Category Archives: Position-Sizing

Cared to Rewire?

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Hey.

From this point onwards…

…it all boils down to…

…stamina.

Theories for market success have been out there, in abundance, since eternity.

Everybody can read how the richest man in Babylon…

…got rich.

Or how compounding works.

Position-sizing.

Entry quantum.

Margin of safety.

Profit run.

Multibaggers.

Engines of income generation.

Entry into the territory of wealth.

Generational wealth-creation. Etc.

Yes. Everybody can read. Or listen. Or both.

Question is…

…how many can follow through?

Of those who set out, how many can remain grounded and focused when the heat is turned up, like now?

Most importantly, how many can finish?

I would estimate that a low single digit percentage walks the talk to successful culmination.

Why?

You see, heat does something critical.

Once it is turned up, it burns out all nervous systems that haven’t been rewired.

Given that we are not born with nervous systems programmed towards market success, we need to rewire them over the years and over the knocks. Once fully rewired, our nervous systems can withstand, pivot, and generate wealth over prolonged strife.

As this crisis continues, more and more players will start to cave in.

Capitulation at lows.

Others will stop all activity owing to fear, but might not sell. They’ve frozen. Better than capitulation.

There will be some who cash out with the intent of getting in lower, cannot then find the courage when the lows come, and then join their frozen compatriots as the reversal arrives and accelerates.

Still others, with funds safely picked away in fixed deposits, will be afraid to bring them over to Equity. Fine. They are behaving as per their risk-pr0file. At least they are in control of their behaviour.

Rewired market entities will be acting. They know what to buy. Markets give ample time to study, and all kinds of preparation will have been done, like, yesterday. These folks will have started buying upon the arrival of their levels. Clockwork. Small entry quanta. Position-sized as per their risk profile. Programmed to keep entering for a long period. That’s how they will have positioned themselves and their liquidities. These entities will show stamina and will outlast everyone to still be buying at market bottoms and slightly beyond. They will emerge with the lowest buying averages, and will make the quickest multiples upon reversal, after which some will pull their principles out, while others will ride their holdings to multibaggers.

Who do you want to be?

It’s ok if you don’t identify with any of these categories. Find your passion elsewhere.

Or, self-PhD to a rewired market mindframe, sooner than later. Preferably – now. This crisis could even just be beginning. No one knows. Since no one also knows how long it will last, for all you know, you could still get a year or two’s great buying ahead.

Wishing you lucrative investing.

Magic

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Sure, …

… nobody said this was a bottom already.

No signs of a bottom.

For all you know, the real correction just started.

So, everyone is asking, …

… why in the world a buyer is buying …

… now.

Confused? No need to be.

First up, please understand, that money enters the market in a planned fashion when position sizing rules are in place.

Oh, there’s one more safety rule.

In a day, only so much goes in, in total.

Let’s say what you are referring to as a bottom comes within, hmm, two days, one day, four hours, one hour… ,

… whenever it comes.

Do you actually believe and / or have the guts to get fully invested in that minuscule time-frame?

Let me answer that for you. NO.

Why am I so clear on this?

Moving big money in one shot when the whole world’s pajamas are falling, and watching it possibly become half in a few days will most likely lead to neurosis and / or psychosis.

It is mentally digestible to keep buying at levels as per the entry quantum allowed by one’s position-sizing algorithm.

Though the overall market or index or sector benchmark might not be signalling a bottom, individual stocks hover around correction levels, threatening to recover from there.

We let them hover.

If they are not declining further from a correction level after a bit, we pick up one lot.

What’s the lot?

It’s a function of one’s networth at that point.

What function?

You decide. Yes. Your decide your own position size at each point thus, as per a mathematical calculation. You can decide to programme this function, for example, in a manner that you go in more when you are winning and go in less when you are losing. Or vice-versa. As per your personality and risk-profile. You call the shots. You are the master of your money and journey.

As time goes by, and as the correction deepens, you have lots of lots in. Ideally, you get fully invested before recovery. Compared with trying to move in fully at the exact bottom, well you might get lucky with the latter option, but it will burn your nerves, and resulting psychosis can last longer than when rational decisions will need to be taken. Not worth it. Position-size, entry quantum, going in bit by bit – this is what our nervous system can handle well without getting damaged. Markets change within months, perhaps weeks, and…

… when the magic happens, you deploy your exit strategy, whatever that is. Be rationally around to do so.

Or, simply, don’t do anything except watching the magic, …

… of a low buying average develop into a multiple.

Poise

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Hey.

Story’s changed already.

IT has suddenly become a defensive buy, it seems.

Not perceived as oil dependent.

See how fast that happened.

Five weeks ago one was hearing the RIP bugles for IT, or so the spin-doctors were trying to spin it.

Bottom-line : don’t believe the stories being spun. Have your own…

… high conviction.

And, the opportunity is…

…now.

Make up your mind.

Invest where you see stability and growth. Invest in India.

There are a lot of high conviction ideas in India that can be latched on to.

Fear makes good investments fall too. That is happening now. To take advantage of this effect, one needs to be fearless with high conviction.

How does one build high conviction in a stock?

Repeated shareholder-friendliness shown by a management.

Clean balance-sheet.

Abundance of free cashflow.

Debt-free-ness.

Longevity.

Vision.

Margin of safety.

That’s it.

Oh, one more thing.

Don’t force the market.

Let it make you enter.

Be poised with a funded GTT order in place before market open.

Keep doing this throughout the fall, as margin of safety deepens. One can do this if one has created enough liquidity during good times, and if one keeps entering with small entry quanta proportional to one’s networth.

Idea is to enter with and into high conviction multiple times, each time lowering the buying average.

With that, one sets oneself up for a fast multiple when markets recover.

It’s boiling down to…

…poise.

Soil-Conditions

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Hey.

The king wears…

…no clothes, …

…and doesn’t have an idea…

…as to what the adversary is wearing.

The latter, however, is aware of the former’s wardrobe malfunction.

Maniac versus potential fanatics, which is capable of a rational reaction?

Neither?

Probably.

It might seem though, perhaps correctly, that the former is exhibiting fanaticism.

Everything is a lie.

Over-reaction : huge.

Underlying cause : none visible, yet. Actually, adversary will now scramble to create underlying cause, even if it didn’t exist. Its leader is eliminated. One can’t expect reasonable reactions from a nation now one in anger. Anger as in, how dare you? Our guy might have been a demon, but who the hell are you to eliminate him and incite us to take over our own land. We might or might not want that, but WHO THE HELL ARE YOU? WHO ASKED YOU?

Status : the hornet’s nest has been disturbed. Deed is done. This blunder might well undo the king, unless he has planned to print his way through, which then will accelerate undoing his economy, which in turn will also undo the king. All arrows are promoting towards king – exiting stage – soon.

In this turmoil, world pays tax. Oil shock is upon us.

If one was in the adversary’s boots, one would have also sealed off Hormuz. What’s the surprise? Meaning, if one is surprised, where were your think tanks? Are they low IQ? Stupid? Non-existent? Probably a mix of all three, if that is possible. I’ll tell you why there is surprise. One grossly underestimated the adversary, who was in a state of preparedness to be able to seal off Hormuz in less than ten hours. That’s why there is surprise. Wars are won and lost because of the element of surprise.

Meanwhile, oil shock means mostly all components of the stock markets go down. Fall gains momentum. As value buyers, we are on high alert.

One is not rejoicing about what’s happening. War is terrible. Brings destruction to all involved. Acknowledged.

What’s happening is a stone cold implementation of entry strategy.

Staggered.

With small quanta. [Each quantum a function of one’s networth at that moment. Algorithm of that function to be decided by oneself.]

Wherever and whenever value is seen.

For as long as it’s seen, …

…or till liquidity gets exhausted.

When one enters at deep value, one has already made money.

It’s just that the world will stamp its approval during times of euphoria, which is when the money will show, as in the sapling having grown into a plant, or a tree.

That’s fine with us.

We absolutely ok with just keeping on planting sapling after sapling in the right soil conditions.

Holding The Line

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Getting set is not…

…the cat’s whiskers.

Holding the line…

…is.

Why?

It’s really (damn) tough to…

…hold the line.

Everyone and everything is trying to knock you off your line.

Firstly, there’s you.

You just can’t hold it, can you?

A green light will not become greener.

You strive for even more perfection, till you bungle your system.

Don’t OCD.

Develop a normal relationship between your system and yourself.

You’ve allocated. Now don’t look left or right.

And don’t speak about your efforts. Especially, don’t speak about your fund-allocation or your fund reserve.

Once your fund reserve is common knowledge, everyone eyes it, and is vying and conspiring for a loan till you melt.

Please don’t melt.

You’ve allocated for your long term strategy and your emergency fund. You are not to give it away. Period.

Nobody gives any hoots about how hard you’ve worked, or how you’ve saved all your life to have enough towards the implementation of your system, or, for that matter, about how many hits and beatings you’ve taken while developing your market-edge. Simultaneously, apart from not giving jack about you, all and their aunties eye your funds that you’ve allocated, and even those that you have implemented. They want it all, for themselves. You need it all for your system to function properly, for the long-term. Who will win?

You. Please. YOU.

Then, there are knocks. Genuine knocks. Life is about these. At these times you dig into emergency, not mainline. This is the reason for building up and sealing off emergency funds before implementation of your system.

It’s possible that knocks are many, and emergency funds go down to zero. You have no choice but to deplete your mainline. Now, come down with your position-size. Please remember that position-size is a directly proportional function of funds in play.

Finally, please improvise. Nature has provided you with a brain. Please use it. Make sure, at any cost, that you continue to…

…hold the line.

A-Gamers

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Hey, …

…nowadays, …

…we only play our A-game.

There’s no time for formalities.

It’s late in the day.

All weapons are out.

This is the need of the hour.

So, what are the salient features of our A-game?

A well-forged, multiply-faceted, time-tested road map – our system of systems – our one Strategy. This one’s 360 degrees. It incorporates both trading and investing, and leads to very long holds in cost-free form. Includes more than twenty highly competitive, sharpened, edge-providing Modules, about which I wrote a few articles back. As far as strategies go, we are cruising in a Maybach on the Autobahn. No worries there.

Patience. In the last twenty odd years, we have learnt how to sit. Makes biggest money, said we know who. Patience is ubiquitous, or is it? Many people have developed it. Many are born with it. But then, many are not. And, markets demand their own kind of patience. Over the years, we have learnt and developed market-patience. We wait for our levels before acting. We sit on our Cost-Free-Ness, like, forever. We are not in a hurry. I ‘can behave’ as if this is my own module 🙂 (do allow me the indulgence), but patience is universal and out there for everyone to incorporate and exploit on their own.

Liquidity. This is a module. Am reiterating it here since it is key. Our initial small-entry-quantum strategy (remember, that’s how we started!) allowed us ample liquidity, always. Yes, we were always liquid in situations, when they came, while building up the backbone of our portfolios. Slowly, portfolio-size started to grow. Then came the incorporation of position-sizing, thanks to my learnings from Dr. Van K.Tharp. Subsequently, I instinctively added my own twist to this, making it Non-Linear Position Sizing (NLPS) that we follow. NLPS initially allows for small entry quanta. As portfolio-size increases, so does each entry quantum-size. However, the latter increases more than y = x, i.e. more than linear. This means that over the very long term, entry quanta become remarkably substantial in size. Nevertheless, we still maintain balance by perhaps Fine-Tuning entries and exits to the nth level, i.e. with huge win probabilities, which automatically / mathematically leads to lesser entries. Strategy thus goes on cruise-control. Furthermore, outstanding entry-prices, followed by Quick Generation of cost-free-ness make our very long-term holdings as Anti-Fragile (thanks for the term, Mr. Taleb) as possible.

Talking of cruise-control, our back-end allows for full Automation at button-clicks. All transactional trail-mail is auto-forwarded to every required avenue. It’s a one-time self-setup time-expense, so don’t be afraid of it, since the reward is disproportionately huge. Each avenue allows preview and further transfer / storage after button-clicks. Taxation? Button-clicks. Indexing? Button-clicks. Retrieval? Button-clicks. Viewing in any format? Button-Clicks (baby).

Time. We have all the time in the world. We do our own thing. Income is sorted. Wealth is being generated on auto, and is multiplying. Learn languages. Travel. Pro-bono. I teach kids. To manage their own finances. From a young age. Currently I’m teaching four kids. It’s a give-back, and they can pay it forward.

In a nutshell, that’s my A-game. I’ve taught it forward, so I can talk about a we. You’ve seen it develop in this space over the last 14+ years. I’ve nothing to hide. It’s for everyone to use and benefit from. The act of Giving gives me the most Satisfaction in life.

Winnings

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Not all…

…winnings…

…are tangible.

Intangible winnings…

…can be far greater…

…in stature.

One can carry these with…

…anywhere.

Don’t need to know more.

They’ve won their case already.

Let’s break this down, using a concrete example.

Let’s take this blog.

First, the losses.

Subscribers?

Hardly.

Financial loss?

A few pennies a day, equalling domain charges plus plus divided by 365.

Effort loss?

Yes, a lot of effort goes in. However, it is rewarded heavily, though indirectly. Since there are no more losses, let’s talk about winnings.

Sharpening of skill – maximum.

As words flow, ideas are elucidated, take greater shape, and are cemented into a system.

I’ve often spoken about the fact that this blog can also be seen as fundamental / critical / what have you research towards developing a 360 degree unified market field approach. I think I’m there.

Let’s look at the system that has evolved over the last fourteen years – specifically, let’s look at modules incorporated.

Small Entry Quantum.

Non-Linear Position-Sizing.

Cost-Free-Ness.

Long-Term-Hold.

Positional-Hold (culminating in trade booked with cost-free-ness generated).

2 Demat Approach.

GTT incorporation.

Buy Low.

Sell High.

Entry.

Sitting.

Letting Profits Run.

Exit.

Averaging Down.

(Stop-)Loss attenuated by Cost-Free-Ness’s capability to rise by…

…’Banking on Infinity’…

…in a Non-Linear Long-Term Growth-Market.

The Zone.

The Line.

Fitting.

Market Forces.

Market Presence.

List goes on.

Bottom line is that what has emerged is a decent-size double-digit list of modules incorporated into one clear-cut, multi-level and dynamic wealth-creating strategy…

…with results that make ‘losses’ due to lack of subscribers statistically too small to even mention.

I write to create a magnificent system, and to keep fine-tuning it.

My system creates wealth for my family.

I donate a small part of our wealth to charity.

Hence my writing facilitates pro-bono work.

Some of the few readers of this blog might one day choose to implement a few modules, or perhaps the whole approach. I’m happy for them. God bless them. Magic Bull is completely free, and is part of my give-back to society.

I create good causes with my writing.

While writing, I feel buoyant, sharp, and fulfilled, carrying this combination of feelings into the day, spilling them over into other good causes created over the whole day.

Am thankful for this avenue, since it gives my creativity an outlet.

🙂

Approach

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Hey,

Just did a mental review about my approach to the markets over the years.

Saw how I started out.

What was the motivation?

Strategy?

Mindset?

Outcome?

Then gauged these parameters after being in the markets for ten years.

And, finally, assessed the same as of today, after being in the markets for twenty years.

Here are a few observations.

Approach softened over the years.

Not in quantity. Will come to that in a bit.

No, approach became opportunity-linked.

One didn’t wish that the markets would be somewhere.

One played them where they were, as was worthy of that situation.

One wasn’t tense.

One had rules. Approach was now rule-based.

One enjoyed the approach.

It was relaxing.

It now gave a kick.

Now, there was feeling of achievement.

Of creation.

Of success.

Earlier, all this wasn’t there.

One was tense most of the time.

One followed markets all the time.

Sometimes, sleep eluded.

Now, after market hours, what market? When you don’t think about it, it doesn’t exist, for you.

I’d said I would mention quantity, which has been increasing steadily, since it’s a function of portfolio-size.

So, in a nutshell, benefits abound, upon ever-increasing quantity?

What’s happened?

What’s changed?

Have gotten into a groove.

Found a sweet-spot.

Entered a zone. The Zone, perhaps.

It’s like that ‘perfect’ cover drive, or an optimal trajectory golf drive shot resulting in a birdie for the hole. Don’t wish to use ‘hole-in-one’ here, that would be too much… .

In the Zone, you know things.

Someone outside the Zone will ask how one knows.

Don’t know. One just knows.

One can attach oneself to the swing of the Universe.

One is one with the swing.

It takes time to get into the groove.

For me, make that twenty years.

One becomes mouldable, and flows with the current of the Zone.

I enjoy my approach.

It’s not tangible.

Visibility is not my criterion.

What is, then?

Fulfilment.

If my approach is all I have when I die, I’ll leave with a feeling of fulfilment.

2050

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Hey,

There’s a Street View… ,

… , and then there’s a street view.

I rely on…

…my street view.

Making it a point not to heed that the Street thinks, I repeatedly look for micro and macro signs on my street.

My street is where I am.

I mostly spend my time in my own country.

And, my street view is one of staggered growth.

There’s development…

…with holdups waiting to happen out of nowhere, and often.

That’s India, for me.

Am I going to cry?

I scream, actually, at apathy prevailing, but from the inside. To no avail. At one point the screaming stops. The only thing remains is to take advantage. I’ll make it up for India. Part of the money earned will go towards a private initiative towards my country’s development. So, no guilty-conscience here. My country gives me repeated opportunities. Why should I not take them? India does give me grief too. It’s ok. I love my country. We both can take liberties with each other, as do parents and children between themselves.

Owing to our attitudinal coordinates, our country is full of bottlenecks, and these bring a rising entity down, regularly.

Apart from that we’re emotional.

Over-emotional, actually.

So what’s going down goes down by an unhealthy multiple.

Activation.

Chart Pattern?

Numbers talking to you?

Method.

System development.

Pinpoint.

Enter.

Sizably.

Making size a function of portfolio magnitude.

When something here rises, one lets it ride with a stop that eventually triggers, then trails.

One never books a winner fully in India. Not in this bull market.

Billion dollar strategy.

One first goes cost-free.

And then some.

After one’s in-the-profit stop is triggered and then hit, one takes one’s principal out, with which one will fight the next battle, the next quest for cost-free-ness.

One leaves one’s cost-free-ness created on the table and shifts if out of sight and out of mind.

One’s cost-free-ness can be held for a long, long time.

Till 2050?

Yes, if the underlying has been duly whetted for a 2050 hold.

That’s how we play India.

Till 2050.

Dynamics of a Right Call

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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! 🙂

Nath on Trading – II – Building up on Basics

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21). You started small, right?

22). Ultimately, you’re staying consistently in the green, correct?

23). Then it’s time to scale up. Slowly does it.

24). Why the whole spiel about starting small? You make your biggest mistakes in the first seven years.

25). Hopefully, you don’t repeat a mistake once it has happened, and once you’ve learnt from it.

26). However, mistakes are good, because they teach you. Nothing else can teach you with incorporation into DNA. Mistakes can.

27). No university can teach you. No books. No professor. Play the market, make the mistake, and learn.

28). A big break early in the markets is a recipe for disaster. More likely than not, you’ll blow up later, when it matters.

29). The best possible way to scale up is using position-sizing as delineated by Dr. Van Tharp.

30). The good thing about position-sizing is that it makes you scale down, when trading corpus goes below par.

31). Day trading takes up the day. You’re exhausted and are not able to do much else.

32). Short-term trading also keeps you riveted to the terminal, mostly.

33). However, position trading and longer time frames keep you in the line for whatever else you wish to achieve.

34). Market TV makes it a video game. Switch it off.

35). Trading with targets caps big-win potential.

36). When you trade, you trade. You don’t invest.

37). Successful trading means buying high and selling higher, or…

38). …selling low and buying back lower…

39). …as opposed to successful investing, which is buying low, not selling for the longest time, and then selling for a multiple.

40). Read points 16 to 19 again.

Going for the Jugular

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It’s time.

Why…is it time?

And, time for what?

It’s time to go for the jugular.

Meaning?

There comes a time, when, after working hard, struggling, doing the whole jig, the rigmarole, you achieve your basics. 

Well done. Pat on your back. 

Then you secure these basics. 

Forever. 

If you can. 

Wonderful. More pats.

Worry factor is now out of the equation. 

Your family is secure. 

Food, safety, education, all basics intact.

Fantastic. You deserve an award. Not that anyone’s going to give you one. Frankly, nobody could care less. Never mind. You know in your mind that you’ve achieved a milestone, and that’s enough for you. 

Whats the next step…

…for you?

Jugular. 

What is this jugular?

Multiplier.

X-factor.

Call it what you will.

What does this mysterious thing do?

Better question is, what is it capable of?

You’re looking to multiply your networth. 

Isn’t everyone?

This is different.

Why?

Because it is coming as a logical conclusion, and not as a first-step with no experience and no secure basics. 

You’re keeping your head-earned basics secure. 

Nothing is touching these. You’ll be surprised at the kind of courage secure basics give you to act further. 

Next, you’ve identified an area where your skill-set can be leveraged into huge profits with minimal risk. 

Specifically in the market, these areas are abundant. 

So what exactly will you be doing?

Playing on a minuscule portion of your net worth. Let’s say not more than 2 %.

Leverage.

Stoploss.

Profit-run.

Position-sizing. Scaling up upon profits. Scaling down upon losses. 

Overcoming your demons. 

Fear.

Worry.

Hypertension.

Exuberance.

Hubris.

Complaecency. 

Going beyond. 

Multiplying.

Going for the jugular. 

Winning Marketplay, Anyone?

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Two words. 

Psychology.

Strategy. 

That’s it. 

Prediction?

No. 

Prediction is not pivotal here. 

We’re getting psychology and strategy right. 

We want winning marketplay, right?

Prediction is for losing marketplay. Prediction might be wrong. That’s when strategy and psychology save you from big loss. A big loss can wipe you out. Thus, dependence upon sheer prediction brings a wipe-out into play. That’s why, prediction is almost always relegated to the bottom rank when one talks about winning marketplay.

We’ll travel with a hint of prediction, though. Just a hint. Doesn’t suffice for losing yet. 

For entry purposes. Only.

Even this hint of prediction is bias-giving, though. Once we enter, we need to quickly lose the bias. Yeah, once we enter, we only react to what we see. 

Our system has an edge. It helps us choose market direction. After that, psychology and strategy take over. 

Meaning, after we’ve entered, there’s no more prediction in play. 

So what’s in play then?

The raw trade. 

And you.

At this point, all your mental strength comes into play. 

Oh, and your strategy. 

You do have a strategy, right?

As in, if x happens, they y, and if a happens then b.

You need a stoploss too.

You don’t have to show it. It can be mental, provided you don’t fool yourself into not using it when the time comes.

You won’t execute your stop. 

Sure. 

Again and again. 

Till you teach yourself how to. 

Till you lose big. And are still left standing. To want to enter again. 

Learning to take a small hit, again and again and again – that’s winning marketplay. Requires huge psychological strength. You acquire this. You don’t have to be born with it. 

Now comes another punchline. 

That profit-sapling just emerging…see it? You will not nip it in the bud. 

You’ll still do it. 

And again. 

You’ll nip it in the bud. 

Again and again. 

Till you teach yourself not to. 

It’s not easy. 

95%+ of all market players continue to nip profits in the bud all their lives. 

To allow the sapling to grow into a tree is the most difficult of all market lessons. Learning to let profits run is winning market play. 

To want more profits, you have to risk some of your current profits. 

No more risk, no more gain. 

You want to quickly exit and post that 22% gain on your Excel sheet. Sure. Why can’t you let it grow into an 82% gain? God alone knows. That’s how the cookie crumbles. You nip the opportunity to make that 82%. 

What’s with 82?

Just a random number. 

Am trying to get a point across. There’s a run happening. In a direction. It’s crossing +22%. Fast. Momentum could see it to +102%, to then backtrack and settle at +82%. It’s a probable scenario. 

Anyways, there are some smarties that risk 12 of the 22% and stay in the trade. Soon the 22 can even go beyond 82. Lets say it does. What do you do?

Nip?

No. 

Not yet. 

You let it travel. Momentum is to be allowed free leeway, till it halts. Let’s say it halts at 102. You say to yourself that the winds might change if 102 goes back to 82, and tell your broker to exit if 82 is hit intraday.

That and that alone is the proper way to exit a winning trade. You exit it with the taste of loss. You let the market throw you out. For all you know, the market might be in the mood for 152. You want to give the trade that chance. Thus, a momentum target exit while the move is still on would be less lucrative for you in the long run, or so I think. 

Why?

Statistics are defined by big wins. These matter. Big-time. Allow them to happen. Again and again and again. 

Now add position-sizing into your strategy. The ideology of position-sizing has been discovered and fantastically developed by Dr. Van Tharp. 

In a nutshell, position-sizing means that an increasing trading corpus due to winning should result in an increasing level risked. Also, correspondingly, a decreasing trading corpus due to losing should result in a decreasing level risked.

With position-sizing added to your arsenal, no one will be able to hinder your progress.

Psychological strength that comes from experiencing first-hand and digesting learning from varied market scenarios, coupled with a stoploss/profitrun position-sizing strategy – that’s a winning combination.

Wishing you happy and lucrative trading!

🙂 

Dealing from a Position of Weakness 

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When you’re losing… 

… you downsize your position. 

Why? 

To save your corpus. 

You lower the risk. 

Is risk quantifiable? 

You bet. 

Risk is no abstract entity without a body. 

In a trade, your risk is defined by your stop to stack-size ratio and the size of your one position. 

When you’re losing, you either lower the magnitude of your stop, or lower the quantity of your one position. 

Till when?

Till your corpus crosses par and then some. 

At par, you trade normal. 

Normal stop. 

Normal quantity. 

What is normal? 

Depends on you. 

What is normal for you? 

That’s what goes. 

Why the caution when below par? 

Lots works against you at this time. 

Sheer math for example. Downsizing sets this right. 

Emotions. 

Whoever’s got a remedy for those is king already. 

You. 

Your body-chemistry is affected. You’re sluggish. More prone to error. Nobody’s got a remedy for you, except you. Wait for your body to heal before trying out that perfect cover-drive, or what have you. 

Winning or losing in the markets depends a lot upon psychology, chronology, systems, strategy, application and adaptation of style. 

I like to call this “getting one’s meta-game together”. 

Let’s go people. 

Let’s get our meta-games together. 

Then we can scale it up. 

🙂 

When are you doing it Right?

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There’s something called the Line.

You feel it.

It’s abstract.

You have to be its master.

Then, you’re doing it right.

Controlled, the line won’t disturb your life.

It’ll very probably add to your life, in terms of wealth.

If you let it control you, everything is finished.

Goodbye.

Life. Wealth. Peace of mind.

It pays to master the line.

How do you feel the line?

By being invested, or in a trade.

How do you master the line?

By being invested or in a trade, again and again, again and again, and then some. Simultaneously, you’re nipping your bad behaviour in the bud, while the line is on.

You control your temper. You don’t lose it.

You develop patience with loved ones.

You learn how to position-size the line, while winning or losing.

You attenuate all kinds of disturbance.

You keep going on and on like this, till one fine day, the line’s presence becomes a part of your life. Line-switch being on doesn’t change you or alter your behaviour in any negative manner anymore.

That’s when you’re doing it right.

Effects?

Trade on = like when trade was not on.

Investment? You’re not thinking about it.

You sleep well.

Good family life… not disturbed by the presence of the line.

Yeah.

Line.

Master it.

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.

Three Ways to Double Down

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To win big as a trader, one needs to understand and implement a strategy of doubling down when things are looking good.

The difference between mediocre success and mega-success as a trader is linked to a trader’s ability to double down at the proper time.

We’ve discussed position-sizing. That’s one way to double down.

A day-trader, or a very short-term trader has the luxury of seeing one trade culminate and the next trade start off after the first one culminates at its logical conclusion. For most longer-term traders, many trades can be occurring simultaneously, because started trades have not yet come to their logical end, and new opportunities have cropped up before trades commenced have come to their logical end.

What do such traders do? I mean, they do not know the final outcome of the preceeding trades.

Yeah, how could such traders position-size properly?

Well, a trade might not have come to its logical conclusion, but you do know how much profit or loss you are sitting on at any given point of time. The calculation of the traded value for the next trade is simply a function of this profit or loss you are sitting on. Simple, right?

Well, what if you don’t like to position-size in that manner?

What if you say, that here I am, and I’ve finally identified a scrip that is moving, and that I’m invested in it, and am sitting on a profit. Now that I know that this scrip is moving, I’d like to invest more in this very scrip.

Good thinking. Nothing wrong at all with the thinking process.

You now pinpoint a technical level for second entry into the scrip. Once your level is there, you go in. No heavy or deep thinking required. As a trader, you are now accustomed to plunging after trade identification and upon setup arrival.

Question is, how much do you go in with?

Is your second entry a position-sized new trade? Or, do you see how much profit you are sitting on, and enter with the exact amount of profit you are sitting on? The latter approach is called pyramiding, by the way. Pyramiding is a close cousin of position-sizing. Normally, one speaks about pyramiding into one very scrip, when the trader buys more of that very scrip after showing a profit in that scrip. Once could, however, also pyramid one’s profits into different scrips.

When you’re pyramiding into one very scrip, you’re putting many eggs in one basket. Right, the risk of loss is higher. The thing going for you is that this risk for loss is higher at a time when your profits are up in a scrip that’s on its way up. Therefore, the risk during a downslide is higher, but the probability of that risk’s ability to result in an overall loss for you is lower than normal. You understand that you have balanced your risk equation, and with that understanding, you don’t have a problem putting many eggs in the same basket. After all, it’s a basket you are watching closely. Yeah, you know your basket inside out. You are mentally and strategically prepared to take that higher risk.

There’s yet another way to double down. I’d like to call this the “stubborn-bull trading approach”.

Let’s say you are sitting on a profitable trade. Yeah, let’s say you are deep in the money.

Now, a safe player would start raising the stop as the scrip in question keeps going higher and higher.

On the other hand, a trader with an appetite for risk could risk more and more in the scrip as it keeps going higher and higher – by not raising the stop, till a multibagger is captured. On the other hand, this trader would also be setting him- or herself up to give back hard-earned profits. Yeah, no risk – no gain.

What’s the difference between the stubborn-bull trading approach (SBTA) and investing?

When you’re adopting the SBTA, you’ll cut the trade once it loses more than your stop. You’ll sit on it stubbornly only after it has shown you multibagger-potential, let’s say by being up 20-50% in a very short time. You’ll keep sitting on it stubbornly till your pre-determined two-bagger, three-bagger or x-bagger target-level is reached. After that, you’ll start raising the stop aggressively, as the scrip goes still higher. Eventually, the market will throw you out of your big winning trade. You see, the SBTA strategy is very different from an investment strategy. For starters, your entry into this scrip has been at a trading level, not at an undervalued investment level. Undervalued scrips normally don’t start dancing about like that immediately.

Let’s be very clear – to reap big profits in the long run, you, as a trader, will need to adopt at least one of these doubling down strategies – position-sizing, pyramiding and / or the stubborn-bull trading approach.

Have a profitable trading day / week / month / career! 🙂

How Does One Position-Size?

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What is the singular most lucrative aspect of trading?

Any ideas?

Want a hint?

Ok, here’s the hint. It is also the safest aspect of trading.

Give up?

Here’s the answer. It’s called position-sizing. (The pioneer of position-sizing is Dr. Van K. Tharp, @ www.iitm.com, and I have learnt this concept through him).

Surprised? I would be surprised if you weren’t surprised.

Yeah, trade selection is important too, but other things are more important while trading.

For example, trade management is more important than trade selection. So is exit. Entry might be paramount to an investor, but to the trader, entry is run of the mill. It happens day in, day out. The trader … just enters a selected trade. There’s no deep thinking involved. The trader knows this. Crux issues are to follow. The trader is saving his or her energies for the crux issues.

So far, we’ve spoken about the chronology of a trade, i.e. entry – management – exit.

Before entry, you decide how much you want to trade with, and how much you want to risk. That’s the size of your position, or your position-size. Remember, for the concept of position-sizing to make any sense, your stop-loss percentage must remain constant from trade to trade. Only your traded value goes up or down.

What does the level of your traded value depend upon?

It depends upon HOW WELL YOU ARE DOING.

If you’re on a roll, your traded value for the next trade goes up. The increment is proportional to the profits you are sitting on. Since the stop is a constant percentage, the amount risked is also higher. Return is proportional to the amount at risk, and the long-term net return of such a trade will also be higher. All this means, that the more you make, the more you set yourself up to make even more…!

Take a coin. Flip it millions of times. There will be a stretch, where you’ll flip tails 5 times in a row, or six times in a row, or maybe even ten times in a row. The 50:50 trade called “coin flip” can well result in a series of back to back losses. You are an experienced trader. Your trade selection ratio could be 60 winning trades to 40 losing trades, or perhaps a little better, let’s say 65:35. Even a trade selection ratio of 65:35 will result in back to back losses. As a trader, you need to take large drawdowns in your stride, as long as you are confident, that in the long run,  your system is working. What’s working in your favour during the large drawdown?

Your position-size is.

You see, as trade after trade goes against you, and your losses pile up, your position-size KEEPS GOING DOWN. Your stop percentage remains constant. This means, that the more you lose, the more you set yourself up to lose lesser and lesser, trade after trade. Yeah, position-sizing gives you the safety of losing less. Nevertheless, because of this safety assurance from your position-sizing strategy, you keep yourself in the market by just taking the next trade without too much deep thinking (and with no melancholy whatsoever), because your next trade could be the one decent trade that you are looking for. Yeah, your very next trade could cover all losses and then some. TAKE IT.

Now, two things can happen.

Firstly, if you keep losing, and hit your loss cut-off level for the month, well, then, you just stop trading for the rest of your month. You then spend the rest of the month reviewing your losses and your system. You tweak at whatever needs tweaking, and come back fresh and rested the following month. Position-sizing kept you in the market, ready to take the next opportunity to earn big. The auto-cut takes you out of the market for a while. That’s why, in my opinion, while position-size is still activated, it provides more safety, because it keeps you in the market to recover everything and then some, starting with your VERY NEXT trade. Having said that, auto-cut is auto-cut. It overrides position-sizing.

The second thing that can happen is that your losing streak ends before your month’s cut-off is reached. Yayyy, position-sizing is still activated! You’ve lost lesser and lesser on each losing trade as long as you were in the losing streak, and now that you are winning again, each win sets you up to win more in the trade that follows.

After many, many trades, just cast a glance at your trading corpus. It will boggle your mind!

Your position-sizing strategy has kept raising your corpus, because your system is 60:40+, and you win more than you lose. Ultimately, your corpus has become substantial. Its size exceeds your expectations BY FAR.

All thanks to position-sizing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Intermingling and confusion will burn you.

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

Choice is yours.

Cheers.  🙂

The Concept of Satmya

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This one’s from the world of Ayurveda, folks.

We’re not geeks.

We move around amongst all segments of life, grab whatever is useful, and then try and apply its usefulness into our world of applied finance.

And that’s exactly what we’re going to do with the concept of Satmya.

Imagine in your minds a first-time smoker. The first puff breaks him or her out into a coughing flurry. A new stimulus is choking the respiratory system. The body rejects it.

That’s roughly the story for any first-time stimulus which is disturbing.

Upon repeated exposure to the stimulus, the body slowly gets habituated. Ultimately, rejection recedes. One’s tissues are now not only bathing in the stimulus, they are enjoying it. In fact, they want more.

Habituation is where we want to keep it at, no further. That’s the point of Satmya. At the point of Satmya, you enjoy the stimulus without falling sick, since your body-chemistry can now deal with the stimulus without getting imbalanced.

When we put on a live trade in any market, we expose ourselves to market-forces. A gamut of emotions comes alive inside of us. The level of reaction in our system is proportional to the size of the trade. First exposure makes us erratic. Therefore, it is very important to keep this first exposure small.

Markets swing. Joy wells inside of us with notional profit. Sorrow consumes us upon notional loss. Body-chemistry now needs to adapt.

If losses are kept small owing to the usage of stops, one’s system gets used to small losses. Meaning to say, small losses don’t shake you anymore. Market exposure results in small losses all the time, provided you’re using stops. Once these don’t shake you, and your entire world is still balanced despite them, you’re not afraid to put on the next trade, even after a string of losses. This very next trade could well turn out to be a multi-bagger, so you need to put it on. If you’re afraid to put on the next trade, you take yourself out of circulation, and fail to catch a big market move.

A habituated system makes one put on the next trade.

When the market swings in your favour, your notional profit causes you to become emotionally imbalanced. The first time this happens, you effervescently go about promising everyone the world, and get into situations you can’t deliver upon later. You might even make the other mistake of booking your profit early, not allowing the underlying to yield even more profit. Why, why, why?

Get used to sitting on a profit. Let it happen many, many times. Don’t go jumping about when it happens. Take it in your stride. Let the trade develop into a multi-bagger so that it can make up for your many small losses and yield even more beyond your overall break-even point. Such a state of mind is only earned once your system is habituated with regard to profit-yielding situations.

Another big mistake we make after a profitable trade is to put on a disproportionately large position-size in the next trade. Habituate your system to not increase position-size disproportionately. Calm it down after a profitable trade. Then coolly calculate your new position-size, taking total equity and steady maximum-loss percentage into account. Only increase position-size as per the mathematics of your trading strategy, not according to how good you are feeling after a profitable trade.

Habituation will also fine-tune you while lessening position-size after a string of losses. On the one level your math proposes a new lower size to trade in such a situation. On the second level, your body-chemistry will signal to you from inside whether you are comfortable with this size in a new position. Listen to your body and mind. If they are not able to take more than a certain quantum of market-forces at a given time, they will tell you. If you are able to listen to them and then can adjust your position-size further down to a level that body and mind are comfortable with, you are then taking the concept of position-sizing to a metaphysical level.

So, see what the concept of Satmya or habituation has done to your trading. It has made trading holistic for you. With the incorporation of this concept, you are trading in a manner that is comfortable for your mind and body.

The net result is that you don’t fall sick because of trading, and because you stay in the game, you are able to catch the big winners when they come.

Happy Trading! 🙂