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.

What remains …

… is the tough stuff. 

You’ve taken care of the easy stuff. 

It’s been taken to its logical conclusion. 

It’s either flowing with you in the background, enhancing you, or it’s been put permanently to rest by you, in a form that will also always add to you. 

You don’t notice it anymore. 

It was easy, right!?

Easy stuff doesn’t push you to the wall. 

It gives pleasure. 

One gets used to pleasure. 

After a while, one doesn’t notice the source anymore. At least, one doesn’t notice it too consciously. 

Situation is different with the hard stuff. 

It’s hard, as in difficult. 

It pains you. 

It pushes you to the wall. 

You are challenged.

You don’t forget something that challenges you. 

This something remains with you, before your eyes, all the time. 

You are trying to find a solution. 

Your system is working overtime to convert this hard stuff into easy stuff. 

For some hard stuff, you find the conversion. 

Taken care of…

…and gone. 

Other stuff refuses to convert. 

Yes. 

You have it here in a nutshell. 

What is this folder made of?

Folder?

Yeah, folder. 

What folder?

The folder containing the hard stuff that refuses to convert into easy stuff. 

Oh, that folder, right. 

Yeah, what does that folder contain?

Hard stuff that refuses to convert into easy stuff?

Yeah but in other and more understandable words now…?

The biggest tests in your life?

YES. 

Leading to the biggest lessons learnt if by chance you are able to push out even one hard-folder-component into the easy-stuff-folder?

Exactement.