Flow

Everything…

…flows.

It’s just that …

…at most times …

…we don’t see it …

…like that.

Mediocre vision …

…leads to lack of clarity.

Confusion.

Freeze.

Inability to recognize opportunity.

And / or …

…inability to act upon such recognition, even if it eventually comes.

What then come are the numbers.

Is it a surprise that one’s numbers are then also …

…mediocre?

Remedy?

Getting into the flow.

How?

Devise your own way.

Some meditate.

Others read.

Discuss.

Call.

Travel.

Workshops.

Conferences.

Study.

Analyze.

Speak.

Etc.

You..

…need to do your thing …

…to experience …

…and harness …

…seamlessness.

Oh me?

I do some of the above stuff, at times, …

…study and analyze a few times a week, …

…read more regularly, …

…and …

…I write.

Beyond

There’s a…

…rulebook…

…and then there’s beyond.

The world beyond…

…abounds with freedom.

The freedom to think…

…like no one’s thought before.

To make seemingly absurd connections leading to clarity.

To crunch numbers and patterns without crutches.

To see with multi-dimensional vision using the eye of the mind.

To function beyond, one first needs to learn the rules of the normal, worldly game, by the book.

Followed by repeat implementation.

There comes a time, when a rule is implemented subconsciously, without having to look.

Extrapolate to entire game, whole rulebook, implemented as if on auto, through one’s reflexes.

Get ready for beyond.

One goes…

…beyond…

…without warning…

…when one is ready as outlined above.

Goes, comes back, goes, comes back, it’s quite random.

Bottomline is, how conscious is one while one is beyond?

Journey can last for just a few seconds, or even a second. Example – one has a flash.

Level of consciousness while beyond allows one to address solutions for complex issues.

What’s the bottom for this market?

Ground-reality of war?

How do I solve my home-situation?

What overall pattern is this market gravitating towards?

Ulterior motives.

Etc.

How much of such knowledge can be incorporated?

Can it even be true?

Is it making common sense?

Does one have the confidence to act upon it?

Well, it’s not all going to add up immediately. However…

…repeated performance over many years allow one to make systems.

To gauge reactions.

To develop counter-reactions.

To write a rule-book…

…for implementation of beyond-insights in actual life.

Implemented together with the entire gamut of logical, human rules of the world, an intuitive, self-written rule book to go in tandem is…

… invaluable.

Loops

There comes a day…

…when…

…even scum…

…meets its match.

On that day, or from that day onwards, …

…nothing seems to work out for even the worst evil entities.

How does one get to being…

…the worst of the worst…

…or, perhaps, the best of the best?

It’s all about loops.

Positive loops.

Negative loops.

Downwards spirals.

Betterment cycles.

Let’s break it down.

Action. Let’s say good cause created.

Positive effect.

Felt by one’s environment as well as one’s body, mind and soul.

Biochemistry of positivity secreted.

One’s system feels great, like a billion currency units.

Sleep quality great.

Feeling of contentment – priceless.

One psychologically wants to recreate this loop forever.

Wonderful. Please let’s keep doing this only.

Flip side.

Negative cause created.

Corresponding negative effect on environment and one’s entire system of body, mind and soul.

Biochemistry of negativity secreted.

Neurosis.

Psychosis.

Sleep quality horrendous.

Digestion compromised.

Immune system compromised.

Invitation for disease to seep in.

On-edge and worsening state of body and mind makes it very easy for more and worse negative causes to be created, within the same cycle, as wild-oat add-ons.

Even though one hates the idea of it, one has dragged oneself into a snowballing negative loop, out of which one needs to pull oneself out with full force, before it’s too late and before the burgeoning avalanche of adverse Karma drowns one into oblivion forever, erasing any trace of goodness or its footprint that ever existed in one.

It boils down to what we choose to do with our lives. Choices.

It boils down to the causes we create. Good karma. Accumulation. Non stop. Do good. Move on. Repeat. Loop it.

It boils down to this moment in life.

Let’s make it and all following moments the best ever possible moments for us and our environments.

Let’s let our positive loops carry us onto higher and higher, better and better trajectories. In life. In investing. In CSR. In society. Everywhere.

Cheers. 🙂

Cared to Rewire?

Hey.

From this point onwards…

…it all boils down to…

…stamina.

Theories for market success have been out there, in abundance, since eternity.

Everybody can read how the richest man in Babylon…

…got rich.

Or how compounding works.

Position-sizing.

Entry quantum.

Margin of safety.

Profit run.

Multibaggers.

Engines of income generation.

Entry into the territory of wealth.

Generational wealth-creation. Etc.

Yes. Everybody can read. Or listen. Or both.

Question is…

…how many can follow through?

Of those who set out, how many can remain grounded and focused when the heat is turned up, like now?

Most importantly, how many can finish?

I would estimate that a low single digit percentage walks the talk to successful culmination.

Why?

You see, heat does something critical.

Once it is turned up, it burns out all nervous systems that haven’t been rewired.

Given that we are not born with nervous systems programmed towards market success, we need to rewire them over the years and over the knocks. Once fully rewired, our nervous systems can withstand, pivot, and generate wealth over prolonged strife.

As this crisis continues, more and more players will start to cave in.

Capitulation at lows.

Others will stop all activity owing to fear, but might not sell. They’ve frozen. Better than capitulation.

There will be some who cash out with the intent of getting in lower, cannot then find the courage when the lows come, and then join their frozen compatriots as the reversal arrives and accelerates.

Still others, with funds safely picked away in fixed deposits, will be afraid to bring them over to Equity. Fine. They are behaving as per their risk-pr0file. At least they are in control of their behaviour.

Rewired market entities will be acting. They know what to buy. Markets give ample time to study, and all kinds of preparation will have been done, like, yesterday. These folks will have started buying upon the arrival of their levels. Clockwork. Small entry quanta. Position-sized as per their risk profile. Programmed to keep entering for a long period. That’s how they will have positioned themselves and their liquidities. These entities will show stamina and will outlast everyone to still be buying at market bottoms and slightly beyond. They will emerge with the lowest buying averages, and will make the quickest multiples upon reversal, after which some will pull their principles out, while others will ride their holdings to multibaggers.

Who do you want to be?

It’s ok if you don’t identify with any of these categories. Find your passion elsewhere.

Or, self-PhD to a rewired market mindframe, sooner than later. Preferably – now. This crisis could even just be beginning. No one knows. Since no one also knows how long it will last, for all you know, you could still get a year or two’s great buying ahead.

Wishing you lucrative investing.

Constants

Waldermort…

…overplayed his hand.

Thought he had the nuts…

…and bet the farm.

Turns out…

…that the adversary’s hole cards…

…plus the flop, turn and river…

…are leading to a full house.

As opposed to Waldy’s…

…ordinary nut flush.

Waldy is oversmart and a half.

Backfires at times.

This one has backfired at the worst possible time.

Only one result.

Waldy loses…

…everything.

Reserve status.

Serious player status.

Reputation, if there was any.

Loyalty, which was abundant from former allies, but is now…

…not even zero, but minus.

What more can one lose?

Whatever one can. It’s lost.

When this is over, a new methodology of doing everything business and financial will have emerged.

Meanwhile, a few constants remain.

There are areas in the world, where there is growth.

And will be, for the next 25 years.

Like India.

Semblance of stability?

Yes.

Integrity?

Yes.

Win-win attitude?

Yes.

Loyalty?

Yes.

Balance?

Yes.

Clout?

Yes.

Consumption.

Yes.

Period.

Buy India during this fall.

As long as the fall lasts. One year. Two years. Three years. No one knows.

What one also doesn’t know is whether India will give this buying opportunity again.

So, buy India.

Even if it means that you get fully invested during current fall.

That’ll be just great.

Magic

Sure, …

… nobody said this was a bottom already.

No signs of a bottom.

For all you know, the real correction just started.

So, everyone is asking, …

… why in the world a buyer is buying …

… now.

Confused? No need to be.

First up, please understand, that money enters the market in a planned fashion when position sizing rules are in place.

Oh, there’s one more safety rule.

In a day, only so much goes in, in total.

Let’s say what you are referring to as a bottom comes within, hmm, two days, one day, four hours, one hour… ,

… whenever it comes.

Do you actually believe and / or have the guts to get fully invested in that minuscule time-frame?

Let me answer that for you. NO.

Why am I so clear on this?

Moving big money in one shot when the whole world’s pajamas are falling, and watching it possibly become half in a few days will most likely lead to neurosis and / or psychosis.

It is mentally digestible to keep buying at levels as per the entry quantum allowed by one’s position-sizing algorithm.

Though the overall market or index or sector benchmark might not be signalling a bottom, individual stocks hover around correction levels, threatening to recover from there.

We let them hover.

If they are not declining further from a correction level after a bit, we pick up one lot.

What’s the lot?

It’s a function of one’s networth at that point.

What function?

You decide. Yes. Your decide your own position size at each point thus, as per a mathematical calculation. You can decide to programme this function, for example, in a manner that you go in more when you are winning and go in less when you are losing. Or vice-versa. As per your personality and risk-profile. You call the shots. You are the master of your money and journey.

As time goes by, and as the correction deepens, you have lots of lots in. Ideally, you get fully invested before recovery. Compared with trying to move in fully at the exact bottom, well you might get lucky with the latter option, but it will burn your nerves, and resulting psychosis can last longer than when rational decisions will need to be taken. Not worth it. Position-size, entry quantum, going in bit by bit – this is what our nervous system can handle well without getting damaged. Markets change within months, perhaps weeks, and…

… when the magic happens, you deploy your exit strategy, whatever that is. Be rationally around to do so.

Or, simply, don’t do anything except watching the magic, …

… of a low buying average develop into a multiple.

Poise

Hey.

Story’s changed already.

IT has suddenly become a defensive buy, it seems.

Not perceived as oil dependent.

See how fast that happened.

Five weeks ago one was hearing the RIP bugles for IT, or so the spin-doctors were trying to spin it.

Bottom-line : don’t believe the stories being spun. Have your own…

… high conviction.

And, the opportunity is…

…now.

Make up your mind.

Invest where you see stability and growth. Invest in India.

There are a lot of high conviction ideas in India that can be latched on to.

Fear makes good investments fall too. That is happening now. To take advantage of this effect, one needs to be fearless with high conviction.

How does one build high conviction in a stock?

Repeated shareholder-friendliness shown by a management.

Clean balance-sheet.

Abundance of free cashflow.

Debt-free-ness.

Longevity.

Vision.

Margin of safety.

That’s it.

Oh, one more thing.

Don’t force the market.

Let it make you enter.

Be poised with a funded GTT order in place before market open.

Keep doing this throughout the fall, as margin of safety deepens. One can do this if one has created enough liquidity during good times, and if one keeps entering with small entry quanta proportional to one’s networth.

Idea is to enter with and into high conviction multiple times, each time lowering the buying average.

With that, one sets oneself up for a fast multiple when markets recover.

It’s boiling down to…

…poise.

Courage

Tariff knife is…

…blunting.

500 will need to come on to have any strategic value.

500 is many things.

Call it a joke. Dream. Litany. Madness. Moronic. Ridiculous to the power of n. Whatever.

It’s still getting headlines.

500 will kill.

Since it’s do or die, all sides are coming out in the open.

Yeah, there’s real activity.

There was a 105 minute state visit yesterday. We know who flew in, and where to, with what mandate, etc.

Before that, the German chancellor, accompanied by a powerful team, came to India too.

French and German teams went to Russia.

BRICS counter is very busy, the busiest it has ever been.

New deals. Alliances. Promises. Protection.

Currency?

Yes. Coming.

This one will bypass being bullied.

New world order.

Process is in spurts and then there’s brief time for whatever equilibrium that can be achieved under the circumstances.

And that, exactly, is our style of transferring out…

…of cash…

…and into…

…assets.

Spurt, balance, spurt, balance and in the middle, somewhere, at any resulting low, we go in.

What assets?

The ones we are comfortable with.

Can the blunt knife still hurt?

Yes, 500 will kill. Businesses, relations, trade…

So what then?

The idea is to make 500 work for oneself.

How?

In the wake of 500, there will be many lows, in many assets. Those are entry points. You need to have the courage to buy.

What if there’s a lower point later?

You buy more there, later. This chronology might continue for a while.

How long?

Till the wealth transfer is complete from the old world order to the new world order.

So how long?

Don’t know. 15 months. 5 years. Anybody’s guess. I’m banking on about 3 years or so.

If your liquidity lasts 15 months, how will you manage to buy for 3 continuous years?

As I said, everything is happening in spurts. There will be pockets where my exit rule will trigger for various entries.

Oh, so your entries will generate liquidity along the way, rule-based.

Yup.

Additionally generated liquidity will lead to more buying, along the way.

True, after taking care of my personal liquidity needs.

Hmmm, that’s something.

Yeah. Keep going. Don’t be afraid. Don’t let the screamers knock you off your game. This one will be won if we don’t blink. Stare the bully in the face. Wear the bully down. At the bully’s core, there is huge fear. That’s the difference between the bully and us. At our core, there is …

…conviction…

…which results in…

…courage.

How to?

How does one…

…position oneself…

…for what’s coming?

What’s coming?

Yeah.

Meaning the turbulence ahead?

What else. First up, we’re taking turbulence to be the norm, from this point onwards.

All right. Turbulence = norm. Baseline set.

Then, how do we maximally exploit our understanding, …

…simultaneously creating income…

…but then also allowing wealth to accumulate and compound?

Yeah, how do we?

You tell me.

We need to start with an asset class.

Right.

Which asset class?

Again, you tell me.

What we’re comfortable with.

Yes. Beautiful. And then we weaponize the asset class chosen, the one we’re comfortable with.

Weaponize?

Yeah. Otherwise it will be no good for these times. We need to make it time-befitting.

Example?

Let’s say you choose gold, ok? What good are your efforts in gold if after a point governments nationalize it and then confiscate it, paying you a reasonable price at that moment, and then, from that point onwards, in the hands of enough governments, gold turns a 100-bagger, for them, not for you?

Yeah, what good are my efforts in gold then?

No good. You need to trade gold, use some profits as income, and another portion of profits you invest in other asset classes, bought cheap, which the government has issues regulating harshly.

Like? Crypto?

Some think so. That’s their weapon of choice. Personally, I have problems with storing my entire networth on a pen-drive. That alone takes crypto off the table for me.

So where do you go?

Stocks. They come naturally to me.

Stocks can be harshly regulated.

In isolation, if we’re looking at stocks-stocks, yes, I’ll give you that. In a solid framework encapsulated within an income-generation cum wealth-creation mechanism operating with fundamental, evergreen principles like margin of safety, letting profits run, position-sizing and what have you, even stocks can be made to behave like the anti-fragile system they are a part of.

Would that not be valid for any asset classes, then?

Yes, provided the government can’t seize that asset class overnight from you.

Like cash?

True.

Gold?

True.

Silver?

Yeah.

Bonds?

Not sure. Risk of default though.

Real-estate?

Prices of real-estate follow demand and supply, and demand is reciprocally proportional to negative regulation. Governments can crash real-estate. So, yes.

Crypto?

I’m not so sure that crypto is beyond regulation. However, exchanges collapsing regularly are not my scene.

Stocks?

Have we heard of governments seizing stocks? As long as no illegal activity, all debts paid off, clear ownership and succession, I don’t think the government can do that. So stocks of companies, for me, remain in the fray. On top of that, we encapsulate them into a system. The system has an edge. It’s multi-faceted. It generates income, approximately when required, in cash. Otherwise, it creates wealth through compounding. Throw in 20 -30 models like margin of safety, letting most profits run, position-sizing, fine-tuned Fibonacci, income dynamos, etc. etc., and what we’re looking at is a unique entity, which behaves differently when compared to fragile stocks, or even to robust stocks.

So what you’re trying to say is that it all depends how you handle each asset class is what makes that asset class either fragile, robust or anti-fragile.

Exactly.

Is that your word?

Which word?

Anti-fragile.

No. It belongs to Mr. Taleb. In whatever way a word or a concept can belong to a person…

Like governments can crash real-estate, they can also crash stocks. What do you say to that?

Oh, that’s an anti-fragile part of this system, which leaves the user liquid enough to benefit greatly from such crash, seen from a 15 month perspective. User of such system is positioned to take huge advantage of temporary and large price dips. Stocks have a very low ticket size as compared to real-estate, and can be readily swooped up in a crash in bulk, unlike real-estate, which is heavy and is a huge liquidity-enemy.

Where do you stand with your system, personally?

As a whole, I’m working towards making my system with stocks, income-generation and wealth-compounding as antifragile as I possibly can.

What’s the critical mass, above which the system can be considered safe for the new world order?

I’m not sure. It’s all experimental.

So how will you know?

If I make the transition to the new world order whilst preserving a large portion of my portfolio, I’ll know that I’ve succeeded.

Any other method apart from the make or break one suggested by you?

No. Everything else is theory. Surviving reasonably well and then thriving is the only practical method that counts for me.

Thanks.

🙂

The One Big Thing That Sticks

We try many things…

…in the markets.

For many years do we labour. 

Strategies come, and they go. 

Some stick. 

After running through many, many plays, we find a handful sticking. 

We take them. 

Some still wither away. 

Others get bigger. 

Eventually, one is the biggest. 

Why?

You enjoy it.

You’re good at it.

It comes naturally. 

Others aren’t fun. 

You’re tense with others. 

This one, oh, this one’s another ball game. 

It just flows. 

And so do you. 

You start to scale it up, unknowingly, at first. 

Eventually, realization sinks in.

This one thing that’s sticking so well…

…yeah, this is your life’s work. 

It’s your one big thing. 

You’ve already scaled it up to a point of no return…

…and that’s ok…

…because you don’t want to turn back. 

You’re now going to toil to make your life’s big work reach its logical conclusion. 

That’s the least that it deserves, and you’re just going to enjoy the ride…

…apart from using its proceeds to see your lot and others soundly through life, and then some.

Using Doubt as an Asset

Is this really working?

Have I thought this through enough?

Is my strategy sound enough to hold?

Am I going to look like a fool?

Should I just scrap it?

What if I’d followed that other strategy, where the other fellow said he was making tons of money with? (Like hullo, just forget the other fellow, period).

Questions…

…crop up…

…when a strategy stalls, or doesn’t behave like you want it to.

Doubt is par for the course.

Doubt is good.

Keep it at good.

Control doubt.

Don’t let it control you.

I have a great strategy for when doubt crops up.

Nothing.

I do nothing.

I sit on the strategy in question, and occupy my mind with other things.

Now, two things can happen.

Either the strategy starts to work again,…

…or things remain status quo.

If your patience is over, fine, scrap it.

However, mostly, things do get back to normal.

You’ve taken your time to develop something.

Effort and sweat have gone in.

Don’t be in a hurry to scrap something valuable.

A new strategy will take long to develop. Be prepared for that.

Remember, no strategy works all the time.

You’re well served by one that works more than it doesn’t work.

Doubt serves like a stop-loss.

As doubt overshoots critical mass, you start to change things.

Use doubt as an asset.

Till it is overshooting critical mass, keep observing it, but don’t act.

A Little Bit of Manual is a Good Thing

Sure.

Auto is the motto.

Keep some pivotal stuff on manual, though.

It’ll give you something to do.

Because it’s pivotal stuff, it decides direction, or quantum, or what have you.

Position-sizing is ideally done on auto.

You can write an algorithm for it too.

Yeah.

You can take auto to the nth level and then some.

Keeping position-sizing on manual, though, for example, makes you remain in touch with portfolio expansion or contraction. Central.

In my opinion, setting risk:reward is a trade to trade thing, and depends upon the underlying chart. Hence, being manual here gives more dexterity.

Same goes for setting stop-losses.

Which auto strategy to look at, when, is by default a manual thing. It should be, anyways, in my opinion.

This adds spontaneity to life.

Spontaneity has a certain freshness to it which makes work fun.

Some strategies are better off when not looked at for days.

Manual helps here.

When an auto strategy stops working, one needs to manually fit it to work again.

If the strategy needs dumping, you’ll need to see to this yourself.

Creation of a new strategy – you got it – manual.

The manual stuff keeps you moving, and fit.

The auto stuff just goes on auto, and if that’s all there is for you, you’re going to start getting lazy.

Befriend manual, but don’t become a slave to manual.

A little bit of manual is a good thing.

We Don’t Want Anymore

There comes a time…

…when we don’t want anymore.

Why has this happened?

It’s a spin-off from our small entry quantum approach.

We’ve been buying at sale prices, with small entry quanta, each day, a quantum a day.

A groove has been set.

After umpteen failed attempts, prices break through.

An interesting thing happens to us.

Slightly higher prices start to pinch us.

As prices go even higher…

…our mood is off, and…

…we don’t want anymore.

From a strategy perspective, this is the best thing that could have happened to us.

We will not be buying as margin of safety vanishes and remains vanished.

Our want will be triggered once more, when margin of safety returns.

This has not taken place for free.

It is an indirect result of our painful sticking to a small entry quantum approach.

🙂

Factoring in Doomsday

Because of your small entry quantum, you are always liquid.

That’s how you have defined the strategy.

What happens when there’s a market crash?

Your existing folio takes a hit.

You’ve been buying with margin of safety.

Because of your small entry quantum strategy, your hit is not hitting you.

Your focus is elsewhere.

It is on the bargains that the crash has created.

You keep targeting these with your fresh entry quanta.

You keep getting margin of safety.

Suddenly you realise, that you like it.

You like being in bargain area.

You like the sale that’s going on.

It won’t always be so.

There will be times that you won’t be getting any margin of safety whatsoever.

Then, you realize another thing.

You’re not afraid of a crash…

…because…

…you are ready, to pick more.

What has empowered you?

Margin of safety.

Small entry quanta.

Controlled level of activity.

Great fundamentals.

Great managements.

Quality.

Crashes come. Crashes go.

You’ll keep buying stocks with the above criteria as per your outlined strategy, and you’ll keep adding on to your purchases with small entry quanta.

It’s not hurting you, because the money you’re putting in has been defined in such a manner.

Your mind has digested this definition, and your strategy is in place.

The market being down while you buy is a requirement for your strategy to be successful in the long run.

It is a good thing for you. It is not a bad thing.

It takes a while to realize this.

When Money goes on Auto

What does “doing well” mean for you?

Making money – does that mean you are doing well?

Not necessarily.

You could be making money, but in the bargain, your life could be out of balance.

In my world, that’s already a fail.

Ideally, I like to keep the market in my pocket, and be in some sort of balance, such that a feeling of well-being is generated.

What am I feeling happy about?

Firstly, about defining my market scope. I have outlined how I wish to interact with the market. I’ve not allowed the market to define me. That makes me happy.

Secondly, I’ve stuck to my strategy. Before that, I found my strategy. Phew!

Now you try it out.

The market shouldn’t bother you after you’re done with it. See to it. Programme yourself in such a manner. Once you’re done with the market, you can then utilise your time for other vitally important things in life. If the market were bothering you with its constant nag, you would not be able to do these things properly.

Congratulations, your life is now rounded off, and not mono-faceted.

Sticking to a winning strategy when things are not going your way is going to see you through.

I know, the urge to call it off and look for a new strategy is huge when your current one seems to be going South. However, you’ve tried and back-tested your strategy. It should hold and then some. Now, have the confidence to stick to a plan.

Notice something?

I’ve not spoken about money.

Why?

Because, mostly, money goes on auto, when these basics are standing strong.

The Stand-Out Price

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. 

Price Based Margin of Safety

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. 

 

Useless vs Useful Expansion

I’m guilty of useless expansion. 

I end up doing it all the time. 

Can’t help myself, you see.

I like to keep exploring new stuff in the market. 

The silver lining is, the even though I might be expanding sideways, there are two good things happening also. 

There is no scaling up happening immediately. Good. 

There is also a lot of discarding going on. Things that don’t work out are eventually abandoned. Great. 

My issue is that I might have between 1 to 2 useless strategies in my repertoire at any given time. 

These strategies are not working. In fact they are dying out. Reasons can be many. A strategy might be sound, but it might not be a fit. 

For a strategy to work for you, it must be practically lucrative in the long run, and it must fit you. 

By the time I realize that a strategy needs to be discarded, money has been lost. Tuition fees? Yes. 

Ultimately, things boil down to a handful of successful strategies. It can even ultimately boil down to one or two successful ones.

Get there. I’m trying too. To do so, useless strategies will need to be discarded, like, now. 

The problem is, you don’t know that a strategy is useless till it has hit you a few times. 

Also, you don’t wish to discard something that you think might just work out for you in the long run. 

Fine. Keep grinding, and ultimately narrow down your sideways expansion, till you’re only working with strategies that are yielding, and show a long-term promise of being around. 

Right. 

You’re there. 

Now you can scale up. Doing so using a yielding strategy that fits is called useful expansion. 

Scale up slowly. 

You can position-size, and scale up using profits. This way you are not putting in extra principal. Let the strategy continue to prove itself by yielding. As long as it does so, you keep scaling up on your positions using the newly earned profits. 

Why is useful expansion not easy to maintain?

We get carried away.

We might scale up too fast, and then baulk at a loss when the size of the loss is too difficult to swallow. Large input can result in a largish potential loss.

Trading is about containing loss, and letting profits run. 

Scaling up too fast makes an early loss look big if we haven’t tasted the corresponding potential profits yet. Such an event can even cause us to abandon a successful strategy because we are disheartened. 

Therefore, try not to scale up by putting in new principal, if you can help it. 

Try scaling up on profits alone.

Position-sizing automatically controls the scale-up-scale-down factors by defining the size of a constant stop as a percentage of the principal remaining between trades.

Position-sizing makes one scale-up and scale-down on auto-pilot in a relatively balanced fashion.

Please incorporate this wonderful ideology (which comes from the stable of Dr. Van Tharp) into your trading strategy. 

🙂

Bifurcation Ability – Do you have it?

No?

Develop it asap, please.

Otherwise, don’t be in more than one market. 

However, who is satisfied with just one market?

That would leave one with a lot of time on one’s hands, wouldn’t it?

Time on hands means looking for another market, and another, and another, till one’s time is fully occupied, and one’s thirst for market activity quenched. 

With multiple markets on one’s radar, one needs to bifurcate. 

As in time and mind compartmentalisation…

…which basically translates as…

…that when you’re working on the one market, you’re not letting any overhang from another market bother you. 

If an overhang is bothering you, take two, or take ten, or take however long it takes to kill the overhang. 

Loss, depression, profit, jubilation, exuberation, whatever cause or emotion is prevailing, let its effect come and let it go. Wait for it to go. Then open the next market. The last thing you want is for the other market to be observed and analysed while there’s emotional bias from a former market. 

Therefore…market done…market closed…next market. There’s no other formula here. 

Most market people are both traders and investors. 

This is the area where they really, really need to bifurcate and compartmentalise. 

Why?

Trading and investing involve diametrically opposite implementation strategies, that is why. 

If you’re making changes within your investment portfolio, but are still in the trading mindset, you are going to make major mistakes, which will most definitely disturb whatever balance you have managed to instill within your investment portfolio. 

Similarly, if you’re looking to open a trade and are still in the investing frame of mind, you are optimally poised to botch up your trade big time. 

This is how I approach the matter. 

I do a first half – second half thing. 

The first half during which the markets are open are for investment decisions. 

Then there’s lunch.

By lunch, I forget how the first half of the day has been spent. At least, I try and forget. 

I let the scrumptious lunch help me drown my memory. 

After lunch, the second half starts, which is dedicated to trading decisions.

Strategies used after lunch are diametrically opposite to the ones used before lunch. 

This works for me. 

There comes a time when there are no more investment decisions to be taken, at least for a while. Markets become expensive, and margin of safety vanishes. One is not thinking of entries. Exits are far, far away, as this is long-term investing. Here is when one can dedicate oneself to one’s trading. One’s got the whole day for it. It’s a great situation, because the need for bifurcation between trading and investing is gone. 

Then there comes a time where no trades are developing. Lovely.

Right, pack up, take a break, let’s go for a short and sweet holiday!

When the Groove Yields Infinity

What’s an ideal groove?

It’s a frame-set…

…that makes you outperform.

When you find your ideal groove, you keep levelling up, as if it were the daily norm.

Why?

You feel like working.

The groove is such.

It’s a coupling of the right environment, the right time-sets, the right people, the right systems…and you.

And, it’s not just any odd coupling.

It’s the ideal coupling.

Saying that you feel like working is actually an understatement.

You feel like outperforming. That’s a more accurate statement.

Even more accurate would be, that outperformance becomes a habit with you.

Such is the groove.

Wow!

How does one find this groove?

HA!

Now you’re asking the million dollar question.

Many perish without finding it.

Many have never heard of it. They just don’t know any better.

Some have heard of it, but their circumstances are such, that they don’t have the time, resources or energy to look for it.

A few are able to search for it.

Even fewer make it past strategy.

Some of these are able to couple their many strategies into a full-fledged system.

Now comes fitting.

One needs to now fit-fit-fit.

A handful will keep fitting their systems…

…and fitting and fitting…

till the system fits…

…themselves.

When you hear that fitting sound come through, like a broken bone being set and making a loud popping or snapping sound, you know that you have a fit.

Once a successful system fits you, it is then capable of yielding infinity.