Chronology

Pipelines…

…come at a cost.

And, first up, there’s no need to fret about this cost.

I know, it pinches.

Having funds at a 20 second disposal will definitely cost.

Why go this extra, extra mile?

That’s a very befitting question.

We are not mad to create pipelines on call within 20 seconds.

Well, just to give you a heads up about how things can go down, here’s something.

June 4th, India, markets tank in the first hour.

Alerts, GTDs, GTTs, what-have-yous trigger.

I’m busy. Business meeting. Can’t get away.

6 of 7 GTTs in place get hit, and I’m in on these 6 scrips, at my price. 7th gets hit. No entry. No more funds in purchase account reported.

As meeting leader delivers on taxation laws in the country, there’s regret in my mind. Why did I not have enough funds in place?

Idea.

Let’s slimily look busy, and, meanwhile, activate a pipeline, put funds in place, and forcefully enter this particular scrip at CMP.

“Could you please pay attention, Mr. Nath, and put your phone away!”

Yikes.

Meeting ends (phew).

Action stations. Funds in place. Yes.

But what have we here?

Scrip’s showing a huge pin, and live daily candle has become a hammer. Bottomed out and then some, has the scrip. CMP is now 11% above the bottom.

Chickening out.

11% shaved off my margin of safety, in 45 minutes.

Yes people, that’s the window nowadays, for getting dream entries.

45 minutes.

Had it not been for the meeting, I would have been in within a minute or two, after reading the alert that GTT got triggered but no funds were available.

Lost time in this case would have been the interval between reading messages, plus a minute or two to have funds in place and go through with the buy. I’m not very regular about messages, though, perhaps on purpose, and 30 minute plus periods can well elapse. So, window cuts very fine. Idea is, whenever awareness kicks in, one needs to be in within a minute or two, if the GTT option has failed to deliver due to whatever reason.

The case described above was the one time that did not work, despite having everything of the highest quality in place.

What puts salt on the wounds is that the scrip quasi doubled from there within three months, so those lost 11% on margin of safety were peanuts. Yeah, the final fail was my fearful mind.

Painfulllllll….

That’s how it crumbles. One learns from the pain.

No pain, no learning.

My learning from this is that when GTT limit is 5.2% below CMP, we just sheer put funds in place for that GTT…

…now.

Approach

Markets speak.

Can we hear them?

Do we know their language?

We are not born knowing their language.

We learn.

Their’s is not a normal language.

It keeps changing…

…till it’s similar to the past…

…and then it changes again…

…to throw us off-track.

We need to keep adapting.

Every corner could be a new one, with a new sign.

Feel the challenge?

The thrill upon attempting to decipher?

Do you feel fulfilled?

Well, if yes, then you’ve met your calling.

Congratulations.

Now sustain.

Play out your full market journey. Enjoy it. Win.

How?

Since every corner could be a new one, every corner needs to be approached with a what-if-plan.

Simultaneously, one is on the lookout for signs.

What signs?

Similarities, in patterns, psychology, chronology, feel, levels, anything.

Have you seen this before?

What happened last time?

Approach with multiple scenario what-if.

What if you haven’t seen current signs on offer?

Carve out the situation.

Create scenarios.

Build a what if for each scenario.

Approach.

Notice something?

Whether one has seen something before, or not, the approach is basically the same.

Great.

We’ll not bother with getting spooked out.

We just keep tapping the markets, armed with a play-out strategy for each unfolding scenario.

Our approach is designed such that we sustain till the end of our market journey and beyond.

We keep intact our health, family life, and our corpus.

We keep sharpening our edge, and keep attempting lucrative reward risk scenarios.

We learn to take our stop.

We learn to let runners run till logical exits appear.

We learn to establish and enjoy a life beyond markets.

Wishing all market success and happiness.

🙂

Making Time Stand Still

The buck stops…

…with the entity called time.

Too much hangs on it.

Lack of it makes decisions difficult.

Too much of it defers them.

In the markets, we take it out of the equation…

…and then act.

If not, market forces bog us down.

And, imagine the load if our game is heavy.

After having gotten our basics infallibly into place, we wish to play a heavy game, without the load.

Hence,…

… – time – …

…first we take out of the equation,…

…and then we play.

We stretch the trade duration to a potential infinity. Period.

Trade might resolve in a few days. Or not. Right.

However, potential infinity gives us the wherewithal to focus on the next play.

Then, before action, we make time stand still.

How?

By forgetting that it exists.

By focusing on the one act that we are about to commit.

By encompassing the totality of all connectivities that have led us to the moment of acting, and having them before our mind and on our fingertips, as we act.

By being pinpointedly mindful of our actions whilst shutting out any disturbing noise.

By being…

…in the Zone,…

…such that,…

physically,…

…time might tick,…

…but for us it doesn’t seem to.

And…

…why?

Why are we so interested in making time stand still as we act?

For just one pure reason.

We want our act to have maximum impact.

And that it will, once we act, immersed in the scheme of things.

The chronology is as follows : Time still-stand, identification of market act, entry into scheme of things, action, exit from scheme, time roll-forward.

Timeframe doesn’t register in our minds. Potent action is identified, and happens, fitting into the natural fabric of things, into the timeline of the scheme of events.

Impact, ideally, is maximum.

Imagine the cumulative impact of a lifetime of such actions!

Wishing you lucrative times!

🙂

Is Cost-Free-Ness the Holy Grail?

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!

🙂

Dealing from a Position of Weakness 

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. 

🙂