has worked as ready cash, on-call in case of opportunity. Should the opportunity arise, and if the investment that follows works out well, a handsome return could be made. It’s all should/could/would in a meta-game. 

There is yet another way FDs are used. I use them this way. 

FDs are a safety-net. They allow you to take high risks elsewhere. You lose the fear of high risk once you know that your family is secured through your safety-net. In a safety-net, sums are large enough and deposits are regular enough to discount (actually effectively / realistically nullify) the power of inflation. With the haven of a safety-net going for your family, you can enter high-risk arenas fearlessly. Fearlessness is a perquisite to do well in high-risk arenas. If you’re afraid of loss, don’t enter such areas. Safety-nets make you lose your fear of loss elsewhere. 

People – SAVE! 

Create FDs. Don’t listen to your bankers. Commit your money to an uncompromisable lock-in only if you’re convinced that the investment is safe and really worth the lock-in for you. Harness the power of the FD for yourself. A safety-net of FDs is the first step towards the formulation of a profitable meta-game.

Did you also know that when you create an FD, the money used to create the FD doesn’t show up as ready cash in your account. Bank accounts with large amounts of ready cash over long periods of time are like red flags which online fraudsters look for. Creation of FDs gives extra online safety to your money. 

ONLY you are responsible for your money.

Start looking after it. 

Start making it grow.

Start saving. 

NOW.

Charting Charting Charting

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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.

🙂

Moving away from the Greeks

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I’ve never been to Greece.

I have nothing against people from Greece.

I don’t like Greeks, though.

Yeah, I’m an options player.

The Greeks I don’t like are options Greeks, he he he…!

What, you thought I didn’t like actual Greeks?

Come on, I’m sure I’ll love Greece and actual Greeks!

When you don’t like something, you can try to go around it.

I don’t need options Greeks to play options. I’ve found a way around the Greeks.

I’m sure others have discovered this too, because truth is truth.

Let me tell you about it.

You’re buying in the direction of the long-term trend.

You’re buying (calls / puts) after a significant correction / rally level has been hit.

You’re buying post a small move in the direction of the long-term trend, after the correction / rally level has been hit.

You’re buying out of the money to compound the cheapness.

You’re buying with breathing space on your side, so that the trade has enough time to pan out in your favour.

You’re not booking without a very solid reason, once the trade is running in your favour.

You’re trying to book (deep) in the money.

You must, must, must let your profits run as long as you can. This is the toughest part, but also the most essential one.

That’s all.

No Greeks.

Just common sense.

Options Setup El Cheapo

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What are the basic ingredients of a cheap options setup?

We’re not bothered about what the underlying is.

We’re outlining in general. 

A correction / rally needs to have taken place. 

The correction / rally level needs to be significant.

That’ll account for the cheapness of the option.

I suppose it’s obvio, but I’m still saying it nevertheless, that you’re going to be trading in the counter-correction or counter-rally direction, but in tandem with the overall long-term trend.

Then, a slight move needs to have started in your trade direction after this significant correction / rally. 

That could account for correct choice of trade direction. 

We need just one more ingredient.

Can you guess what that is?

Yeah, breathing space. 

Allow the trade time to pan out in your direction. 

Buy an option which has at least 3-4 weeks left till expiry, if not more. 

That’s it. 

It’s as simple as that. 

Lucrative ideas are simple. There is nothing complicated about them. 

Lose your sophistication and / or complicatedness. You’re not going to make it big by being sophisticated or complicated. These two characteristics will negatively affect your trading. Flush them down the drain. 

Be simple. 

Happy trading. 

🙂

That Thing about High Growth

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Panipat, India, 2004…

The Asia-Pacific Head’s speech was intriguing. I still remember it, even though it was delivered a decade ago. 

He’d come to inaugurate his bank’s branch in our town. He said that he loved opening new branches in the middle of chaos, where he can barely manage to park his car, and where there is just about an iota of order amidst disorder. 

We were puzzled, and I believe one of the invitee’s even ventured asking why. “That’s where 8%+ growth exists” replied he, or something to that effect, and his words stamped themselves in my memory. 

Cut to 2014.

Look around you.

Can you find any corner in the world, where high growth is linear?

Very low single digit growth can be linear, yes. In such countries, there are systems, that check short-cuts and mal-practices. Governments are overall honest. Social security systems are up and running. 

There is some element or the other of a banana republic to any really high-growth economy you find today. You don’t really know what’s cooking in China’s soup, do you, behind the media-ban? Brazil’s let so many starve to host a successfully organised world cup. How much of Russia is about mafia, and crime? And, India might be a democracy, but you just need to look at the inflation and deficit numbers to figure out that something’s off. We’ve just gone through the BRIC nations, prime examples of high non-linear growth. 

Let’s not grieve about what all is wrong with high-growth nations. Let’s look at what we do have going in our favour. What’s common to such nations?

 

– The fact that growth comes in spurts, when some conducive event occurs, like a sound governance stretch.

– The fact that these economies are all highly volatile. 

– The fact that we don’t need anything else – to trade them. 


Yes, we are going to trade such economies. Regular volatility, both ways, is what a trader wants. 

You can invest in such economies if you want to, sure. In that case, you’ll need to use your common-sense and not believe every balance-sheet that is being presented to you. You’ll need to read between the lines at every step. Some people are good at that. 

I’m more comfortable trading a volatile market. 

Thus, I really don’t care why a Ranbaxy might be poised to go down. I’ll just be looking to purchase a cheap Put upon noticing that a key support level has broken down. 

At the same time, I couldn’t care less if an Infosys is just about to disclose stupendous numbers. I’ll just be looking to purchase a cheap call based on a technical level being pierced towards the up-side. 

That’s the thing I love about trading. You don’t need to ask more than a few basic questions before taking the plunge. Also, with avenues like options now being liquid both ways, risk is exactly defined and relatively low. 

The thing about high-growth economies is that you can play them well enough with options. 

Wishing for you happy and safe trading.

🙂

Remember The Frog Who Lived in a Well?

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Paramhans Yogananda once spoke of a frog who lived in a well. 

You see, this frog was visited by his cousin from the ocean, who invited him back to the ocean. Till that point in time, the well-froggy thought his well-world was the ultimate. When the well-froggy entered the ocean, his head exploded. 

Today, I feel like the well-froggy. 

Yeah, I’ve become serious about forex. I’m going to specialize in it. 

I’m already specialised in Indian equities, and am going to seal it off with this second area of specialization.

That’s after a controlled head-explosion, of course. 

Coming from the world of equity, forex feels like a borderless and unlimited party. It also feels very, very special.

Everything’s so enormous. So streamlined. So quality. 24×5. Volume. Paperless. Non-slippage. Pinnacle of technicals and fundamentals. Unparalleled and breaking newsfeed, if you want it … … …

I’m feeling blessed. This line is for me. I can feel it’s challenge. I think I’m cut out for it. I think I’m going to love it.

It’s taken ten years in finance to find this calling. 

I’ve tried everything that finance has to offer. Equity, bonds, derivatives, bullion / metals, commodities, currencies versus the INR, ULIPs, Arbitrage, mutual funds, real-estate, debt, private equity …….., you name it. 

Only pure equity has given me that kick till now. Of course I’m not going to throw it away. I’ll be in pure equity for life. 

And now, yeah, it’s forex on the world stage. 

And look how nature is responding.

It’s already directed me to a mentor. A lot of my thinking is changing. Till today, I’ve done good with just my common-sense in the world of finance. I suppose forex is a bit trickier than that, and that one needs a good mentor in the beginning. 

Wow! A world-class mentor in forex, when one is starting out with the nitty-gritty! That’s a big one!

I’m going to give it back. This blog’s a give-back too. I’m not going to be stopping any word-flow, I can promise you that. 

Cheers!

🙂

 

Dynamics of a Long-Long System

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What if your system doesn’t allow you to second-guess yourself?

Wouldn’t that be a wonderful situation?

And you’d be right there, in the middle of it all.

What would such a system look like?

Right, it would only go one way.

Long-long. “A-la-la-la-la-long”, to quote Inner Circle!

Why aren’t we talking about a short-short system?

Theoretically, we could. Theoretically, everything is possible.

Well, a short-short system would have no limits on your potential loss, if the trade went against you. That’s the fundametal problem I have against a short-short system, without even having gone into the whole leverage discussion.

You could bring the stop argument.

Fine.

Just take a deep breath.

Think clearly.

Take a look at the average price-speeds of both directions, long and short.

The average price-speed in the short direction is far higher. Price-jumps are greater. The probability of your stop getting high-jumped over is much higher in the short direction. Frankly, that doesn’t work for me.

Also, which market allows you to set an overnight stop, barring the international forex market?. None that I know of, at least in India. No stops overnight means potential exposure to a large drawdown upon next market-opening, and here I’d like to be in a long-situation, because loss is capped.

Therefore, when we’re discussing a system that doesn’t allow us to second-guess ourselves, I will only discuss a long-long system.

What does long-long mean?

Yeah, we’re talking about a system, where you’re looking for long trades all the time. You don’t look for trades to go short in-between. There’s no shorting in the equation whatsoever. The moment you start thinking about shorting, you start second-guessing your long-approach.

What does that mean for someone applying such a system?

It means that the whole world might be crumbling apart, and one is still looking for long-trades. Yes, one could take some hits here. One just needs to make sure, that one’s consecutive drawdown doesn’t exceed a bearable level. Also, as losses might pile up, one position-sizes one’s way through. The concept ot position-sizing has been pioneered and elucidated by Dr. Van K. Tharp @ www.iitm.com.

It also means that when your underlyings start to run, you’ll be piling up winning trade upon winning trade.

The thing is, nobody knows when what is going to run. If you’ve taken all second-guessing out of your equation, you’re aligning yourself with the correct direction once things start to run. Going the other way now would mean further losses.

Then, it further means that if you lock in a big winner in a running market, your paper profits can now be used to harness even greater profits in the same trade. Such big winners provide a big boost to your trading corpus, and, in my opinion, are the difference between winning and losing in the markets. One needs to keep oneself aligned correctly when such opportunities come along. A long-long system will keep you aligned, no matter what.

You could argue about dry spells.

In any dry spell, or when markets are tanking, there are still underlyings that are going up. You just have to identify them. Today, such identification is not difficult at all.

For such identification, you need market software, a data feed, and an algorithm which defines what you are looking for. Your software then scans the entire breadth of the market you’re in to try and find what you’re looking for, and opens corresponding charts for you for underlyings that are still going up, or where there is buying interest, buying pressure, unusual increment in volume or what have you.

Don’t let the word algorithm scare you. You don’t have to learn a new programming language to put an algorithm together. Common-sense is enough. You know what you’re looking for. Let’s say what you’re looking for involves volume and price. You look inside your market software. Then you couple two algorithms together into a new algorithm which defines what you are looking for. You see, a typical market software like Metastock already uses algorithms for volume moving average, price etc., and these are visible to you. Just copy-paste and make a new algorithm that suits your purpose.

Lastly for today, decouple yourself from the market during trading hours, except when you’re feeding in the trade. Analyze your current trades when the market is closed. Intuitively, you will probably feel that your decisions during off-market hours will be better than when you’re coupled to a live market. Find out for yourself. More on this some other day.