Category Archives: Sweetest Spot

Banana Trajectory

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Growth …

… is a non-linear entity.

Especially…

… high growth.

Amongst many things, …

… one point needs …

… pointing out.

Between periods of high growth…

… anything can happen.

The levels of what can happen are, amongst other correlations, directly proportionate to the number of similarities between an economy in question and the functioning of a proper banana republic.

Freedom of speech can be suppressed.

Parallel economies can thrive.

Extortion and blackmail can rule.

Genocide.

Landgrab.

Terrorism.

People buyouts.

Apathy.

Dysfunctionality.

And then there’s high growth again, perhaps soon, if the economy gets its act together despite its rulers, and perhaps accelerated, if the rulers come to their senses and return back to being peace, growth and democracy loving .

Without getting into what kind of a republic we live in, for lack of a better phrase, and with a very small use of one’s imagination, one could venture to suggest that our own path of growth could resemble that of a banana trajectory.

The banana in this title doesn’t have much to do with the curvature of the fruit.

Much rather, it’s about the economy to banana republic correlation.

Might I suggest that our economy’s banana behaviour is mostly mild. Then, rarely, it gets intense. Normal growth returns. Then comes high growth. Periods of very high growth are rare, but there too.

Overall I’m happy with my and in my republic.

Sometimes, its banana behaviour beats me up.

Yeah, every ten years or so, there’s a big hit.

No one likes getting hurt.

I do remember to stand up and continue fighting, …

… because it is in this very republic, that I can make my 15% p.a.c.

On the conservative side, that is. Perhaps I can make more.

I don’t get that in any other economy.

You see, occasional banana behaviour is good news for a long term contrarian.

Banananomics lead to blunders, and temporary downfalls, with all indices falling big.

Which is where we have the guts to buy, and big.

Why?

We know we are on a high growth trajectory with intermittent banana behaviour.

A very simple formula suggests itself.

Buy big during reactions to banana behaviour.

Take principle out after spurts of high growth.

Sit tight on underlying in profit, perhaps for life.

A high growth trajectory with intermittent banana behaviour will give you many such cycles in your lifetime.

One stands to make multiple times the ten yearly hits.

Upon recognising this recurring pattern, one can even fine-tune and enhance loss-attenuation.

🙂

Screen-Time

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Is that a hammer in your hand?

No?

Great.

Yes?

Does everything appear to be a nail?

In the markets, I like to keep buttons away from sight, as a start.

Meaning, that the conditions to bring a button out…

…need to trigger first.

How would I know?

For that, there are alerts.

Meaning that we go on doing other stuff, till we are alerted, that there’s action ahead.

That’s when we activate the concerned button to visible mode.

Taking time, we decide whether this particular button needs to be pressed.

No?

Proceed with other stuff as normal.

Yes?

Press.

Do your accounts.

See how you’ve fared.

Done?

Proceed with other stuff…

…till next alert for button visibility activation.

Why all this rigmarole?

Because we don’t wish to be trigger-happy in the markets.

We take calls when they’re due.

We use time-slots in between calls to live life, tension-free, happy.

That’s one approach to the markets.

I’m sure you have your own.

Maybe yours involves more screen-time.

I respect that.

Mine doesn’t involve too much screen time, to be honest.

That’s the way I like it.

That also doesn’t mean anything as far as volumes or output are concerned.

Lesser screen-time leaves me ample space for other stuff.

I get to live a fuller life-experience.

To each their own.

This is my take.

I respect your take too.

Some takes require maximum screen-time.

Some like it like that.

That’s their life.

Fine.

Respected.

This is mine.

And this is my market screen-time…

…perhaps an hour or two a day, sometimes one, sometimes two.

Something like that.

Harness

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Market forces are like Wifi.

When we connect to them, they…

…connect to us.

When we’re indifferent, …

… we’re in a different world.

When we create systems, and put them on auto-pilot, we mostly do away with the ability of market forces to act upon us.

A successfully implemented system on auto-loop is like making time stand still.

That’s our goal; that’s where we want to be.

In the act of getting there, we are subject to compelling market forces.

How do we deal with them?

Rather than suffering KOs from their punches, we devise systems…

…to absorb their blows,…

…understand the implications of these,…

…to, then,…

…harness them.

What am I talking about?

Why give market forces so much power?

Why not?

They’re there, right?

In abundance, too.

Why not use them?

How?

You can go back to George Soros’s back pain for starters.

Have you developed such physical systems?

I’ll tell you what I implement. It’s a me thing. You’ll need to develop your you thing. I’ll share with you my me thing, though.

When markets are down, I do feel bad, it’s an initial reaction. I wait for it to intensify. I wait for myself to feel awful. That means markets must be really down. As awfulness rises, I start buying. When awfulness is uncontrollable, I buy big. When it makes me puke, I buy maximum. Meanwhile, I’ve rewired my nervous system to accept the awfulness as a marker for buying, and I’m not sad that I’m feeling awful during market crashes. Hmmm, I know it sounds a bit crazy, but this a successful harness-methodology of otherwise overwhelming market forces.

When markets are up, I feel buoyant. Earlier, when I felt buoyant, I used to buy more. Now, I do nothing. Market-nothing, that is. Non-market, I’ll do many things. That’s harnessing buoyancy. As markets rise further, I do even more of market-nothing, and when I can’t control it, I then start creating cost-free-ness. When buoyancy is uncontrollable, I create maximum possible cost-free-ness, and hopefully, then, I can go on market-vacation. Before I do that, I make sure to transfer the cost-free-ness created to a dedicated holding platform for my cost-free-ness.

Ideally, new market activity needs to only commence upon the next set of opportunities. Sometimes, one needs to wait long for these to develop. The act of bridging time comes in handy here. Market is not giving action. We harness even that. We have accumulated lots of pending tasks, just for this kind of period. Now, we do these. Ultimately, an opportunity arises. A new cycle of cost-free-ness-creation starts.

Development of you-unique systems helps you harness the market in a winning fashion.

Wishing you lucrative investing and lots of cost-free-ness!

🙂

Fearlessness

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Hey, 

There’s no hype…

…on Magic Bull.

No business lunches.

Conferences.

Fees.

Advertising.

Liasoning.

Roadshows.

Magic Bull is a no-nonsense, cut-to-the-chase space.

Why?

That’s how I like it.

A strategy that works under any market conditions, …

… is multi-faceted,…

…  adaptable, …

…  self-adjusting, …

… and comprehensive, …

… doesn’t require artificial crutches… 

… because, …

… it makes…

… money …

… on its own.  

Why is the Magic Bull approach successful in any market, under any conditions?

Because it is based on fearlessness. 

We are not born fearless.

Fear is a natural human instinct innate in us. 

It saves us, many a time. 

However, to make money in the markets, one needs to get rid of fear.

How?

Most of our planning revolves around creating circumstances around ourselves that take fear out of the equation. 

You’ll need to make the effort of going through the material in this space, to get a grip on how Magic Bull eliminates this emotion. 

You see, even if there’s a free lunch in life, it’s not that free that the spoon will lift itself and put the meal down another’s throat. 

A certain minimal effort will need to be made. 

Thing is, hardly anyone makes even that kind of effort. 

Result will be, that not more than a handful will actually read this stuff, and one or two might actually implement it.

Sure. 

Growing Magic Bull’s readership is not my objective.

What do I get from the entire exercise?

Evolution. Writing evolves. The strategy just gets better and better.

Blah blah blah. 

Oh, ya, what happens when a strategy gets it right?

I’ll leave you to figure that out, since that’s what I get. 

And why again?

Because of fearlessness.

One’s cycle of winning in the markets, under any conditions, starts with fearlessness.

Wishing you fearless trading and investing!

🙂

Banking on Infinity

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In a market…

…that promises decent…

…long-term growth, …

… we are able to…

…bank on infinity.

In such a market, the concept of cost-free-ness proves successful …

… in that it is able to generate multibagger outcomes, …

… over the very long-term. 

In such a market, the power of compounding makes itself felt in its full glory.

Also, in such a market, fear goes out the window for the clued-in player, since one is able to…

…bank on infinity.

We are fortunate to be playing in one such market. 

Yes, one such market is our very own. 

Having said that, India has idiosyncrasies, as does every market, and the Indian angle on these is definitely unique. 

The main one is that we’re an emotional lot. 

That is automatically then reflected in our market too. 

High beta. 

Meaning, in normal English, that there will abound huge entry opportunities, and huge exit opportunities, on a regular basis. 

And that, if I may underline, is worth Gold for us in the pursuit of cost-free-ness.

In other words, we will be able to create cost-free-ness year upon year, month upon month, and, at times, like now…

…week upon week.

Is that not…

…wonderful!

Once cost-free-ness is created, we transfer it out of sight, and, banking on infinity, we can just sheer forget about it, focusing our attention on the next round of cost-free-ness-creation.

We can do that because we are in the right type of market for this particular model. 

In fact, this model has been conceptualised for exactly…

…this market. 

Maybe someone has done it before me. Perhaps a lot of people. More successful. Big players. Famous. And that’s huge. I’m happy for them.

However, that’s not the point. 

We’re not in this for the glory of who got there first.

We’re in this for generating long-term wealth by using the concept to the hilt, because it’s working, and promises to do so till into the far-foreseeable future.

Before I sign off for now, there’s one more thing to remember. 

When we bank on infinity, we most hold before our eyes, that the translation of long-term growth into long-term wealth…

…is not linear.

Growth is perceived in spurts of optimism spilling into over-optimism, and these become our exit opportunities, where we exit with our principals, and are left with stacks of cost-free-ness. 

During spurts of pessimism, spilling into sheer depression, prices dip low enough, such that we, once again, get representable entries. 

It’s a neat little cycle that has been playing out since markets started. 

In our own market, this cycle allows us to generate cost-free-ness, again and again, while banking on infinity. 

 

 

 

 

Is Cost-Free-Ness the Holy Grail?

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There is…

…a Holy Grail…

…mentioned in the Holy Bible. 

Also, …

… human capital

… pursues excellence.

I…

… am no exception.

Having stumbled upon…

…cost-free-ness…

…after many knocks in all possible markets, …

… and having developed the concept a tad, …

… I do say to you this.

I say to you, …

… , that cost-free-ness…

… is no holy grail. 

In its pursuit, money does get stuck. And, …

… upon its generation, money does flow, at times, into expensive, “uncatchable” material.

These are the two main mentionable “nuances” associated with the pursuit of cost-free-ness, that one needs to be aware of. 

Money getting stuck? Hmmmm.

If we’re afraid of money getting stuck, we should exit from the market. Any market. Period. 

Don’t be in the game if you can’t take the heat. 

It’s ok. 

Play another game, where you can. 

Perfectly fine.

Now let’s tackle the other one. 

Purists are jumping, I know. 

I can hear them yelling “EXPENSIVE!”

Sure.

Extremely high quality…

…will be expensive. 

One legitimate entry opportunity every ten years can be possible in such underlyings.

When it comes, and if one is having a bad hair week, one can even miss the window.

When it comes, we’ll enter big.

That’s a larger game, non-cost-free initially, and we’ve played it well in March 2020, entering non-cost-free, entering big (because of the available margin of safety), and generating vast amounts of cost-free-ness within a few months, to then ultimately be sitting on large, extremely high-quality & completely cost-free portfolios, perhaps for life.

However, such timelines are anomalies. We’ll pounce upon such chronologies when they happen. Meanwhile, …

…our bread and butter is to generate small amounts of cost-free-ness on a regular basis, day-in-day-out, all year round, …

… and it’s ok to enter extremely high quality with one’s freshly generated small amounts of cost-free-ness, right here right now, at the expensive price. 

Why?

Firstly, it’s not costing you. 

Secondly, when we deploy cost-free-ness into extremely high quality in a long-term-growth-promising market like India’s, it’s probably for life. 

Seen from a perspective of a decade or two, or perhaps three, the currently expensive cost-free entry is legitimate. 

Please do the 10, 20 or 30 year math for India, and you should come to the same conclusion.

Why do we wish to deploy immediately?

Out of sight, out of mind. 

Money has idiosyncrasies. 

The biggest one is that it is spent, in the blink of an eye. 

Better, deploy it, specifically also because your mathematics is okaying a legit entry for the extremely long-term.

And, pray, have you wondered why you will be able to sit on your investment for so long?

Primarily because your entry is cost-free. 

There is no other singular, more overwhelming reason. 

Cost-free-ness overwhelms the mind into sitting on extremely long holds. Try it out for yourself.

That takes care of the second point, …

… and I say to you this, that…

… cost-free-ness, …

… though not the holy grail, …

… could well be the next best market concept available to mankind, for long-term success in the markets.

Wishing you lucrative & highly successful cost-free investing!

🙂

Taking Off with Cost-Free-Ness

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In Buddhism, …

…there’s a saying to the effect, …

…that as the sun rises, …

…the radiance of others stars, …

… to the observer’s eye, …

… pales, …

…into insignificance.

We’re not going to leave an observation like that hanging.

We’re going to extrude it.

When we make a well-managed underlying cost-free, …

…what are the implications, …

… on existing holdings, …

…which are not cost-free yet?

Well, over a large period of time, …

…their comparative impact on the folio…

…will start paling, … into insignificance.

Let’s say we hold x value of cost-free-ness in an underlying.

Rest of the folio’s value is y, with y = let’s say 30x.

Here’s one way go looking at it.

What’s the maximum loss you can incur on your y?

Not going to happen, but it’s 30x.

What’s the maximum gain that can occur on your cost-free holding?

Uncapped. Yeah.

At 15% per annum compounded, which is reasonable to expect for a well-managed company with many other tick-marks, if you hold your cost-free holding for 25 years, it’s value would be ~ 33x (= 1.15^25).

So, what have you done?

You’ve paled your other portion of the folio into “insignificance”, with just one created pocket of cost-free-ness.

Do ponder, what the implications would be, if you were to create a). 10 such pockets, or b). 20, or c). 50, or perhaps even d). 100 such pockets of cost-free-ness?

Can you even imagine where you would then be in 25 years?

a). With 10x of cost-free-ness, you would be at ~ 329x.

b). With 20x of cost-free-ness, you would be at ~ 658x.

c). With 50x of cost-free-ness, you would be at ~ 1645x.

d). With 100x of cost-free-ness, you would be at ~ 3292x.

Now substitute the value of x here.

Arbitrarily, let’s take x = 1.

One rupee.

One thousand.

One lakh.

One million.

One Cr.

Take what suits you.

See where you started from, and see where you’ve then come.

For example, starting with 1L of cost-free-ness, we land up at ~ 16.5 Cr in 25 years for 50 pockets.

Let’s say I have a target of creating 1 million worth of cost-free-ness in 50 pockets.

Where do I stand in 25 years?

At ~ 165 Cr (50 *1Million *1.15^25).

Alone the after tax dividend emerging from this stream would be > 2.5 Cr per annum.

Any takers?

🙂 (Happy Cost-free-ness!)

Are you Positioned?

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What’s our biggest enemy in the markets?

This one’s invariably…

…our Self.

Cut to ’07.

Fancy hotel banquet room, snacks and drinks, chief investment officer of JP Morgan is talking…

…and we’re listening.

My friend and I…

…sitting on profits…

…feeling smug about ourselves…

…young guns…

…ready to conquer the world…

…nothing can stop us now.

Or can it?

“There will always be a correction…”. These words catch my ear.

I raise my hand.

“Yes? The gentleman with the lime-green tie has a question?”

I stand up, and before I know it, I ask the deadly question.

“Don’t you think there’s been a paradigm-shift with regard to India, and that India has decoupled from the rest of the world?”

“How old are you, Sir?”

“37”.

This was ’07, remember?

“I’m going to excuse your question, because you’re young, and have probably experienced the markets for…?”

“3 years”.

“Exactly. That’s why I’ll only answer your question with a smile.”

How controlled.

“You see, globalization is a reality, and decoupling is a myth”.

Myth, really?

“It’s fancy phrases like “paradigm-shift” that catch the inexperienced investor’s imagination, leading to huge market mistakes”.

In these few sentences, my entire comprehension of markets was blown up and thrown out the window.

And that would have been a good thing…

…had I listened.

Such is the arrogance of “youth”, that “youth” doesn’t listen.

Soon, the ’08 crash happened.

I lost big time.

Was humbled.

Took me a long time to get back and stabilize.

I remember my stomach churning and my unwillingness to meet people as markets crashed to lower and lower levels.

I almost couldn’t take it.

We are our worst enemies.

What’s it going to be this market high?

We’ve learnt, and are positioned.

However, there will be newbies (like we were) who are going to go through this chain of events.

What buzz-words or phrases will catch their imagination?

BitCoin?

Liquidity?

Vaccine?

Quantitative Easing?

FIIs?

Pending rally in small-caps?

There’s a new cocktail doing the rounds this time around.

This cocktail will ensnare.

Even the topmost analysts are beginning to feel that a correction could take some time coming.

Some weeks ago, most felt that a correction could happen anytime now.

Player psychology is set for the cocktail to do its work.

Then one needs a pinprick.

In ’08 this was perhaps Lehman on the world scale and the Reliance Power IPO in India.

What’s it going to be this time?

It doesn’t matter.

Remember? There will always be a correction.

Are you positioned?

Washing a Stock “Sin-Free” with Cost-Free-Ness

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Each stock has sins on the balance-sheet.

Many sins don’t show up even, on the balance-sheet.

You see, they’ve been swiped under the rug.

One’ll never know the whole story, unless one is the promoter oneself.

Some stocks have nothing noteworthy to hide, though.

Others have a side they don’t want you to see.

Still others are brimming with skeletons in their cupboard.

It doesn’t matter what you’re holding, …

… when you make the stock cost-free, …

… for you, the stock just became sin-free.

Congratulations.

You’re done already.

That’s the beauty of cost-free-ness.

Yeah, in cost-free-ness, …

… one has a universal balsam…

…that rinses the underlying completely clean to hold, like, forever.

Cost-free-ness is like a magic potion that turns around the whole story, …

… any story.

So, …

… what’s the motivation…

—in making the wholesome effort…

…of creating cost-free-ness?

Multibaggers, developing within our high quality, and now cost-free, holdings.

And how could one classify our feat of cost-free-ness, in another, very meaningful and currently “hot, happening and insider” way?

Nothing’s happening to one if markets go down even to zero, as far as one’s cost-free holding is concerned, since one has pulled out all the principal. Since one is not incurring any loss whatsoever from the holding, even upon market-reversal, for one, this cost-free holding, if I’ve understood Mr. Taleb (coiner and first-user of the phrase “antifragile”) correctly, is antifragile in nature, also then because, price contraction in the cost-free holding is a good thing for us, in that more purchase of the high-quality holding can subsequently happen, with the goal of making more and more holding cost-free, as markets swing back upwards. Market reversal after cost-free-ness is setting us up for a larger cost-free holding in the future. Seen from our initial sweet-spot of cost-free-ness, since market reversal betters our poise and increases our potential to make our cost-free holding grow in units (and size), that would be the last tick mark, required and now ticked, which makes our cost-free and high-quality holding, also, antifragile.

Cost-Free-Ness completely does away with Fear

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When nothing from your end is invested, but you still have a holding in the markets,…

…you have created for yourself the state of cost-free-ness.

Cost-free-ness carries with itself a feeling of intense satisfaction…

…because of the sheer magnitude of the feat.

Well, congratulations.

With cost-free-ness comes absence of fear with regard to one’s cost-free holding.

When it’s not costing us, we’re not bothered.

Markets can go anywhere.

They can come down to zero, for all we care.

Fine.

Still unshaken?

Yes.

Why?

If markets comes down to zero, we can look to enter en-masse.

We’ve got principal, remember? Took it out, to create cost-free-ness, tu te souviens?

When markets come down to zero, owing to absence of fear, …

… our focus is not on our (cost-free) holding.

Instead, our focus is on the lucrative entries coming our way.

After markets come down to zero, if they do, they’ll soon reverse.

Then, our new entries will start becoming cost-free, as prices climb.

Soon, we’ll pull principal out again, and will have have new cost-free holdings, which we can transfer to our consolidated cost-free holding account.

Fear is nowhere in the equation.

From Cost-Free-Ness to a Unified, Singular, Comprehensive, 360° Market-Field-Strategy

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So you’re cost-free in the markets…

…and are contemplating your further market-journey ahead.

Yeah, now what?

First-up, let’s grab a hold of what you have in your hands.

You are holding high-quality material which fits your risk- and long-term holding-profile, and, most importantly, this material has now been freed up of its investment-cost.

That’s (very) huge!

So, how does it go from here?

I’ve been here, and have always bungled it up.

This time, I won’t.

Why?

I’ve finally realized the supreme importance of being at this point, and, …

… I wish to keep coming back to this sweet-spot, …

… again, and again and again.

It’s a wonderful feeling.

One feels deep satisfaction, of achieving something big.

Yeah, at Magic Bull, we sheer achieve, write about it, and then achieve more.

We’ll just go on achieving.

We’re not stopping.

The writing part is only to keep a log and to help others on the path.

And of course, it clears one’s thoughts, making one arrive at gems of strategies…

…which all converge and unify into a singular market-approach.

Let’s talk about singular.

At this sweet-spot, the ghost of trading arrives.

One feels like riding the highs by video-gaming through the markets.

And, one falls flat.

It’s not familiar territory, because the approach till now has been one of investing, and investing and trading are diametrically opposite in nature. Meaning that it takes some time to rewire.

Before rewiring properly, …

… one’s already pressing buttons as if buttons are soon going to become extinct, since one is seeking thrills. It’s normal.

One’s achievement-vector points only towards falling flat, such is one’s behaviour.

How do we conquer this pitfall?

We’re going to exhaust this ghost’s potential to our benefit.

We are going to trade, …

… because otherwise, ghost’s not going away.

However, we are going to trade only those scrips that are already inhabiting our cost-free portfolio.

We trade these, as new units, in a different trading account.

Entry is worth one small quantum, whatever small entry-quantum one has defined for oneself.

The objective is to ride a quick run, and make, let’s say, 20% of the traded units cost-free.

That’s would be good, hard, tangible bang for our trading bucks.

Assuming we succeed, we then transfer the cost-free units to our long-term portfolio.

In the event we fail because markets start to reverse, it’s still ok.

It’s a holding we are comfortable holding, into the next market cycle, where we’ll again try and make it cost-free, and we’ll then have cost-averaging on our side, since we’ll have reversed to an investing approach.

It’s win-win everywhere.

Failure comes eventually, because markets ultimately reverse.

No one knows when.

Till them we keep trading and increasing our cost-free-ness.

When failure comes, it’s once, and eventually we hold and try to turn it around.

Because we’re holding quality, the probability of turning the situation around is high.

Before this one failure, we are poised for many possible trading wins, with each win adding to our cost-free-ness.

And there we have it…

…voilà…

… , yes, it’s a unified, singular, comprehensive, 360° Market-field-strategy…

…courtesy your friend and comrade-in-investing. …

… Magic Bull !

🙂

Using Counter-Intuition as a Buy-Sell-Tool

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When the world is burning around you…

and there’s “blood on the Street”…

the last thing that one wishes to do…

…is to…

…buy.

Why?

One is afraid.

However, the most lucrative buys are the ones…

…made precisely…

…at this point in time.

Everything in our brain- and bio-chemistry will be screaming not to buy.

We will now use this state of being as a buy tool.

What?

You think I’ve let some kind of a secret out of the bag, or something?

Try doing it.

That’s the thing.

It’s most difficult to push through.

That’s also the reason very few people make big money in the markets.

Now let’s speak about exits.

Nobody really knows what’s a good exit, ever.

Why?

That’s because nobody knows the future in advance.

What we do know, is that euphoria can last long enough…

to wipe shorts out…

…as the recent shorters et al found out the hard way, in the US.

When there’s euphoria, we don’t feel like selling.

We want to make more, and more.

We feel that this can go on and on, ad infinitum.

Every bone in our body says hold on.

A sell made at this time could well nip a multi bagger in the gut.

However, our counter-intuition is speaking.

It’s already done us a service by providing us with great entries.

Let’s at least listen.

Tell you what we can do.

We can listen to it, i.e. we can exit, to some extent only.

That way, we’ll have exited and will still be in the market.

How exactly, then?

When we are feeling like this, and are experiencing prolonged euphoria…

…we can get rid of unwanted stuff.

As euphoria continues to rage, we target to make all wanted holdings cost-free, bit by bit, by exiting to that extent, ultimately and ideally.

Yes, ideally, we only want to be left holding cost-free items in the market.

From that point onwards, we don’t care where the markets are going with regard to our holdings.

It’s a sweet-spot, and we are in it because we have used counter-intuition as an effective and lucrative buying and selling tool.

Investors whine, and traders cry, when they try the other’s Art

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In a breakaway bull market,…

…one starts to find faults with Trading in general…

since, to make money, one just needs to sit, rather than actively trade. 

Almost everyone is happy with their investing,…

…in a breakaway bull market. 

What kind of factors does one start pointing fingers at?

Timing.

One almost always gets this wrong, specifically with regard to futures and options, which are time-bound.

Not having enough on the table…,

…yeah, yeah, heard that one before. 

While trading, one doesn’t bet the farm. 

When one’s trades run, one makes a bit,…

…which is not, by far, as much as any odd investment portfolio would be appreciating.

Second-guessing.

While investing, one is focused in one direction. 

While trading, one looks at both directions, to initiate trades, and the market-neutral trade is another trade in a category of its own. 

Hence, one is always second-guessing the market, and when one is off, it results in opportunity loss and brokerage generation. 

Time consumed.

Trading consumes almost all of one’s time. 

When markets are closed, one’s mind is not detached. 

It’s exhausting. 

Has many side-effects too. 

One doesn’t have time for many other things, because of trading. 

Whatever one does try to participate in, consists of half-baked efforts, because essentially, one’s mind is on the market simultaneously. 

Leads to a loss in quality of life.

Now, let’s reverse the situation. 

When markets slide downwards, the trader feels light. 

He or she cuts longs and initiates shorts.

It’s a superior feeling versus the investor, who is stuck with large holdings on the table. 

Feel-good factor is huge, and quality of life gets enhanced.

Good traders don’t have a liquidity problem. 

Also, they can shut operations and switch off from the market any time, if they are able to do so, in practice. 

Tappable markets are many for the trader. 

Trading leads to income generation. 

Investing leads to wealth creation.

What do you want from your life?

Both – is a valid answer, but confuses. 

If one wants to dabble in trading, but is basically an investor, one can think about initiating positional trades, which have a investing-like feel, and one’s time is less bound to the market.

If one wants to dabble in investing as a trader, hmm, this one will be markedly tougher, I think.

Don’t know what to say here, since I’m an investor who dabbles in trading…

…, but intuitively, I feel, that this one would take a lot of effort.

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! 🙂

Walking the Walk

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Hey,

… just made a decision…

… and am going to share it with you. 🙂

From this point onwards,…

…, I’ll exclusively be working with underlyings,…

…, with whom I’m walking the walk with.

So, what does that mean?

As per my understanding, there are two ways of getting to know an underlying, for example a stock.

We can see what it’s done,…

…, landmarks that have been established,…

…, track record,…

…, lineage,…

… etc.

Sure, we can take in the fundamentals ad-nauseam, and that’s absolutely fine.

No one’s investing without appropriate fundamentals in place.

That’s not it all, though.

Will be walking with the stock too.

Where does it go?

What does it do there?

How does it behave?

Is the behaviour off?

We want to know.

And we’ll know…

… by getting a feel for the stock’s movement.

Why all this?

What are we doing with such stocks?

Investing in them, yes.

However, stocks aren’t always in an investing zone.

Then we’ll generate income from the same stocks.

Why from this category?

Why not choose specific trading stocks to trade?

That’s because they’ll contaminate investment mindset.

Trading investment grade stocks that make one’s cut, when these stocks are in a trading zone, is a pursuit with multi-faceted advantages.

Income generation.

Pinpointed stock-specific knowledge, which gets deeper and deeper.

Insurance when stuck. You’re a holder, so do the math.

Huge time-saving in the long run, as patterns become clear.

Minimal tension.

If we wish to mimimize tension further, we can take time out of the equation (meaning, we won’t do derivatives in this case).

We won’t be Johny-on-the-spot with this strategy, probably.

We’ll make money, though.

There’ll be peace of mind.

Enjoyment.

Over time, this strategy can go to the max. Meaning, we’ll outdo all Johnies from their spots with regard to income and wealth generation.

Why?

We’re walking the walk, remember ?

Over time, we’ll become masters of our territory.

We don’t want more.

We’re done already.

Giving In

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I’ve been guilty of giving in…

…to the urge to sell.

However, having kept basic tenets alive, vital underlyings are still a hold…

…for me…

…for as long as they remain vital.

Have been getting rid of stuff I don’t want.

Restructuring / reorganizing.

Consolidating.

These are the activities of choice, when markets are on a roll.

Sure, one’s been buying too, but not in the investing account.

Trading accounts are very active.

These are trading prices.

What’s the definition of a (successful) trade?

Buy high, and sell higher. Or, sell low, and buy back lower.

As opposed to an investment, where one buys low, to sell higher, later.

Are these low prices?

No.

How long has the index remained, percentage-wise, in its History, at 30+ PEs?

Very low single (%age) digits, of the time under consideration.

Thus, times will change.

Nobody knows when.

However, who cares?

Let it roll.

We’ll just go on consolidating, till we can’t consolidate anymore.

That’s the sweet spot we want to be in, before conditions change, where one can’t consolidate anymore.

And, we’ll just sheer go on trading.

That’s what we do with trading prices.

Bridging the Gap

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How does one bridge the middle overs?

Sure, a blogger who is simultaneously a cricket fan…

…will dish out analogies from cricket… 🙂 … !

We’re in the business of identifying extremes…

…and acting upon such identification.

Whatever is in the middle of these extremes…

…is, for us, an area of…

…inaction.

Do we know how to not act?

There is an impulse for action in all humans.

In these loaded times, this impulse is extreme.

Why do we not want to act when an extreme is not there yet?

During times of complete pessimism, one is able to purchase underlyings for a song.

Similarly, during times of total optimism, one is able to secure good exits for stuff that one wishes to get rid of.

How one behaves in between adds or subtracts significantly to or from one’s market success.

Selling early means lesser profits, and the same goes for buying late.

This is the kind of behavior that lessens our multiple, sometimes greatly.

This kind of behavior would be absolutely ok if one were trading.

We, @ Magic Bull, are in the business of effecting multiples.

Anything coming in the way of that is behavior we wish to avoid.

With markets normally trading between extremes about 95% of the time, this leaves us with a lot of time in which we do not act.

Also, it brings us back to the pivotal question – how do we manage not to act when everything and everyone around us is screaming for action?

We do – everything – else.

Apart form market action, there’s business activity, charity ventures, extra curricular activities, family time, sport, leisure, entertainment … … one’s day is packed.

There are two portions of the day when one is driven to the edge of action, though.

The first is after studying market opening.

This is when one does a half-hour call with one’s broker and just sheer discusses everything one is observing.

Strike 1.

Then, as one studies the close, this situation can arise again.

One writes, for example.

Or, annotates charts.

Observes prices.

Collects impressions…

…and demarcates patterns.

That’s sufficient.

Strike 2.

There’s no room for strike 3 – one just doesn’t let strike 3 happen.

Secret Ingredients in Times like Corona

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Hi,

It’s been a while.

Unprecedented times call for every iota of resilience that’s inherent.

Whatever we’ve learnt in the markets is being tested to beyond all levels. 

If our learning is solid, we will emerge victorious.

If there are vital chinks in our armour, we will be broken. 

Such are the market forces that are prevailing. 

Have we learn’t to sit?

Meaning, over all these years, when over-valuation ruled the roost, did we sit?

Did we accumulate funds?

Did we create a sizeable liquid corpus?

If we did, we are kings in this scenario. 

One of the main characteristics of a small entry quantum strategy is that it renders us liquidity, almost through and through. 

If we are amply liquid in the times of mayhem, there is absent from our armour the debilitating chink of illiquidity.

Illiquidity at the wrong time makes one make drastic mistakes by succumbing to panic. 

We’re not succumbing to any panic. 

Why?

Because our minds are focused on the bargains available.

The bargains are so mouth-watering, that they are entirely taking away our focus from existing panic.

To twist our psychology into the correct trajectory in a time like Corona, the secret ingredient that’s required is called (ample) liquidity. This secret ingredient is a direct result of the small entry quantum strategy, which we follow. 

Then, let’s address the other potential chink, and just sheer do away with it. 

Having access to ample liquidity, are we now greedy?

What does greed mean?

It’s not greedy to buy when there’s blood on the street, no, it’s actually outright courageous. 

Greed Is defined here as per the quantum of buying. 

Are we buying disproportionately vis-à-vis our liquidity-size and our risk-profile?

Yes?

Greedy.

No?

Not greedy.

How will we know the answer without any doubt in our mind that we have the correct answer to this question, since it is vital to our learning curve to answer this question correctly?

The answer will make itself felt.

Are we able to sit optimally even if markets crash another double-digit percentage from here?

50% from here?

No? Greedy. We have bought in a manner that doesn’t gel with our risk-profile. Our liquidity is exhausting, and focus shifts from bargains to panic. Ensuing tension amidst further fall will very probably cause us to commit a grave blunder, with this happening very probably at the bottom of the market. We are poised to lose in the markets like this. 

Yes? Not greedy. We have bought and continue to buy as per our risk-profile. We will win…

…in the markets.

The secret ingredient that locks in great prices and continues to do so as the market keeps falling, is called quantum-control as per the tolerance level of our risk-profile towards further fall. This secret ingredient ensures that liquidity outlasts a longish fall, keeping our focus on the bargains and not on the panic. This secret ingredient provides for the basic mechanism of our small entry quantum strategy.

 

My Buddy called Compounding

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Compounding…

…is my happy space.

When I’m having a difficult market day,…

…I open my calculator…

…and start…

…compounding.

My friend clears all doubts in a flash.

It’s easy to compound on the calc.

In German they’d say “Pippifax”.

The younger tribe in the English-speaking world would say easy peasy…

…(lemon squeasy).

Let me run you through it.

Let’s say you wish to calculate an end amount after 25 years of compounding @ 9 % per annum.

Let z be the initial amount (invested).

The calculation is z * 1.09 ^25.

That’s it.

You don’t have to punch in 25 lines. It’s 1 line.

What if you went wrong on the 18th line?

So 1 line, ok? That’s all.

What’s ^ ?

This symbol stands for “to the power of”.

On your calculator, look for the y to power of x key, and then…

…punch in z * 1.09 (now press y to the power of x)[and then punch in 25].

What does such an exercise do for me?

Meaning, why does this exercise ooze endorphins?

Let’s say I’m investing in sound companies, with zero or very little debt, diligent and shareholder-friendly managements, and into a versatile product profile, looking like existing long into the future, basically meaning that I’m sound on fundamentals.

Let’s say that the stock is down owing to some TDH (TomDicK&Harry) reason, since that’s all it’s taking for a stock to plunge since the beginning of 2018.

I have no control over why this stock is falling.

Because of my small entry quantum strategy, I invest more as this fundamentally sound stock falls.

However, nth re-entry demands some reassurance, and that is given en-masse by the accompanying compounding exercise.

At the back of my mind I know that my money is safe, since fundamentals are crystal clear. At the front-end, Mr. Compounding’s reassurance allows me to pull the trigger.

Let’s run through a one-shot compounding exercise.

How much would a million invested be worth in thirty years, @ 11% per annum compounded.

That’s 1 * 1.11^30 = almost 23 million, that’s a 2300% return in 30 years, or 75%+ per annum non-compounded!

Now let’s say that my stock selection is above average. Let’s assume it is good enough to make 15% per annum compounded, over 30 years.

What’s the million worth now?

1 * 1.15^30 = about 66 million, whoahhh, a 6600% return in 30 years, or 220% per annum non-compounded.

Let’s say I’m really good, perhaps not in the RJ or the WB category, but let’s assume I’m in my own category, calling it the UN category. Let’s further assume that my investment strategy is good enough to yield 20% per annum compounded.

Ya. What’s happened to the million?

1 * 1.20^30 = about 237 million…!! 23700% in 30 years, or 790% per annum non-compounded…

…is out of most ballparks!!!

How can something like this be possible?

It’s called “The Power of Compounding”…,

…most famously so by Mr. Warren Buffett himself.

Try it out!

Pickle your surplus into investment with fundamentally sound strategy.

Sit tight.

Lo, and behold.

🙂

Have the Guts?

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Somebody did say …

… that Equity was not for the faint-hearted.

Oh, how true!

Everyday, my heart stands tested!

However, because of a small entry quantum strategy, I am able to stay in the game.

If I am able to stay in the game for multiple cycles, I will prosper.

Why?

Firstly, the strategy by default renders me liquid, such are its tenets.

Then, a good hard look at fundamentals is always called for.

To close, it is important is to enter with technicals to support you.

Now let’s say I make a mistake.

What is a mistake?

Ya, good question – in the markets, what is a mistake?

In the markets, when the price goes against you, you have made a mistake.

So let’s say that I’ve made a mistake.

Is the mistake big?

No.

Why?

Because of my small entry quantum.

What does it mean for my next entry?

Added margin of safety.

Is that good?

You bet.

Why?

Because fundamentals are intact.

What’s going to eventually happen?

Stock’s going to bottom out.

I’ll have a decent amount of entries to my name.

My buying average will be reasonably low.

The margin of safety my buying average allows me will let me sit on the stock forever, If I wish to.

Down the road, one day, I might be sitting on a big fat multiple.

Please do the math.

Happy and lucrative investing!

🙂