Fading Deception

Manipulating…

…the masses…

…towards something to be bought…

…or something to be sold…

…when whales are out to buy or sell, respectively, …

…is the bread and butter order of the day usual suspect chicanery that one can expect in the marketplace.

Unnerving?

Relax.

It’s normal.

How else would a whale feed on a school of fish?

Meaning, how would a big institution, or a many-big-institutions-conglomerate loosen the public’s hold on their holdings, to sell en masse if the big people are buying. Or, vice-versa, how else would the BigFats offload bulk onto the unsuspecting FatteningPigPublic, if the BigFats (BFs) are selling bulk?

Deception…

…is a handy tool that comes to hand.

Offloading Korea? Gold? Silver? Oil? Something AI with no fundamentals? Create the hype, reel after reel, rant after rant, roadshow after roadshow, till all and one’s Aunty believe the story, and when these latters start to act, BFs start offloading.

Buying Core Indian Tech? Lambast the country and the world with non stop ranting for 5 months and continuing. Flood its social media with panic reels about the collapse of Core Indian Tech with its debt-free-ness and its cash on the balance sheets, something whales want to own, and watch the underlyings crash, lapping them up as huge bargains.

Disturbed?

Manipulation is irritating.

However, it sets up opportunities.

Buying opportunities.

Selling opportunities.

It’s woven into the nature of markets.

Material and emotional life is about wheedling a few bucks out of someone, or keeping someone’s affection trapped with emotional blackmail.

Markets are a reflection of life itself, thus.

Why should one be alarmed, then, when short-term life-dealings are also found in the markets?

Any way out of this conundrum?

There is.

Remove the noise.

Move away from the one-month thought process, the three month one, the six month one, the one year one. Move longer term. 5 years. 10. 20. No noise now. Fundamentals will shine and translate into EPS spikes into price spikes. That’s all. That’s how markets work. This takes time though. Time enough for manipulation to come, do its work, die down as noise always does, and then the real game starts to play.

If you still can’t handle it, move onto some other play.

Or…

…teach yourself to stay long-term.

Best way to learn is to put your money on the line, hit, try, fall, get up, repeat, till you stop falling.

Ensemble

Amidst the…

…frenzy…

…of reels, posts, communications, reports, research and what have yous…

…concerning the ongoing image battle of AI vs Core IT…

…it is extremely difficult to keep one’s head and vision clear.

What does the future look like?

A flurry of multitudinous pathways emerging does not mean utopia yet.

Forward outlook, especially a lucrative one, is not about exclusion.

Coming on to the scene with an attitude of trampling everyone else out of the scene – is this sustainable?

No.

Going into the future with partnership?

Yes. Sustainable. Let’s look around. Who’s forming partnerships?

Core IT. Yes. The impulse to continue to thrive is a strong one.

AI? (Yes). No. No. Unsure. No. Yes. No.

The frenzy that results after having spent obscene sums with steady revenue streams only developing since recently is so frantic and haphazard, that one’s left hand sometimes doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.

Pulling at the same string in the same direction will maximize revenue stream.

Hostile attacks at Core IT, every few days a new one, is not the way forward.

Is this a case of ‘as the leader does so do the subjects act’? A kind of a concerted strategy? To stomp on everyone’s heads and declare oneself king.

King?

Perhaps for a day.

Long-term market leadership requires craft.

Craft comes from years of honing.

Speak track record.

Who has this?

Core IT.

AI has at max what? Capability. Not craft. For craft, one needs to grind.

New kids will need to work as an ensemble within business infrastructures.

Not without.

Within.

Inclusion is in.

Exclusion is out.

Boo to exclusion.

Imagine a scenario…

…when Core IT comes out with something…

…much…

…much…

…cheaper.

Even in that scenario, it will choose to include. That’s why it’s made money for five decades back to back.

Remember that word.

Inclusion.

Staring Facts in the Face

Mongerers…

…are very, very busy.

After all, the target is in a corner.

Why not strike massively, and keep striking?

Punish the vanquished multiple times per misdemeanour.

Unfortunately, Core IT has gone quiet.

They’ve stopped caring about their share price.

Focus is now on intrinsic growth, not on quarter to quarter looking good attitude.

Pushed to the wall, the instinct to survive and regain lost ground is on all fours.

Forget about all this, is the aggressor AI actually so capable as to completely substitute the need for Core IT with regard to enterprise level programming, already?

No.

Perhaps in a year?

No.

5 years.

No.

10 years?

Possibly not.

20 years?

Possibly yes.

And, look at the mass reaction.

Masses believe they are ready to take over, like, yesterday.

Then comes the black box introduction.

AI companies are offering a black box to corporates, which will be their in-house AI, all data stays at home, let’s all bypass Core IT.

Does the data stay in the black box? Does it go anywhere? Does anybody know?

No.

Where is the trust coming from?

A bank entrusting its internal data to a black box, the big four doing the same, doctor’s records, hmmmm, not adding up. To a human under non-disclosure agreement? Plausible.

Departments being trained in corporates to become the tech arm?

It’s like an additional wing being added to a hospital, to handle book-keeping. Use the wing for expanding the hospital? What a preposterous idea! Let’s all become jack of all trades. Why even bother specializing. For that we have AI, right, to handle the specialist surgeries?

Panics almost always take to ridiculous trajectories.

This one has now cracked open genuinely clean-balance-sheeted free-cashflow-generating companies. Who have decided to take on all blows without responding. Probably want their CMPs to hit three digits and then some before announcing anything. They seem to have forgotten what buybacks are.

With nothing to go on, where do you stand, regarding Core IT?

Clean balance sheets.

Zero debt.

Track record of navigating through disruption.

Free cash flow being generated year upon year.

That’s enough.

Two choices.

Hold on to your holdings and look elsewhere currently, for investing.

Add on, as in average down.

Depends upon your risk profile, which option you choose.

Liquidation, for me, is not an option, given this :

Clean balance sheets.

Zero debt.

Track record of navigating through disruption.

Free cash flow being generated year upon year.

What am I doing?

Till lately I was averaging down.

Recently, I stopped averaging down in Core Tech. That’s a change in trajectory. Ya, have been investing elsewhere recently. Going to hold Core IT through, and accumulate further only above my buying averages for Core IT stocks. The exact change that’s happened is that now I need these stocks to speak out with their deeds and propel themselves to above my buying averages, before buying more. Might not happen soon. That’s fine. The reasons for comfort in holding are these :

Clean balance sheets.

Zero debt.

Track record of navigating through disruption.

Free cash flow being generated year upon year.

As long as these reasons exist, holding beyond while focusing elsewhere is the change that’s happened at Magic Bull.

Why, you ask? Why a change from the staunch attitude earlier?

It’s a matter of being in tune with one’s risk-profile. Till it wasn’t speaking up, I was comfortable averaging down. When it started to be bewildered by the goings on, I changed to being comfortable holding.

It’s ok. One can’t have the right opinion all the time. For a while, one can be wrong also. In those times that one feels one can be wrong also, making the switch from averaging down to only holding is ok, provided these exist :

Clean balance sheets.

Zero debt.

Track record of navigating through disruption.

Free cash flow being generated year upon year.