Tag Archives: #EntryQuantum

The Stand-Out Price

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You’re ready with your small entry quantum,…

…looking to add on to you portfolio. 

You’re always liquid,…

…owing to your small entry quantum strategy. 

Where do you enter?

This is not a difficult question.

Why is this question not difficult?

That’s because the stocks in your portfolio are fundamentally tested, and have been found to be sound by you.  

Fundamental soundness is a bombastic plus. 

Now comes the next question.

Where is margin of safety being offered to you?

Is it enough margin of safety for you?

Are more stocks offering this kind of margin of safety?

What, then, is a stand-out price?

You will enter there. 

A stand-out price hits you in the eye. 

It is unusual. 

It speaks of a large fall such that the level of the price draws your attention within milliseconds. 

When you see a stand-out price on the way down like this, you ask the next questions. 

Why is the price where it is? 

What has happened?

Whatever that has happened, is it a one-time thing?

Is the momentum of the fall subsiding, or mid-way, or what?

Ask as many questions as you may want. 

The answer you want to drive at is yes or no.

Yes as in you would like to use your small entry quantum to pick up the stock in question. 

No as in you would like to wait for more clarification. 

If you pick up, you’re done for the day, if you follow a one-entry per day strategy, that is. 

If not, you look for another stand-out price. 

Making Equity Antifragile

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Yeps, Taleb’s the famous one. 

Moi, je ne suis pas célèbre.

Néanmoins, j’aime le terme “antifragile” de Taleb.

Also, Taleb has termed equity as robust.

I do equity. 

I’d like my interaction and future with equity to be antifragile.

Let’s first look at Taleb’s definition for antifragile.

He says that anything that has more upside than downside from random events (or certain shocks), is antifragile; the reverse is fragile.

Robust equity will eventually crack when subjected to shock.

We are aware of that.

What do we do now?

Firstly, we take time, and put it in infinity mode. Meaning, that we stay invested, for a long, long, long time. 

We’re now allowing equity amply sufficient time to recover from not one shock, but many shocks.

Also, each time there is a shock, and equity tanks, we go in and buy some more.

How can we do this?

We are sufficiently liquid, all the time. 

Our small entry quantum approach is ensuring that. 

Also, we’ve chosen such equity first-up that is minimally susceptible to cracking. That’s the best we can do. 

We have either avoided debt altogether or chosen debt-levels that are adding value to the stock and can be easily taken care of in the short-term. 

We have chosen equity with decent quick and current ratios. 

We have chosen adaptable managements that function as optimal human capital, fighting inflation, showering shareholder-friendliness and adding value at all times. 

However, crack they do, eventually, and we keep picking up more. 

Since we’ve kept ourselves “infinitely” liquid as per our small entry quantum approach, we are then also “infinitely”poised to benefit from the cracks. 

As we keep getting more and more opportunities to buy with meaningful margins of safety, markets show us more upside than downside. 

Thus, antifragility comes to us as a function of falling price, given that the underlying has sound fundamentals, low to nil debt and benevolent, versatile and diligent management. 

Now, let the shocks come. 

In fact, let 20 shocks come. 

We want shocks to come…

…so that we can continue to buy at rock-bottom prices, which work in an antifragile manner for us, because of the characteristics of the equity and management we have chosen. 

Profiting from shocks?

More upside than downside? Owing to the effects of a shock?

What kind of behaviour is that?

That’s antifragile behaviour.

Price Based Margin of Safety

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You might laugh at this one.

However, it is need based. 

We have been talking so much about small entry quanta. 

A small entry quantum allows for smaller mistakes.

It allows you to enter many times. 

It is small enough to make your capacity for entry outlast the number of margin of safety market days in a year. 

You take your savings. You define what you want to invest in equity for the year. 

You divide it by an estimate for the margin of safety days you might be getting for the year. You arrive at this number by estimating over a ten year average. 

Upon this division, you get your daily entry quantum, for the whole year, on margin of safety days. 

I go one step further to keep a constant small entry quantum defined for longer periods, for any particular entry day. 

As we said, small entry quanta should also mean many entries. 

We won’t be getting the same margin of safety every day.

On many days, we won’t be getting margin of safety at all, in the purist sense of its definition.

We will need to tweak the definition of margin of safety a bit, to have access to many entries. 

We are doing this because we are already on safe grounds. 

First up, we are playing with money we won’t be requiring for the next ten years, or so we estimate. 

Then, this is the money that is coming from our savings and is going into equity. It is for no other purpose. If it eventually doesn’t go into equity, we will end up finding some other use for it, such is human nature, and such is the nature of these multi-tasking times. 

Thus, if we see even a smallish entry possibility, we take it, because of the nature of the small entry quantum approach. 

How do we propose to tweak margin of safety?

We watch the price of a scrip we are unable to enter in. 

We watch, and we watch. 

Still too high. High, too, are fundamental entry allowers (FEAs), like price to earnings, price to book value, price to cash-flow, price to sales, etc., and we don’t enter. 

Then, one day, price starts to drop, for whatever reason. 

It continues to drop to a level, where we feel that for this particular scrip, that’s a pretty decent correction. 

It’s all feeling. 

You can look at charts, but then you tend to look once a month, and the feeling element fails to develop properly. 

So, we’re feeling pretty good about the level of correction, and we cast a glance at the FEAs. 

These are still a tad high, albeit much lower than before. 

For the FEAs to become lower than classic margin of safety levels, there could be a longer wait, or this event might not even happen, especially if we are looking at growth scrips.

If the event does not happen, it means no entry, and with our approach of small entry quanta, this leaves us high and dry with respect to the scrip. 

Are we going to let that happen?

Because of our safe small entry quantum approach, we are not going to let that happen if we can help it. 

When price offers margin of safety but FEAs are still a tad high, we enter with one quantum. 

Then we wait.

Scrip quotes some percentage points (2%, 3%, 5%, you choose) lower than our last entry. We enter with one more quantum, and so on. 

Now, two things can happen. 

The scrip can start zooming from here, and you are going to feel good about your entries. 

Or, the scrip falls further, and quotes lower than classical FEA definitions for margin of safety. 

Are you going to feel bad about your previous entries, which were small mistakes?

No.

Why?

You are too busy undertaking further entries into the scrip, quantum by quantum, for as long as the scrip quotes at levels below classical FEA definitions for margin of safety. 

Soon, you have a lot of entries done, at these safe levels, and you have more than made up for your few small mistakes. 

You’re good. 

In the other scenario, you were good anyways. 

Thanks to your small entry quantum strategy, it’s been a win-win for you all around. 

 

… And Why Growth Stocks…?

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Well, why not?

We’ve got History on our side.

Buffett shifted a tad from value to growth in the latter part of his career.

Forget about all that.

We get into growth because we wish to get into growth.

We’re not buying at growth prices, mind you.

Our value background comes in handy. We use value techniques to pick up growth.

We continue to accumulate upon opportunity, quantum by quantum.

Our portfolio gets rounded.

Over the long run, its gets a bit of a boost.

Ideally, we’d like our growth stories to continue, forever.

Consider this. What if even one of our holdings makes it to a 1000-bagger?

What do you think this would do to our portfolio?

Exactly.

Lots that starts out as value becomes growth later.

We pick value with growth in mind.

Sometimes, we’re not offered value in something we want to pick, for a long, long time.

We’re not offered value in the traditional sense of the way we expect value to be.

At these times we evaluate.

Is this something to “wantable” that we have to have it, like Buffett and Coca Cola?

No?

Continue as normal.

Yes?

Create new criteria for value, within growth.

Enter only when these criteria prevail, quantum by quantum.

Sit on your growth holding. Don’t just exit in a growth fashion, upon any odd market high.

Exits are reserved for when you comprehensively don’t want the stock anymore.

Why’s it not stinging you when there is a correction?

Meaning, that growth stocks fall considerably during corrections.

Well, firstly, you are not using money that you might need in the foreseeable future.

Then, the correction is an entry opportunity, so instead of being glum, you are busy going about entering.

Thirdly, because you are entering quantum by quantum, you have tremendous entry potential still left, with more being added to this month upon month, from your savings.

So, you’re not worried when your growth stocks fall.

When they rise, your portfolio burgeons, so…

…for all the above reasons…

…that’s why growth, too, apart from your value pursuits.

How to Enter into a Growth Stock

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You can play this one in different ways.

The successful way for you will depend upon your risk profile.

What we will be discussing here is a kind of a value way for growth stock entry.

Fine. What sets growth stocks apart from value stocks?

Valuation.

Growth stocks have high multiples.

What does that leave us margin of safety people?

Will we completely have to stay away from growth stocks?

No.

There’s a way.

Loosen your margin of safety criteria slightly. Bring it up to, for example, PE < 15, amongst other things. (We’ll compensate for this loosening, you’ll see).

Now wait.

Let the stock correct.

PE goes under 15.

Don’t enter yet.

Now we compensate.

We let more margin of safety develop in the price.

We want price going down to a technically viable level for entry.

This can be a Fibonacci level, a support, a base, a pivot, or what have you.

Three things have happened.

You have identified a stock through your due diligence.

You have waited for it to reach desired valuation after raising your valuation criteria a tad to compensate for the growth aspect.

You have compensated for your compensation by waiting further for a technical level to be hit before entering.

Now, you enter.

Your entry price becomes your base. (Subsequent entries will always refer to the base-price average).

You have entered with your minimum entry quantum.

You will take many entries, each with your minimum entry quantum.

You will keep taking entry till all the above criteria keep being met.

When even one criterion is not met, you will stop entering and will sit tight.

You will keep watching the stock and its management.

If entry criteria are not met for a long time, but stock is still not over-valued as such, you can enter once for every shareholder-friendly act of good governance, upon an interim dip in price.

You will only stop entering when over-valuation rules and becomes obvious.

You will think of exiting when you are no longer convinced about the stock.

Exit will be done upon a market high only.

Hopefully, you won’t need to exit for a long, long time, so that your investment turns into a multi-multi-bagger!

🙂

When is it Ok to Average Down?

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Just remember one thing…

…that the words “averaging down”…

…only go with long-term investing. 

They do NOT go with trading. 

After you have fully digested and understood the above, let’s to to the when. 

When does averaging down go with investing?

The answer to this is – only after doing proper homework. 

If you’ve not researched the underlying well enough, don’t even think about averaging down, because you could be throwing good money after bad. 

When there’s a correction, the long-term investor does get tempted to increase his or her holding, because of the lucrative prices that are on offer. 

Sure, why not?

Please understand, that this “sure, why not” is coming out so casually because of course the long-termer has worked overtime to arrive at the conclusion that he or she wishes to increase his or her stake in something that is already being held. 

The fall in the price of the underlying does not perturb the long-termer. Solid research has been done, and the markets make huge mispricing blunders when in free fall. Market players go all psycho and discard their precious holdings at throw-away prices. Picking up quality stocks at bargains is exactly what the long-termer is in it for.

The long-termer has done a few more things. 

Family has been secured with multiple income-sources and emergency funds. What’s going into the market is sheer surplus, not envisaged to be required over the next ten years. 

Then, entry quantum is small each time, small enough so that entries can be made all year round, and there will still be ample savings left after all entries. 

How does one calculate a small enough entry quantum that satisfies all of the above criteria?

One works backwards. 

Pinpoint your income after tax for the year.

Decide what you wish to amply save. Subtract this from your income. Further, subtract expenses. You are left with an amount. Decide whether all of this amount can go into the market, or whether only a part. Maybe you wish to go for a holiday with your family, or perhaps you wish to buy a vehicle, or what have you. Subtract such additional expenditure too. Finally, you are left with the amount that you wish to plough into the market, over the course of the year. 

Next, take the amount, and divide it by 30, or 40 or 50. 

Why?

On the down-side, the market could offer you margin of safety on 30 of the days that it is open in the year. On the up side, the number could be 50. We are talking about ten-year average numbers. During a singular correction, the market could offer margin of safety continually for the whole year. Decide what your magic number is. 30-40-50 days per year works ok over a ten year period. Divide the amount you’ve set aside with the number you’re comfortable with to arrive at your entry quantum per entry-day, for the year in question. Now you can keep going in with this same quantum through out the year whenever margin of safety is offered, and you generally won’t have to worry about running out of investing money, on average. 

Great stock-picking, excellent due diligence, surplus going in, small-enough entry quantum, ability to sit – the long-termer is armed with these weapons, and now, he or she can average down as much as desired, whenever margin of safety is offered.  

A Small Entry Quantum per Day Keeps the Doctor Away

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Your ears are probably swelling from all this talk about a small entry quantum (SEQ) per day.

However, you are also noticing the practical element of the SEQ, especially during the current correction.

Whatever’s happening in the world is happening. We need to long-term invest on the basis of what’s being offered to us. When we see margin of safety, we act.

However, we could go on seeing margin of safety for years upon end. Therefore, our entry quantum per day is small, so small that we can last out purchasing for quite a while, and still have ample liquidity left over for all other necessary aspects of life.

There’s another benefit of the SEQ though.

Let’s say that one of your holding turns rogue.

It can happen. So many scams are emerging. There’s a new scam every day.

So let’s just assume, for assumption’s sake, that the management of one of the stocks you are holding is involved in a fraud, and this fraud has come to light.

Where does that leave you?

You stop accumulation of this stock immediately.

Don’t expunge it yet. You’ll lose out. What if the scam is a hoax? Find out. It might blow over. Management might change. Your conviction in the stock might be rekindled. Wait for a market high. If you’re still not convinced about the stock anymore, expunge it on a market high.

What did the small entry quantum do for you here?

You had accumulated the stock over some kind of period, SEQ by SEQ, right?

When the fraud exploded, your holding wasn’t that sizeable. SEQ, remember.

A fraud management won’t wait multiple years to let their fraudulent natures act. Sooner or later, a fraud will get caught. Sooner the better. When this one is caught, your holding is not enormous. It’s size depends upon the number of years of holding and conviction.

The greater the conviction, the longer the holding and the lesser are the chances of the management consisting of fraudsters.

Your small entry quantum has ensured that over many, many years, stocks that end up getting accumulated majorly are the ones where conviction strengthens year upon year upon seeing multiple practices of good governance and shareholder-friendliness.

Scammers stop getting accumulated long ago. They are expunged on market highs.

After a decade or two, your portfolio is brimming with honest multibaggers.

Let if Fall to Zero, I Say

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Markets are correcting. 

The correction seems to be gathering momentum. 

Long-term portfolios lose out on net worth. 

Trading portfolios get their stops hit. 

It’s not pretty. 

Should one be worried?

Why?

Have we not taken worry out of the equation?

Sure. 

We have. 

We’re not worried. 

In fact, we want the correction to linger. 

Why?

So we can buy more. 

How long can you keep buying?

Till eternity.

How’s that possible?

Very simple. Do you have savings?

Yes.

Lovely. Do your savings grow?

Yes, month upon month, they do. I make sure of this by spending less than I earn. 

Even lovlier. Now take a very small potion of your total savings, and put it in the market. 

How small?

Small enough, such that if you were to put in that same small quantum on all off the approximately 220 days of the year that the markets are open, even then, your savings would keep growing at a representable rate. 

Ok. I see where you’re going with this. 

Absolutely. Now, suddenly, your whole perspective changes. You want your next quantum to go in. Thus, you want the correction to linger. 

What if the markets go up?

One keeps going in with the same quantum till one is getting margin of safety. No margin of safety anymore means no more entry. 

I see. That’s where your confidence is coming from.

Not entirely. You see, by the grace of God, I have made sure that my family’s bread and butter is secure before putting even a penny into the markets. 

Oh. Well done!

Then, whatever is going in, is surplus. 

Right. 

The rate of entry, i.e. the size of each quantum is minuscule enough to not pinch me upon the onset of a lingering correction. 

Great. 

Please note, that one gets one’s margin of safety on perhaps 20 – 30 days of the 220 days that the markets are open in the year, on average.

Really?!

Yes. 

That means that your savings keep growing at almost their normal rate of growth, because you’re rarely deducting from them as far as your long-term entries are concerned.

Mostly. However, what if a correction lingers for 2 years or more? Even at a time like that, you’ve got the ammo. 

Ammo, yeah, ammo is paramount. Don’t you feel like spending your savings?

I spend wisely. I don’t blow them away. I make sure, like you, that I’m saving more than I’m spending, month upon month upon month. However, I do spend.

Ok, now I’ve understood how you are so confident. 

I’ve not told you about my due diligence yet.

Oh, sorry for jumping the gun.

Due diligence is my most powerful weapon. I delve into a stock. I rip it bare. I get into the nitty-gritty (I wanted to say “underpants” originally) of the management, and let all skeletons in the closet loose. If there’s something crooked, it will emerge. The internet is my oyster. Nowadays, any and everything is available online. Mostly, a stock fails my parameters within the first 15 minutes of research. If a stock  survives perhaps three full on days of head-on research, that stock could be a likely candidate for long-term investment. Then, one looks for an appropriate entry point, which might or might not be there. If not, one waits for it. One could wait even a year. Markets require patience. 

Wow. Can I now say that I understand where your confidence is coming from?

Yes you can. 🙂

Dealing with the Nag

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Sadly, one’s spouse is the butt of many jokes in life. 

However, at the outset, I wish to make it very clear, that this piece is not about a joke at the cost of my beloved spouse, who, by the way doesn’t even fall under the N-word category. 

Having gotten that out of the way, what kind of nag are we talking about. 

This one’s almost a constant, and starts off as soon as your money goes on the line. 

At first it’s a tug. 

What are the markets doing?

How is your holding faring?

Let’s have a look. 

Come on, come on…

The tug is very compelling. 

You have a look. 

You see that your holding is taking a hit. 

There is disappointment. 

You shut your terminal in disgust. 

You’re trying to do other stuff, to divert your mind, but your mind keeps flowing back to the status of your holding. 

The tug has become a nag. 

This is the nag we’re talking about. 

We wish to outline a strategy which takes the nag out of your way. 

So, how does one deal with the nag?

It will be there. However it won’t be in your way. How do we create this condition?

If you can manage by ignoring, that’s just great. This might not work though. Nag-value mostly defeats ignoring power. 

Enter small each time. You will take away greatly from the nag-factor. It won’t hit you as much. You will me waiting to enter again, small of course, in the event that your holding has fallen. This is long-term investing we’re talking about. You’ve done your due diligence, and are not afraid to repurchase umpteen times as long as you’re getting margin of safety. Re-entry upon a fall in price of the underlying does not work while trading. In fact, re-entry upon a fall while trading is a strict no-no. You exit your trade if the fall goes through your stop-loss. You don’t re-enter. However, the small entry quantum during long-term investing goes a long way in reducing the nag factor. 

How do we wash away what’s left of the factor?

Do many market activities, as in, play multiple markets. After you’re done with one market, forget about it and move on to another. Mind will genuinely be distracted. Nag value will be further reduced, and greatly. However, it will still be there, minutely. 

Once you are done with all your markets, close your connection to them for the rest of the day, and only open the connection during the next market session, and that too upon requirement only. Meanwhile, you’re doing other stuff. Life has so much to offer. All remnant nag will be washed under the rug. 

You need to now just hold it together and resist the lure of a nudge in your mind to see how the markets closed, or any similar urge. You’re done for the day, and don’t you forget it. Don’t fall back into the trap, or the rest of your day (and perhaps your night too) would be ruined. Ask yourself if that would be worth it. No? Then move on. Enjoy the rest of your day doing other stuff.

You’re done already!

🙂

Poker and the Markets

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Professional poker is not a gamble, when one takes a large sample-size of many, many hands into consideration. 

On the other hand, non-pro poker is more likely a gamble. 

So, what’s the difference between professional poker and non-pro poker?

Strategy.

Players make “mistakes”. 

Mistakes cause losses. Lets define “mistake” here as anything that causes loss. 

Winning players strategize in such a manner, that their mistakes make them lesser than average losses, and sometimes, no losses at all, but even a win results. 

Reads, bluffs, meta-game, what have you,…

…the reason the player is a winner is that he or she is winning even with hands that would normally cause a loss.

Also, when the pro senses a winning hand, the pro bets big because the odds are in his or her favour, and the pro would like to capitalize, given the odds.

A few big wins coupled with many small losses, whereby the sum total of all losses is lesser than the sum total of the wins – that’s a winning combination. 

Let’s just take this element of the winning combination, and see how it’s implementable in the markets.

Market play means mistakes. 

Almost all the time, we’re making mistakes while we’re attempting market action.

However, because of our due diligence, we make intelligent moves too. 

Our intelligent play wins us money. 

Our mistakes lose us money. 

How do we let our mistakes lose less money?

By having a very small entry quantum each time. 

How do we allow our intelligent moves to win big?

By not nipping a winner in the bud. Also, by putting money into the winner when it dips, and at an appropriate entry level.

What do we have here, then?

Many small mistakes, and a few big wins, whereby the sum total of the mistakes is lesser than the sum total of the wins.

This is the same winning combination we discussed above.

Voilà.

🙂

I Got the Feeling

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What feeling?

The feeling of value-creation – that’s the feeling we’re talking about. 

When can one create value?

When there is value…

… and one sees it,…

…upon which one has the courage to act…

…and make that value one’s own.

This normally happens during and after a correction. 

Therefore…

…a correction is not a cause for depression.

Please understand that and please incorporate that into your DNA.

A correction is a time for action.

You go about adding value to your portfolio, again, and again, and again, as long as the correction lasts, and after, till bullishness sets in beyond your comfort level.

How can you keep on doing this?

This can be achieved by keeping your entry quantum small enough each time. We’ve been over that many times, and only recently, we went over it very thoroughly. 

So, the markets are falling, and you are going on and on, adding value. To be able to follow through properly, your system needs to be fully convinced about what you’re doing, and that’s why, I ask you again. 

Do you have the feeling?

Do you have the feeling that you’re creating value and adding it onto your holding?

Keep doing so, till the feeling persists. 

Stop, when the feeling is gone. 

Save, so that you have the resources to go on and on adding value. 

Enter small, so that you can enter many, many more times, perhaps adding even more value the next time. 

Be sensitive towards when the feeling comes and goes. 

Soon enough, during a burst of bullishness, you’ll see how this knowledge translates into a burgeoning portfolio.