Ugadi, our Telugu New Year is on the 25th of March this year. The Vikari Nama Samvatsaram that started on 6th April 2019 as per the western Gregorian calendar is coming to a close and I thought it would be a good note to myself to make note of the rather quantum progress I had made in my approach towards trading in the past one year.
Many people have asked me this question - why do you operate in the markets? The following would also help answer to them as well. The following is tailored to my life choices and my financial requirements . I expect to become a Full-time trader very soon. I do not intend to spend my life in chasing small goals in life.
I had been a high achiever all through my life and that has been appropriately reflected in my academic and extra curricular achievements throughout my school life and in universities. As a result I have also been quite fortunate to work on projects for some of the most influential organizations. As a result of which my work has touched or contributed in atleast a small way to transforming society in the minutest way possible. I did not intend to or do not intend to stop at that. Even if I have worked for all these organizations, I am still frustrated at the world for not heeding to enough common sense or to enough scientific evidence that is still in your face. I do not wish to passively let my life slip through the fingers while wallowing in a lot of self pity and expressing my inability at what is happening.
It is for that reason precisely that I took up trading as a career. I was in the wrong notion that equity investments are a safe haven for a very long time. During that stage, I was also not at all exposed to any mechanical and systematic way of trading. I did not even know such a thing existed in the first place. There was a lot of misguidance that came my way. People did not speak to me about the idea of scaling up. They were always happy making a 5 paise profit over 5 rs and just remained at that stage even if they were in their mid 40s or late 50s or early 60s. In other words, their picking up bottoms and selling at tops may have been dead right but IMO there was no sound logic to it and everything remained on shaky ground. Everything was an insecure little thing devoid of confidence with nobody trying to speak about how one needs to manage things or scenarios when they backfired. No one even spoke about the concept of capital protection while at the same time simultaneously scaling it up. It was very evident that these set of individuals were only content with the absolute thrill of seeing a scrip go up by a few rupees and it ended there. I was also utterly convinced that there was no concept of scaling up at all. Heck not by a country mile.
Throughout my life I have been interested in the idea of making quantum leaps and quantum progress and not be satisfied by puny incremental gains. It has defined my areas of study, my work and my accomplishments through out. I am defined by my quantum progress. I always have been. I agree that it is is necessary to make incremental and small progress but one cannot be limited by just that and continue doing that for the entire duration of their lives. Maybe people indeed find succour and joy in that. I am not that type of an individual. I was always the one trying to learn things, and implement it practically. I was getting frustrated to no end by discretionary choices in trading. It was then that the entire scenario changed, roughly a year ago from now. It was at that time that I had come across the concept of mechanical trading and that changed, no transformed is a better word here, so it transformed my life. To that person and moment in time, for getting introduced to the universe of mechanical trading, a thousand thanks are also very less and I would be a totally ungrateful person if I didn't thank enough.
Now coming back, if I have to indeed realize or give shape to some of the visionary ideas I have, I indeed need to gain a lot of capital and use that as a seed for fueling my further ventures. Trading for me, provides that opportunity. It is the best and most efficient way for me to reach that stage in life instead of wasting away a good and usefully productive next few years - perhaps and possibly my most productive time in life for that.
Like I have said earlier. I have never accepted mediocrity and I do not intend to spend the rest of my life chasing mediocre goals in life. Anybody who knows will tell you that I am devoted to the idea of climate change and to animal welfare. I have been brought up a vegetarian in a religious, scientific and spiritually inclined family and I wish to take that a few notches. I wish to do something transformational to the whole world of animals. I also intend to setting aside some part of my time in offering my oblations to my Gods and the performing of mediation on a daily basis. Under the current circumstances of being a daily jobber that is not at all possible. I just rush through without spending enough time at all on the ritual. I am also unable to do that daily on a consistent basis. Being a full-time trader frees up the needless time that is otherwise spent in writing reports, policy briefs and getting engaged in only work related activities.
I am in my mid 30s now and I definitely do not have the luxury of waiting till I am 60 or 70 or 80 to realize those dreams or worse off, let others realize them on my behalf while I look upon it with a walking stick in my hand. I have a sense of urgency and I do not wish to lose the golden period of my life waiting for something to happen to me after possibly a couple or even more decades from now. I cannot take a bet on that. It is too much of a long tail to control any eventualities and forever wishing for things to always be in my favour. I am not in that ball game. It is not for me. Hence I believe in trading as a vehicle for all of these.
