Trading Good feeding for Thanksgiving

Boom and bust push the warriors into the valley of death day by day. There are a lot of lessons to traders and investors.

I was alerted by the extraordinary resource booming since I fully agree with the words from Nassim Taleb, the author of the Black Swan based on my experiences in IT booming:

"Consider a turkey that is fed every day.

Every single feeding will firm up the bird's belief that it is the general rule of life to be fed every day by friendly members of the human race ‘looking out for its best interest,’ as a politician would say.

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On the afternoon of the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, something unexpected will happen to the turkey. It will incur a revision of belief."

However in hindsight, I didn't get all from the words, "something unexpected ... It will incur a revision of belief." After IT crash, I simply sold all and started to read about the stock market. I do know there are things could be worse after worse but I refused to see the belief change of the crowd.

Who don't want to pay less tax when you are building the base? However the bottom line is you have to get the profit. Less tax for the gain is good. Losing the profit big enough is bad and very bad. Unfortunately I chose no profit and no tax: the worst case!

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1929 Great Depression crashed a lot of dreams in the stock market. Few could get out of the hell or by no means to save themselves. Why did Livermore committed suicide? Why could B. Graham write the book, "Security Analysis" and "the intelligent investor?"

GFC crashed a lot of dreams down too but fortunately US know how bad after the sky fall down. Bailout and stimulation did help the sky safe but some damages and more damages would be done. The trauma, the losses, the depression, the lessons, the blood in the Wall Street, and then the performance of XAO, force us to make senses or leaf away with nothing.

I don't want to pretend I am better than anyone in the stock market. I am not smart, not genius for the economies and market, I have made a lot of mistakes as every loser in the stock market, I am just lucky enough that my mistakes don't burn me down completely, and I still have the desire to change myself.

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Seriously saying I am struggling in some dilemma: it looks abnormal that XAO down within reasonable good economies but it is not illogical completely: US is struggling to get economies back to normal track, China is slowing down, EU is facing its own reckoning one after another.

1. XAO has not the power to get its own way to boom in this environment.
2. But is it worse enough if not in the worst case
3. If the things worse, could we be profit? If not, is your asset running for your income?

No easy or quick answers if staying along the crash all the way. Fear and greed are consequences from what you get from what you do. I admit my greed which I had in April 2011, actually I was always greedy or if I like the glossy words, very ambitious. Once a tiny but high-consequent event hits to me, I was unavoidable to be shocked.

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I just don't dare to learn too much skills to trade or invest in the stock market now. All of my mistakes so far are not this kind.

Self-awareness is to know yourself but I still could not say I really know myself good enough. Environment-awareness is to know what conditions or context for what probable consequences and use the calculated probability to choose the options with margin of safety and enough resource in hand. Theoretically I feel encouraging to know it. In reality I tend to ignore the logic.

I have to admit even now I want to bet that Greece could not take a exit from EU, which I feel the odds more than 80%. It is not bad probability but if Greece leave, the consequence could be very dire. How much resource I could afford to lose?

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It is not easy to be wise and intelligent. It is hard to break down the barriers in our brain to run safely and profitably in the stock market.

I do realize I could not be no fearful if I was in the valley of death; I could not be no greedy when I was in the grand party for gold in the sky. I do hope I would feel fear when my cost runs, the crowd runs to the party, and the defensive line is fragile.

I just could warn myself again and again not in the party or the valley of death. I am not so great that I could win in the valley of death. I am so so rich to pay the cost for the party. I need more time and effort to go deep to know what I have read.

The simple matters kill or reward the people in the stock market. I need to be simple to the nut and then I am qualified to be complicated.

 

Hard to be profitable for a decade

Stop complaining about the stock market, start adapting to it, and adapt to it by raising the margin of safety and probability of the profit.

The governor of RBA said Aussie economies were "more than half full", contrasted its growth with the stagnation of Europe, Japan and the US. It said that our mood was due not to the high dollar and the mining boom that caused it, but to the end of the extraordinary rise in wealth delivered by three decades of debt.

See the truth of crowd sentiment, the economies, and interaction of them. Do remember we could not see all of the truths.

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Three things need to remember for a balanced full view:

1. In real terms, the dollar is now back to where it was 100 years ago, relative to the US dollar.
2. In nominal dollars, it's even better: 100 years ago, ten shillings (the equivalent of our dollar today) would buy you $US2.40.
3. But then, as Keynes said: "In the long run we are all dead".

That distant past is irrelevant to the problems we face now. The truth is that the high dollar is damaging large parts of the Australian economy.

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You have to adapt. Learn to cope with it, by making your business in stock market more profitable or simply no losses.

How? Admit your failure if you have not got enough profit in the last decade of the stock market. It is not popular. It is psychologically very difficult, and to most of traders or investors are impossible. But that was where we can start our change.

A trader or investor has to be careful in what he perceives. Anyone else might have right to complain or curse but you don't have.

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Many of the problems facing the traders or investors; few have got not any profit for a decade if not having lost too much, so that

1. The confidence on economies or the stock market at a decade low.
2. We live in an environment of constant negativity and crises. You guessed it was worst but you found it worse than your worst.
3. We failed to sell in the euphoric party and then we fail to be qualified to buy when the full blood shed into the Street.

Profit needs to understand enough is enough. Profit needs to buy dirty cheap when no one dare to buy. However bad brains and low resource in hand destroy all to buy low and sell high.

 

Not everyone can trade!

Most of traders, who started before 2000 as traders, have gone. Some of traders just sit at the side line, post the words they coped from somewhere else. The last decade told a fact that it was terribly hard to be a profitable traders.

Do you really love trading? Having fun? Making a living at it? Or is the stress killing you. Literally it affects your health, family, relationships and your mental state?

Quite possible you’re not psychologically cut out to be a day trader. Maybe you need to find a new career. Seriously, not everyone’s cut out for it. You need to sustain the failure due to your own errors, which requires mental updating and quite possibly at last you could not be a day trader.

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Actually all of great traders who can get their living without worries are the type of people who just trade for the chances of high probable winning events or trends.

They know when they can trade and when they cannot. They don't trade for their losses even they stop them when they find they are wrong. It is different between stopping the losses or stopping the errors.

They don't trade for feeling but statistical reality. They don't ignore both of the impacts of macro-economies and micro-economies. They trade with great buffer to last for their final winning.

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Crises are the best test stones to check could you be a good trader. A trader if could not survival in the crises, their daily penny profits would be burnt into the ashes. Are there enough cash in your hand now? If not how dare could you be traders?

To be a trader or not is not important. It is important you have to make profit for your living or at least compensate for your living. What can let you make your living and fortune? What fit to you for the profit? Since 2004 I have realized I could not be a day trader.

Day traders just don't know when they should stop. The market could not just make them lucky everyday. Could we see any day traders are not in the water now? They failed and have to be traders for months, years, or buying-holding traders.

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The odds to traders are against getting rich. Why? Due to the high transaction costs, taxes and unavoidable tiny but fatal bad decisions, the bottom line is simple: “The more you trade the less you earn.”

Tell the truth is cruel to the traders. Change to the traders is more difficult than letting they die. They are very clever to find excuses by googling, YouTubing, and buying the trading letters.

Why are you a day trader if you could not get your living? Why do you make losses and average the sum as zero or negative? It is stupid, isn't it?

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Have to say some day traders do get their livings. They are born to be. They just totally ignore the breaking news and focus on the two or 10-minute ticks for the trend in hours.

Technical analysts, chartists and market timers may be longer-ranged, plan ahead, searching for patterns, rock-solid holding to their system. One successful trader showed me his plan for the day, the two-minute ticks, we tracked them, saw when to get out, all very rational, mechanical.

The personality type of winners is the same, they need to be in on the action, but they’re disciplined, got a system, stick to it, turn on the thrill of hunting for higher returns. It’s a fix, a high, an endless stream of instant gratifications.

The problem is you just cannot do so! You feel too much, know too much, fear too much, and be happy too much! You got too much for what you do, and then you would lose too much! Too much means stress. Under stress you will fail.

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Are the followings are true to you? All are about personalities or traits not how you clever or how high your IQ. If you have right personality, find a working system is not a problem.

1. You’ve tried more than one new investment strategy this year;

2. Feel you’re buying and selling funds at the wrong time

3. Rarely open up to anybody for feedback about your losses

4. Subscribe to two or more newsletters, feel overwhelmed

5. Can count on one hand all the good laughs this week

6. Have a lingering resentment about someone or something

7. You love cable news, but need more time to trade

8. Rarely break a sweat when exercising the past few weeks

9. Wonder whether you bet too much on recent investments

10. Need more than three caffeine and alcohol drinks a day

11. Feel “something” keeps you from making more money

12. Frequently don’t trust your instincts or your strategy

13. You’ve had a major family or personal loss recently

14. Believe losses are caused by the market manipulators

15. You’re overweight and snack often on comfort food

16. Fear your future trades may fail due to a losing streak

17. Diet and sleep are disturbed by worries about money

18. Your retirement portfolio’s not growing fast enough

19. No vacation in a year, and lack an active social life

20. Nothing (or everything) interferes with making money

If too many above are true to you, you could not be a good day trader.

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Remember, only a small percentage of people have the psychological profile of a trader.

A slower pace may be better for you overall, for your physical health, your mental health and your financial health. Seriously saying at 50s, I just know too much I shouldn't know as a day trader to follow a mechanical system which can win out without the interference of my feeling.

On every way, there are died cat or revival bulls. Mental framework updating actually is to find what fit to you safely and profitably.

 

The turning point?

All in the stock market have taken their position fearfully or cheerfully today and the next Monday should be a turning point at least for next three months.

Policy maker are preparing for a possible market storm or public panic after cliffhanger Greek elections. If you have your toes in the stock market or sit in the sideline what would you do?

News said G20 nations' central banks were ready to take steps to stabilise financial markets, if needed, by providing liquidity and prevent any credit squeeze after Sunday's election.

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There are two things are significant:

1. Greece would exit from EU, crowd would run to exit, financial system would be threatened to fall down, and G20 would take actions after the falling down.
2. Greece would not exit from EU, crowd would wonder what would happen, and financial system intact.

It doesn't matter what happen, if the sky is there, all would be in recovery at high odds, since the pressure from Greece Election was too much.

Don't know what the speed of the recovery and when but it should be there before next panic about EU happens.

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1. Canada is "ready to act" if the situation takes a serious turn for the worse of there is "an external shock."

2. Europe authorities also laid plans for tackling turmoil such as if Greeks emptied their bank accounts; if the SYRIZA party scored a decisive victory on Sunday. SYRIZA has promised to tear up the country's bailout deal with the EU and IMF.

SYRIZA said "The memorandum of bankruptcy will belong to the past on Monday." SYRIZA promises that it would ditch the 130-billion-euro bailout deal sealed earlier this year and demands for punishing austerity policies.

It sounds Pig Chiefs call for pig to rob for their equality!

It said secret opinion polls were showing that a government favorable to the international bailout agreement was likely to emerge after the June 17 election.

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"The central banks are preparing for coordinated action to provide liquidity" as they should.

Depending on the depth of any turmoil, an emergency meeting of ministers from the Group of Seven developed nations could be held on Monday or Tuesday during the Mexican summit of leaders from the G20, which includes major emerging economies such as China.

Britain did not wait for the elections to announce action. Bank of England would launch a scheme to provide cheap long-term funding to banks to encourage them to lend to businesses and consumers. The central bank would also activate an emergency liquidity tool.

No one if conscious, dares to lower the risk expectation! That is a significant feature of a significant turning point even not sufficient.

 

Batten down the hatches!

It is a typical picture:

1. The black cloud has dampened animal spirits
2. Businesses and households are battening down the hatches to prepare for the storms ahead.
3. If the storm came in, the toughest warriors would run!
4. Sun appears and wise people run under the Sun.

So it is critical to know what the animal, business people, households, and traders or investors react in the looming storm. You must have your vision, your gut, and your patience.

I am ready!

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It is the war among the policy makers for the sky. If they don't do their job the crowd would be in hell after they burnt all they have.

1. Euro-zone finance ministers are scheduled to hold a teleconference on Sunday evening to discuss the poll outcome.

2. I will put all of my time to know what really happened or would happen after Sunday evening for my vision and judgment.

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The main concern are:

1. if SYRIZA overwhelmingly won the election, was the risk of large capital outflows from Greece if depositors worry their savings in euros could later be frozen or converted into new drachmas.

2. "It is not even about a bank run on Monday morning after the elections. People can now log on to Internet banking and make transfers on Sunday evening as well!"

3. German rebuffed pressure from EU partners and the United States for Europe's most powerful economy to underwrite debt or guarantee bank deposits in the single currency area.

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It needs to notice that:

1. Spain's 10-year bond yield hit a euro lifetime high just a touch above 7 per cent on Thursday.
2. It is a danger level above which Greece, Ireland and Portugal were driven to seek international rescues.

"It is not a situation that can be maintained over time ... and I am convinced that we will continue to take more measures in the coming days and weeks to help bring it down." was said.

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No worst no resolved decision!

"We need imagination and creativity to find new financial instruments," Hollande told a news conference. "To deepen financial union, there are many options such as a financial transactions tax and joint debt issuance, including euro bonds, euro bills or a debt redemption fund."

However, Merkel rejected "miracle solutions" such as issuing joint euro bonds or creating a Europe-wide deposit guarantee scheme. Such proposals were "counterproductive" and would violate the German constitution, she told parliament.

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Does German have unlimited resources or strength to save all?

It was warned "Germany is putting this strength and this power to use for the well-being of people, not just in Germany but also to help European unity and the global economy. But we also know Germany's strength is not infinite."

Italy, rapidly coming into the firing line, saw its three-year borrowing costs shoot up to 5.3 per cent at auction on Thursday, the highest since December.

Surging Spanish and Italian bond yields reflect investors' concern that the 17-nation currency bloc has failed to arrest its 2-1/2-year-old debt crisis.

So what if Greece exit? Now we should know!

What to do? After yourself! And the results of what you do are high consequent!

 

What if the train leaves away?

In the last Friday, most of stock markets went up rather than down. Some might worry that the train would leave away without them. To win out in the stock market there are three elements we need to think about:

1. Winning probability.
2. Your own affordability if your 1% losing odds becomes true even the winning odds is 99%.

Winning probability comes from your analysis of the environment, fundamental, and crowd sentiment. Your own affordability comes from your self-awareness.

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We all need to balance between these two elements.

No good enough winning probability so that you are gamblers. No affordability for the worst case, any tiny errors internally or externally could sentence your death financially. The bottom line is your annual cash income and how much you would like to lose each year if you are not lucky.

Some risks can be taken by someone else but not you. It is always wrong to put your neck under the sword even a very strong string holds it over there or here. So if a train have too much of your resources on the board, you should worry for its derail rather than running away.

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Vital few and trivial many play the part when the train's engine starts. Don't forget we can go onto the board at its next stop after due-diligence. Don't forget we have to let our money onto the train in series.

1. Worse could be worsen.
2. Better could be better
3. Trend is a process when the crowd jump onto the board, which start when signals and noises are mixed and hard to differentiate
4. Bottom is a range when forces can not beat down each other, which can be false and just a pause

Vital few here is you need to identify the rang and process, which usually are shown self-fulfillment for its destruction or revival.

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Ever tried to drive a car by looking in the rear vision mirror? Me neither, but we all look back everyday in the stock market, for ideas, patterns, or hopes.

We cannot see too much ahead in the stock market if we could not get the lessons from our mistakes in the past. There’s a difference between the lessons that can be taken from the past and blindly extrapolating the past patterns into the future.

We may see some similarity between different historical charts but the underlying roots are different.

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It is suggested by the history that we extrapolate the past into the future need to have a very clear sense of when the trend is coming to an end.

1. When does standard market volatility become the beginning of the end?
2. When does the seemingly endless ability of a company to bounce back from bad news come to a stop?

By the way, someone said Japan would be default. I just feel doubt it since they acted as Gods while they are just human being.

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I prefer

1. if a train leaves away, some affordable money are on the board;
2. if a train doesn't leave away, I would deal with it as any trains in the station: check the sentiment around it; check its probability to leave away; check if I could live as before if the trains derail in their way!

I don't want to die with regret since I have not chance to cry in the hell for another year or decade. I could not ignore my own reality, could I?

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If change I want to change while my small ball rolls bigger even not very big. I want to sell all if the train run under the Sun while all of warriors solute the upward trend.

1. I need to reckoning myself so that I could restart. If things change in cycle I need to act in cycle.

2. Is it the time to service the warriors in their valley of death?

3. Looks it should be but what if the valley is still not fully filled up by the warriors?

Inverting and always inverting, right? It is necessary to exercise when the valley is nearly or fully filled. It is very risk if the valley still has the room for you even you have more chance run over the dead cats if not dead warriors.

Don't wast the time for safety and profitability when the Street looks full of the blood. Oh, yes, let's be patient and wise.

 

Resource boom vs Credit Rating

Since I started to be in the stock market, I never thought about credit rating linked with economic reality. Just encounter a news:

Peter Costello said the path that Queensland has been taking in recent years is unsustainable. It cannot go on as it has. If it were to continue the policy of the past it's not a question of getting back its Triple-A credit rating but it could expect to be downgraded further.

Resource has been boomed and Queensland have envied resource. How could it go to the stage to worry about its credit rating? As a trader or investor, you have to promote your own rating, don't you know?

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It was said that the bad credit results all comes down to two things:

1. expenses growth(cost run?):

It has been running at way above national averages for the past few years, indeed it has overtaken revenue growth.

Traders or investors have to get more than the cost too, don't they?

Income >> expense or cost -> fortune
Income << expense or cost -> bankruptcy

Is it business or trading, investment 101?

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A lot of traders can profit from stock market, someone said 20%. How many of the winners in trading can accumulate the fortune at last? Few!

Livermore got the fortune in trading but he lost all in trading too. Main Street never gets more money from one transaction that Wall Street but Main Street if conservative enough usually lives longer than the Wall Street.

Good traders have to use the ways in the Main Street to hold the fortune in their back yard. Once you are luck enough, you should know where you put your money in.

2. horrible high state's debt level.

Traders or investors tend to cheer or hate debt. However the truth is you have to choose what for and at what level of the debt.

Usually we borrow for something we really are confident. You earn $100,000 per year from your job, be confident for the job continuity for about 7 years, and you buy some default insurance for your $400,000 geared investment houses, which is plausible option in my view. Of course you have to be sure you don't buy at the peak.

The problem is we tend to over-optimistic when every one cheers. Seriously saying it is very risky to gear into the stock market. The market capital of a business in stock market can be run down or up much more than we can image.

Of course if you put your safety at first you should not take any debt. However sometimes the debt is really magic if you can identify the right thing at right debt level for your service.

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It was expected Queensland's debt would hit $85 billion in the next few years. That is now going to be $100 billion unless something changes.

And so that ratio of debt to revenue will rise from about 100 per cent of it, which is its current level, to 130 per cent when Peter Costello and his fellow commissioners think it should be more like 60 per cent.

It was said the previous government has been relying on some very heroic assumptions in its future projections of revenue, such as

1. transfer duty, which is what you pay when you buy a house, rising by 14 per cent a year;
2. expenses growth staying at 3 per cent when it had been running at almost 9 per cent.

No any state can sustain the debt with the running expenses and the reducing income.

***
Resource boom gets the resource riches poorer! Why?

Costello gave a lesson deduced from the mistakes of Queensland Labor Government in the booming.

It was economic stupid!

 

It should go in surprised way!

If and only if Greece exited from EU, what would happen in Greece?

It is a must known matter for traders and investors since it has all of feature of dire event in the economies, which happen not everyday but if happen, would be extremely high consequent.

Any declaration of this kind of dire announcement, such as exit of EU, could not be done bit by bit but come out at one time as a surprise.

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They are not black swan but the consequence of the process to deal with crisis.

We don't like to tell others we would be bankrupt but try all to avoid it first even you would definitely do so.

If Greece exist from EU, Greece have to do it unannounced before it. It is because if you do it announced everybody in Greece, all will take their money out of the country to preserve its purchasing power. No any policy makers would like to see it but avoid it.

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It was said "twenty per cent of the deposits in Greek banks have left already, and if they got a wiggle that this was going to occur that would double almost over night.

I believe this the smart money since if Greece would be stay in EU, no harm; if it would, it can double its value in Greece, which is the best result in the hell.

80% of people are passive followers always. They guess and hope something would never happen again. They fail to know in Tsunami any individual out of the power just can protect themselves only.

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To keep this 80% of money in Greece, if you are in the power, you have to announce the exit by surprise. What you would do is effectively close the borders and shut down the entire banking system, pretty much the whole economy, for a few days.

Then you would take all the euro in circulation within Greece and stamp them as Greek euro, and then you would have a process of replacing them with your new currency, but that's going to take two to six months.

The stamped euro would be a temporary currency. Overseas people would never accept it because the value of those Greek euro would be different, so they could only be spent internally."

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It is a announcement to destruct the wealth. It is a matter to get better from the worst.

It was guessed that the Greek currency would fall anywhere between 20 and 50 per cent in value. After you introduce the new currency, the Greek euro, which would now be the new drachma, would fall in value like a stone. Why? No one trusts it globally. It is dire if a exchange media loses its trust.

Basically it is about people's life savings, their wealth, their incomes being completely wiped out in Greece. No one likes it but history just does it again and again.

***
The price of all imported goods in Greece would go through the roof and Greece would imports a lot of stuff.

So the Greek debt will potentially double, and they won't be able to pay it back. They will default on their debt so all the people who have lent to them will suffer losses. These are German banks, French banks, investors.

It would be the cost of the absolute total destruction of wealth and purchasing power of the Greeks. Yep no one could get fortune in hands to be bankrupt.

 

What do we know or don't know?

In the remote place from Greece we could not see all clearly by our bare eyes. We have to know it very well. We really don't know how big of the initial destructive effect to the global economies or at least to the stock market.

It is long time ago as a teenage, I were told how to protect myself if an atomic bomb explosion, lay down at ground zero under the strongest protection I could find, look up with protection glass, don't move until it is dark. I was told if I could survival in dark, I had the chance to revival.

We could know what the mechanics are for Greece to exit, but we don't know what the full effects will be. We should not be destructed in the atomic bomb exploration in Greece. They have no choices but we do.

***
Do remember that it could be quite chaotic, it could be violent, there could be people storming banks to try and get their money out.

1. Once you tell Greek people their savings in the bank are no longer worth what they though it would be worth, it could become ugly.

2. Greek people are torn over whether they want to leave the euro, but if it does happen, violence and chaos will reign.

3. The most likely scenario is that they would take in the old euro notes and stamp them so that on that day all the euro notes in Greece would have some sort of magnetic ink stamp that would render them useless outside Greece.

4. They'd have to have some kind of check at the border so nobody could take their euro out of the country.

5. All the Greek bank accounts would be frozen and there would be a bank holiday for maybe a week so nobody could access their funds."

6. Printing a new currency could take months, but no one is sure if Greece could even pay for it.

***
What would also happen outside Greece?

1. Other European countries would have to remove all the coins and bank notes from Greece.

2. Banks would advertise these are no longer legal tender and people would probably take their money into the banks and get it exchanged for say German or French euro."

3. Also, the amount of debt Greece have would be reduced because it would essentially be unable to pay their debt, so it would just default."

***
No one has idea whether Greece will leave the eurozone.

Me too.

I refused to take any action before next Monday since the consequence is too high and my mistakes since the April 2011 force me in defensive gesture.

I can take the next train if it is safe!