Tuesday, March 10, 2015

the story of my experiments with trading

: revered murliji has asked for my early experience in stock market.....this gives me an exciting opportunity to time travel and take a fresh look at where i started from, what all i have gone thru, where i have reached and where i intend to go.....

: each one of us, i believe, is potentially a booker prize winning, novel in flesh and blood......each one of us are worthy of am autobiography.....even if we are not a celebrity.....

: i strongly believe that we all should write our biographies......biographies are not meant for only immortals.....

: like ur stories, my story is also quite long and deserves lengthy treatment......i am glad that i kept writing instantaneous life-journey travelogue then and there and what u see in my blog is nothing but the compilation of those.....

: i take this opportunity to share (in brief) my journey in trading so far....

: in bits and pieces, here in a few whatsapp posts in next few minutes....(i love someone dear asking me to share.....i simply love when someone has time to ask and listen.....nothing oozes more love....nothing more does the humanity need so badly)

: well, in short...here it is....(and i welcome all to share there stories also)

: i am an engineer by training but took lot of foolhardy courage (and stupidy) to damage my career extremely badly and that too quite early in my life....

: and i had no mentor to give me sense.....

: anyhow.....i dropped to level II career path and dragged on.....

: due to this, i always remained dissatisfied as i always felt that my latent potential remained unexploited....

: as Abraham Maslow  hierarchy of human needs also states.....i badly missed the level 5 need....self realization....

: i always wanted to do something great and big.....make big money and achieve something astonishing.....

: which my level II career wasn't giving, wasn't expected to give.....

: so i started looking for "lakshya" (by the way, this is one of the reasons i love the hindi movie "lakshya" by farhan akhtar....)

: for many years i found many lakshya's but all fell way short of meeting by criterion....

: just like a range of subjects which are found "not satisfactory" by the Ph.D. guide to an aspiring research scholar...

: and when u r looking for a lakshya in ur life.....u start stumbling upon a lot of quacks.....

: i met people who gave me and inspired me into lot of "businesses" and "ideas".....all only to delay me, confuse me, frustrate me, throw me into loss, make me a bigger failure.....

: all this time i had, unfortunately, no friends......

: i came across no good ones and bad ones i didn't keep....

: had i got a mentor, i would have come out of that "age" much earlier....

: anyhow...

: i tried many businesses but was put off by the nuiances/roadblocks, least to mention the capital / permissions etc which were truly not my cup of tea...

: one option i had heard about was "stock trading"

: i knew nothing about it....and all i knew about it was that it was dangerous.....

: so, i left it even before i caught it....

: one day, i saw harshad mehta in shimla.....i think it was the year 2000.......he was coming out of the Cecil Hotel (Oberoi) in shimla....i was thrilled to see him from close quarters.......

: didn't have the courage to walk upto him and "take his blessings" 😃

: unfortunately he died next year.....alas

: still, trading was never in my "hit list"

: until 2002 when my life was in real bad shape........

: as the fate was to have it, that year, i fractured my foot in a fall and was bed ridden for 1.5 months

: in those days, personal computers were expensive and internet was thru sify.....v slow and.....

: i didn't know what to do all day.....

: so, i decided to do one think....study...

: so what did i choose to study?

: wel, well, well....i chose computer virus....

: i asked someone to go to bazaar and buy all hardware and virus/hacking etc etc related books for me.....which i got....

: for full 1 month i spent 15 hours a day to study computer virus/trojan/worms etc etc....(don't even recall everything now).....studied how the hackers hack... bla bla....just theory....the architecture.....without knowing anything in actual programming......i was good at concepts and zero in coding...by the time i bought c++ books, i was turned off.....

: but my foot was still 2 weeks or so from healing......

: so i turned to....

: u guessed it right....

: trading....

: how?

: there were no books available.....

: so i turned to "yahoo" babaa....

: google i don't recall....

: i searched for everything and anything available on the net on the topic "stock trading" and downloaded it.....

: i read it all, made notes and note and notes......

: i didn't have access to cnbc (if i recall correctly).......

: by the time i became road worthy, i had done a small "Self" diploma course in trading.....

: from abc to options, futures, margins and alike......

: i decided to run before learning to get on my feet and opened an account with a local broker......

: i started going to their terminals room everyday and just watched everyone there......

: i remember poeple smoking heavily in that small room looking at screen with blinking red and blue squares.....asking intermittently to buy some shares, sell some shares.....nobody was talking about nifty.....

: i must admit i didn't know that nifty could be traded....

: shorting was like magic to me.....how could anyone sell without buying.....i used to wonder....

: satyam and suzlon were very famous those days.....moser baer, jp associates etc etc

: i started in cash and carry....and started taking deliveries of the stocks i knew nothing about but felt that i knew everything.....and that i had "arrived" and that "all those illiterate old fashioned people sitting there should packup as an Engineer mind had come to conquer the market.....

: typing thru whatsapp on pc

: i think we all have the "bimaari" of considering ourselves "experts" while in reality we are not even worthy of standing there.....

: anyhow, needless to say, i was humbled quite early and mercilessly and repeatedly.....

: i kept returning home to get more money from my savings and kept returning next day......

: like a budding juaarii......

: the engineer in me simply refused to accept that i was beaten!!!

: fortunately, i got a good job offer (that too in my city) and got spared of the gallows....

: the job was demanding and i hardly got time and strength and money to blow in trading....

: after one year.....i was, again, suddenly reminded of my darling.....stock trading....

: i opened my first online trading account with icici securities which i later shifted to hdfc securities.....

: and then i started trading.....

: all of that is archived as (almost daily) article entries in my blog.....u can check

: i don't recall much

: since i wanted to be a millionaire overnight, i started with day trading 😌

: don't laugh....😄

: and...

: i started burning my fingers.....

Alok Srivastava Bangalore: it happens with every1😄

: the juaari in u doesn't generally die too soon...

: no method....nothing......just "stars in eyes and josh in heart"....@#$%$#

: then.....after some weeks, i decided that enough was enough, i should study and think.....

: should find out a clever method and start making money....

: and then, i started learning big time........

: it was 2004, i think....

: don't recall the details now.......

: thank god, i kept writing and posting in my blog......

: won't read it again as i will get v emotional reading them.....

: and might cry recalling the blood and pain and tears and sweat i went thru....

: every day i would wake up thinking that i will tame the market, will come out with a magical formula....

: everyday, i used to come out with "brilliant" "super" ideas which tested perfectly fine on screen....even back tested fine....

: only to crash and fail before the night when i would invariably discover the flaw, the loophole.....

: it was mostly day trading those days......

: i have changed my trading styles, and rules and methods and instruments and this and that a hundred times in all these years......

: i would always say to my wife that i have cracked the code, only to return with sagging face before her.....

: she is witness to hours and hours i spent every day for every month for every year since 2004

: hufffffff.........

Sanjeev: So u got the holy grail?

: then, when i came up with lots of smart and interesting and immortal tricks (which ofcourse flattered only to deceive), i came to know something called "technical analyses"

: sanjeevji!!! holy grail!!!! so early.......

: it was a eureka moment for me......meeting ms.technical analysis......

: "now, nobody can stop me" i said to myself.....forgot years of hardwork and got ready to start on a new journey.....

: just see how much hardwork we are willing to "write-off" in the quest for something......

: i don't remember the chronology, but i remember everything i came up and sown with.....

Sanjeev: How much u totally invested till now since 10 yeard

: will reply to that.....

: so, i started with technical indicators....and learnt a lot....a lot.....

: i must have learnt every indicator.......tried it.....only to get frustrated with results and drop it.......

: every indicator worked but didn't.....what a paradox.....

: finally i shortlisted a few (as per my comfort level and understanding).....rsi....sma....and a few more....

: then i started my epic journey with rsi.....

: i have no shame in demanding an honourary Ph.D. from (even a fake) university....i have done original work in rsi with the inventor Welles Wilder didn't  know......

: anyhow....

: after "mastering" rsi, i started trading more seriously.....day trading as well as swing.....

: and mind u, friends, all this happened over months and years......not as fast as it seems while writing this...

: one reason why i survived this long, besides my obsession with trading theory, was the rule i had made for myself.....

: that....

: "i will not bet big till i have cracked the code"

: this is the one and only reason i am still liquid and in the market despite having lost so many times in so many years....

: i have quit market so many times and i don't even remember......

: everytime some trick, method, indicator, plan failed.....it felt like a jolt.....

: i had left my career, failed at everything else......and here i was....having invested millions (in terms of minutes, blood drops, peace of mind, health....)and still nowhere near.....

: how would it feel?

: when indicator after indicator started to fail, i was again turned off....this time v badly....

: i stepped out of the trading ring but trading refused to step out of me.....

: i realised that technical indicators were not enough.....

: everyone was trading on technicals and getting beaten on tactics.....

: i was forced to abandon now even the technical indicators........

: for once it felt that all i had studied till now was useless.....

: i was hunting in the wrong jungle.....

Arun Singla: Ohhhh🙇🙇

: but my love for the trade made me forget my (study) "loss" and i was still excited enough to start my third phase....learning tactics......

: very few of u perhaps know that i worked on tactics for quite a few months.....

: i studied machiavelli, karl von clausewitz....etc etc...\

: i consider Al ries and Jack Trout my foster mentors.... i have read all their books.....and tactics was the underline force in everything they wrote....

: i compiled all i stuided in tactics and even wrote a small book on "Tactics"......all that is archived in my other blog....http://100tactics.blogspot.in/

: and then i discovered that operators were using dirty tactics.....

: and this journey continued.....and is still continuing.....

: on the way....i have discovered some great indicator applications.....some tricks....

: i have come across some loopholes of operators.....have got some secret keyholes which hint to what the operators might be upto.....

: some real original work....

: now when i look back....

: i realize that every little learning that i did in all those years (over 13 years) never went waste.....

: no indicator is complete.....but no indicator is useless.....

: every indicator is like an alphabet which when read alongwith other alphabets reveals something....

Alok Srivastava Bangalore: How has been 2008 crash for you?

Alok Srivastava Bangalore: many left mkt for ever in 2008

: i lost....but since i had that rule (mentioned above) i survived.....

: i have unwittingly re-opened my wounds.....

Alok Srivastava Bangalore: Were u able to foresee the bounce back in 2009

: i got my lakshya (aim)......i am satisfied....now working to achieve it...

: no....

: my most precious gems are the latest ones.....

: ur last and the latest lessons are often the best ones and carry the dna of all ur previous learnings......

: my success rate jumped dramatically last year (around july)......u can check mudraa....

: that was when things suddenly started falling into place and i started seeing which i was missing earlier.....

Alok Srivastava Bangalore: Accrding to u. What is the one thing which brings the traders back to mkt   inspite of so many loses

Alok Srivastava Bangalore: Everyday

Alok Srivastava Bangalore: Is that hope to make it big one day

Alok Srivastava Bangalore: ??

: hope, dream, sense of revenge, fighting back, no other way to go, back against the wall, desire to prove oneself....

: there is no holy grail......

: only the unholy secrets of operators.....which are no less than the holy grail....

: i have got a few

: thank u murliji for giving me the opportunity....indebted

Arun Singla: Karat karat abhyaas ke,
Jadmat hoth sujaan..

: abraham maslow was right when he put "self realization" on top and "money-like security need" at the bottom....

Sandeep Chennai: Great story js ji - lifetime of a trader

: yes, i know....acknowledge that.....everyone has one......its only that we are too shy and too modest to share......we all are heroes in our lives.....

Sandeep Chennai: This is true inspiration for everyone who has lost in life and how he can be successful if he has will to achieve

: Never worry about loss.....once you get it right, profitable trades will rise dramatically......it's only till that time.....

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