Gracefully retiring CostFreeNess for Oneself

Hey.

Comes a time, when a concept has done its duties towards one.

One’s own philosophy has undergone many x.y upgrades, on the back of the wealth being created by a concept, …

… … one like … …

…CostFreeNess.

Why would someone then retire such a concept?

Perhaps requirements from the field of action have changed.

Yes.

That’s the one.

Let’s divide the timeline of action into before and after.

Before today, the day of retirement [of CostFreeNess, for me], I was getting established.

The extra boost supplied by CostFreeNess was…

…required.

It gave a feeling of doing something right.

I don’t need that validation anymore.

Walking towards different heights, climbing new peaks, setting forth in motion new paths, pioneering a new trajectory – casting off the transient and revealing the true – to quote a central axiom of Nichiren Buddhism – all this – requires walking free from older concepts that were once pivotal for one.

Were.

What’s coming is not where these are pivotal anymore.

Hence the retirement, for myself.

With lots of thankfulness and gratitude.

CostFreeNess is long not done for others, in different phases of their market trajectory.

CostFreeNess is a king-maker.

I remember describing it as the closest thing to a holy grail in the markets, starting the sentence with, if I remember correctly, that ‘although no holy grail in the markets exists, …’

In this space, you’ll find many, many pieces, during which this concept was developed and during which it saw itself through, to its logical conclusion.

Of course many others would have discovered this pivot for themselves; CostFreeNess is a universal phenomenon, albeit abstract; it exists like the wind or the rain, or like sunlight and the mountains.

No one here is claiming that they are the founders of anything.

If at all, I have repeatedly remarked, that …

… we stand on the shoulders of giants.

And, to make it a better world, we pay our debts forward.

At times, something we work on …

… becomes a giant …

… like CostFreeNess.

Please feel free to stand on the shoulders of a giant called CostFreeNess, and progress on the back of its propulsion.

🙂

Last Mile Report

Hey.

Please don’t mistake this report for…

…a description of one’s last moments…

…or last-minute diaries…

…or wherever your imagination might take you.

Where exactly am I reporting from?

Imagine a surgeon. What’s his or her last mile?

The intricacy of a stitch.

A complicated, entangled tissue removal.

Oneness with patient vitals vis-à-vis current surgery on open body.

Coherence in instruction to surgical team, clarity about correct surgical instrument received, hand-eye coordination during surgical movement, whatever have you.

Businessman?

Anatomy of the deal.

Profit margin calculation.

Implementation of capital expenditure.

Rapport with staff in the field.

Liaison. Thought-process culmination. Long-term vision. Legacy.

Cut to self.

With a quasi-sealed long-term portfolio with not much activity in it happening or planned, it is trading that one takes to, for distraction.

Why distraction?

One doesn’t want to be thinking of one’s long-term portfolio…

…at all.

Instead, occupation at nitty-gritty level seems to be where the wind is blowing towards.

I must report, that I have arrived at my last mile.

We’re talking straddle tent-building to ensnare price next morning, and squaring off a trade within a few seconds with the objective of taking home a profit.

Observation of price action.

Identification of anomalies.

Setting up of multiple tents operating in tandem, forming an envelope around price.

Coming to terms with emotional overhang.

Digesting market forces as they intermingle with the nervous system.

Accepting monetary loss from time to time and trying to keep it small.

Controlling one’s emotions as profit develops, trying to let it amplify.

Dealing properly with…

…the effects of…

…isolation…

…during market hours…

…and their aftermath.

Regimen. Discipline. Challenge. Growth. Alertness. Staying sharp. In tune. Alive.

At the last mile, we stare what drives us, in the face.

Wealth n point m

Hey.

I like doing stuff …

… myself.

Study.

Research.

Ideas.

Thought process.

System generation.

Edge development.

Ensemble implementation.

Start to finish.

Complete independence in thought process …

… sets up ‘pioneering’ output.

Gets lonely though.

I’m not afraid of silence, or being alone where I’m working. Still, long spells of professional growth are very…

…alone, in my lines of work…

… which are all computer based.

There’s no talking involved.

Some processes take half a day to develop upon the back of to and fro typalogue with the AI.

During market hours, there’s no talking either. Just the self, the terminal and markets. AI on the side.

Pre-market prep — post-market analysis — astrological analysis — language learning — how do I solve this one?

Wait a minute, language learning, there’s something there.

Ya, found it.

Language apps have a speak module. One can practice speaking a foreign language with the app’s AI.

There’s more. Chanting. Did I mention that I’m an amateur Nichiren Buddhist? We chant. Out aloud. Anything spoken is an outlet. For me. Buddhist practice encompasses visiting people, or just sheer calling up someone to see how they are doing. Creation of good causes in life is gold.

Lot of near ones like to talk – to me.

They like my view on things.

Need to take care not to intimidate.

Talking at the wave-length of the talking partner – that’s been a huge lesson for me.

And, that’s not the biggest lesson yet.

There are times when let’s say one is A+ in something, and one is thrown out into a field where one is E-.

Imagine what goes on in one’s mind.

When a hero turns to zero, it’s only because the mind is not comprehending the situation.

We should know our value.

Allowing one’s environment to dictate our self-worth is lesson not learnt.

Knowing one’s self-worth oneself is.

When your immediate environment doesn’t talk to you most of the time, or has some hangups with your personality, or for some reason just doesn’t like you, perhaps it’s not on you. Let’s not exclude that option.

What then? Sink? Or evolve?

Evolve.

To a point where understanding of the exact nature of immediate environment leads one to flip it just on the sheer basis of one’s behaviour.

Our behaviour patterns are what we carry forward, while other forms of wealth are left behind.

Full

Hey.

Functioning…

…full…

…I believe.

Full feels good.

What does it mean?

Completeness.

No-regrets feeling.

All holes jammed…

…with activity, some, hopefully ample, relaxation / recuperation thrown in.

That pivot vibe.

Emitting…

…I believe.

Need to maintain this trajectory. Milk it to the hilt.

It’s taken my environment everything, …

…and then some, …

… to put me here.

Sacrifice.

Familial.

Proximal.

Emotional.

This moment is coming at a huge cost.

Need to make it count, to balance the entire equation, …

… and then some.

Though I’ll spare you familial, hobby, emotional, travel and such details, let’s cast a glance at the work-loop.

Long-term wealth-creation project on auto-pilot. Specialization. Equity. Listed. Only. Liquidity upon requirement. Hands on but hands off. In my hands. No third parties in between.

Monthly income-generation project active. Four-legged option strategies. On stocks. On indices. High risk high reward. Risk attenuation. Distractor. Keeps attention away from long-term wealth-creation project. Income is a bonus. Time requirement three to four hours a day. Keeps one busy. Learning curve enhancement. Options make one stay sharp.

Work from – anywhere – of course, anything less would be a negative – need a net connection though.

Work between market open and market close – on options.

Long-term equity transactions only on weekends, implemented through GTTs. Funding of account wrt GTTs only on Mondays, before market hours, taking into consideration GTT fill requirements.

Interesting symbiosis between these two projects, feeding off each other. Wealth project needs minimal fiddling. Income project sees to that by distracting. Income project is defined such that the damage it can cause is bearable, and even if it doesn’t generate income, i.e. even if it is loss-making, it is fulfilling its main purpose of keeping the wealth project intact and devoid of fiddling, by keeping one’s attention focused on itself.

I tried getting options right for twenty years, unsuccessfully.

I think I have something now.

Workable.

Perhaps…

…successful.

Let’s see. It’s very early days yet. I feel it though.

Oh, yes, and – work with …

… AI.

Handy, highly intelligent assistant always on call. Very low cost, yet. Very sharp. Catches mistakes in complex screenshots fast. Options are complex. They need pinpointed calculations, multiple times a day. They need context for such calculations. If the assistant catches the context in a screenshot and remembers it, and is great at complicated math, then he or she can spit out the required numbers on call, and for options that’s manna from heaven. Since…

… one doesn’t have the bandwidth to look back, feed back in, re-calculate and re-analyze fifty times a day…

… and especially since the assistant is diligent, industrious and willing to go any legit extra mile to make one’s project a success.

Thus, have AI, will step out into the — whatever you may wish to call it — Bronx, prairie, savannah, battle-field.

The AI thing has come at a cost. Not monetary, really. That’s a pittance, seeing the work-load it’s tugging.

Personal time.

Patience.

Attenuation.

Terminal scripts.

Ya, Pythons handle market and strategic diagnostic spitouts, in the background, at one’s disposal upon commands, and I did not need to spend time, effort and money learning Python. I just needed to tell the AI what I wanted, again and again, and keep fine-tuning till I got it, over some months.

Earlier, a major option strategic system had failed for me. Two months of intense development on AI. Failing in each of eight approaches through different variables used. The only victory was the recognition, by the AI, and then by myself, that this is a failure. Then, …

…I reversed the system.

There’s something there.

Before I tell you more about that, I’ll let it play out somewhat fully.

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.

Only Misses for the DoomNixers

Stadiums full.

This is what we see at the FIFA World Cup.

Gloom and doom about no one travelling to watch…

…seems to be nixed.

Are any doomsdayers amounting to anything?

AI taking over and slaying all else?

It’s a collab. No one’s taking over anything completely.

US markets were supposed to crash…

…like yesterday. And with that, the world.

Whenever a full blown crash does happen, it will very probably be at a time when most shorters are exhausted, read in big losses and retired hurt, didn’t want to use the word bankrupt.

AI is supposed to lead the ‘bubble burst’.

Has AI just smelt some monetization in collab with the back-offices of the world?

Back-offices have the capability to hold the system up on the back of their picks and shovels work, which, obviously, DoomNixers ‘nix’ themselves upon. You see, it’s not glamorous enough. They didn’t see it at all thus, and stumbled and fell.

Here’s another one : No one can beat the effthurteefiive. True? Hmmm. We saw what we saw.

Attackers felt they would bring the opponent down over the weekend. Opponents, fighting for their lives, seem to have emerged better than their attackers.

When one fights for one’s life, one fights with every ounce of resource and every joule of energy.

The Dean at his Univ advised Max Planck to study Music instead of Physics, since he felt that every meaningful thing in Physics had been discovered already.

Max Planck went on to found a whole new branch of sciences. Quantum Physics. On which anything and everything today is based.

There’s this thing about optimists. They believe in their systems, their hard work. Their ability to fight for their lives. For their systems. For the passing on of their legacies.

Max Planck fought for the entire field of Physics, and what a legacy he’s passed on. Conventional Physics builds the framework, and Quantum allows us to traverse the Universe.

Core Tech is fighting for its life. Pushed to the wall, it will devise a way to emerge, as a monetizing handholder for AI to be implemented. It’s fought for its life many times before and has emerged victorious, and very lucratively.

There are two paths emerging here, in the example with Core Tech.

Path one – DoomNix. Pronounce it dead. Invest elsewhere, with expensive valuations.

Path two – research. Find companies that are transforming with the times, with clean balance sheets and free cashflows. Invest in these, as valuations are very reasonable currently.

One can even follow both paths MINUS the doomnixing. Meaning that one takes punts in expensive companies, no idea how that will pan out in the very long-term, and one also invests in very reasonably priced and transforming Core Tech, with clean balance sheets and free cashflows. This will give a decent return in the very long-term.

We leave the doomnixing to the pessimists, nay-sayers, lacking-in-hopers, non-believers in themselves and in good systems – this breed will keep collecting misses in life.

Having expunged the breed from our eco-systems, we stride ahead with our very long-term bullish view in our growth market, since the essence of sitting on a compounding portfolio for multiple decades is…

…an optimist mindset.

Fable me this

Fable…

…we’re being told about…

…Fable 5…

…is that Frontier Country has disallowed its usage…

…for non-Frontier Countries or semi-Frontier Countries.

Thing is, …

…not every country needs to be a Frontier Country to make the world go round.

There’s a front-end, fine, accepted, and it seems to be calling the shots. To the extent of over-estimation of its own capabilities. Over-reaching. Over-stretching. Over-everything. That’s the front end. They’re doing what a front-end would do, in its position, and perhaps more.

However, there’s a back-end to everything in the world. Some countries are great at being back-offices to the world. Please understand, that the front-end can’t function long-term without cowork with the back-end.

Back-end streamlines.

It monetizes.

It affords the front-end penetration.

Infrastructure-seepage.

Bridging of the getting used to gap.

Bridging of the trust gap.

Process pinpointing.

To lever to becoming an accepted norm, front-end needs back-end, forever, since remaining the norm is also a priority.

The episode with Fable 5…

…reeks strongly of something big back-firing…

…in the front-end’s thought process.

They came sweeping in, full of over-confidence that they had something which would wipe everything else out.

Caused havoc.

Meanwhile, back-end started to adapt. FAST.

Some four months into the storm, fronties realize that backies have the usage figured out, and are implementing so fast, that very, very soon, their numbers promise to be fab.

Panic.

What to do?

Deny the backies usage of the frontest-end, i.e. Fable 5. Lest they overtake us in looking good.

Ha.

Just gave yourself away.

We know you now. WE SEE YOU.

And we’re going to use this dawning realization to our benefit.

We’re holding the line.

Our back-end is rock-strong, highly adaptive, and will find a way to monetize any situation.

Anything you throw…

…at us. We…

…will…

…monetize.

We’re just doubling down in our own back-yard.

On our own horses.

Period.

Life at Frontier Minus One

Sanity prevails…

…at frontier minus one.

Rat race is within the underlying’s…

control.

Virtual / quasi / substantial / semi debt-free-ness…

exists.

Free cash-flow generation on the balance sheet is…

…common.

At frontier minus one, the narrative is …

…under control…

…as proven by self-determination of speed of change…

…and by exhibition of substantial growth.

Not at breakneck speeds.

Not by borrowing to the hilt.

Not by greedy behaviour.

Not by indigestible trajectory.

Not by a reckless ‘not giving a damn too bad if you’re not so fast’ attitude.

Life at frontier minus one…

…is somewhat balanced, with a flow.

Innovation at frontier minus one is achieved much faster

…than at frontier minus two, but much slower than at…

…frontier zero zero.

No tech company that wishes to thrive well into the future is currently functioning at…

…frontier minus two.

Either the transition to minus one has been made, or, it’s in the process.

Why not go for the jugular? Straight to zero zero.

Everyone has their role in this puzzle.

Imagine an older civilization going into battle.

There was a front line, paving the way, at immense cost.

There was a reserve support line, with artillery, first-aid, communication, and what have you.

There was a third line with supply, reinforcements, semi-trainees doing other stuff normally, etc.

There was aerial support, naval support, intelligence, research and analysis staff etc.

All combined to create an ensemble of actions.

Cut to now.

Warfare has changed.

Immense cost is still there, but immense cost to the front line, as in cost of life, has been reduced greatly, speak drone and missile warfare, supported by AI backed intelligence and analysis.

Point is, innovation, a different way of thinking, disruption and all their cousins will find a way to make things affordable, implementable.

That’s the way civilizations move forward.

Not for you or me to change. It’s the way of the world.

And that is what frontier minus one banks upon.

Meaning, to keep functioning at sustainable levels, slowly, painstakingly, in the process, simultaneously, finding a way, a connect, to frontier zero zero.

The connect can be of co-work. Amicable. Win-Win. You earn, we earn.

At frontier minus one, the world view is not to annihilate, but to…

…accommodate.

To win…

…together…

…in…

symbiosis.

Symbiosis

Imagine…

…the most value you can imagine.

That’s what this word is worth.

Especially now.

What’s the truth?

Existential question.

First we had everyone and their aunties proclaim the death of core Tech companies.

Hmmm.

Core Tech companies, and their chief protagonists, thought otherwise.

Number of believers kept waning though.

Until recently.

Something started to reverse in belief systems.

AI was behaving fantastically utilitarian with a human holding the reins.

Meaning, there needed to be a human there, for practical purposes.

Frontier AI deployed engineers to be the human face. Or so one was told.

Came the trust issue.

Do we double up on our trust in this no track record magician who just showed up out of nowhere?

Do we entrust privileged client data to the unknown?

Do we strip ourselves naked, TWICE?

NO.

Everyone and their uncles have answered with an emphatic NO.

Who is the human handler – the go-between – the trusted face – the rein holder?

Someone with a track record.

Proven.

Tried, and…

trusted.

Self-propelling.

With no liabilities. Spell ZERO DEBT.

With copious FREE CASH FLOW to INNOVATE FREELY…

…to navigate the reins successfully and as per the requirements of an enterprise.

Who is this entity?

None other than…

…our own very well known…

CORE TECH.

Leaner.

Hungry to prove its point.

To have its raison d’être acknowledged, and paid for.

To earn and compound steadily.

Forget about dying. Let’s talk about long term thriving.

Then, we had the captains of frontier AI admitting, that yes, ‘we do need core tech handholding to be implemented successfully’.

Gone was the initial hubris, that ‘we had come to wipe out old thought patterns, and all old systems’.

Reality had dawned, and these captains at least had the decency to admit it.

Actually, they had realized that their existence now depended upon how much their infrastructure would seep through. And…

…that no one was trusting them enough to hand over the job of seeping through to them, but much rather, to trusted old compatriots, to Core Tech.

So they came forward to shake hands.

Good.

Symbiosis.

We want to move forward on the back of this symbiosis.

There will be gigantic and fast development on the back of this symbiosis.

We are looking at space travel, space colonization, disease control, climate change, cheap solar, cheap desalination, perhaps even alien integration and partnership – unimaginable perhaps a few months ago, but possibly conceivable on the back of this symbiosis.

There’s new talk which has recently emerged, from the other extreme, and needs to be discarded, like its mirror image on the opposite side of the bell curve. This is the talk of frontier AI dying out because of becoming unaffordable.

Well, in whatever shape it exists currently, frontier AI does have tremendous capacity to solve problems.

Let it do just that on the back of this symbiosis, and earnings will start to flow.

Core Tech won’t let it wither, frontier AI has now become their raison d’être too.

Don’t you see it?

Two universes are converging, each needing the other to survive.

In the end, they become one universe.

Companies will merge. Synergies will multiply. Mega projects will be achieved, faster, more bombastically.

Earnings will flow.

Where do you want to be?

Remaining a doomsdayer will not help you.

Get into the flow.

Invest into debt-free, free cash-flow generating core tech as value deepens.

Look for debt-free, frontier minus one, free cash-flow generating semi AI companies, research these thoroughly for any red flags, and if those found are manageable, put in some funds.

If you find a frontier tech with manageable debt and a reasonable balance sheet, with a PEG ratio (price to earnings ratio divided by earnings per share growth percentage for the fiscal) somewhat under control. ok, put in some money there too.

Get out of the doomsday mindset.

Put your money to work, and then lock it in for another twenty years. Leave the compounded proceeds to your children.

Now.

Let the crashes come. There will be compounding post crashes too. Just look at the monthly chart of an IT index from 1995 to today. Dot-com peak looks miniscule and low compared to the levels of the monthly chart today.

Enough talking. Do the recce and then let’s talk.