Traders911 Blog

House built on sand

I am not a very religious person. I do believe in the higher powers whatever they may be. A lot of the teachings from the religions have good ideas and basics for living and how to exist in this world that we live in.

In the bible, the book of Matthew talks about the house built on sand and on rock. It is meant to tell us not to be frivolous and anchor on substance and real truths and values. You need solid foundations to weather the storms or else the winds and floods can sweep us away…

Many of my friends are asking about the stock markets and whether it can carry on further with all the issues in the world…today is 21 July 2020. I got a Watsapp message here:

 “If you have a job & your company is still operating, be very grateful

 WHY?

1. Victoria's Secret closing many stores, possibly declaring bankruptcy.

2. Zara closed 1,200 stores.

3. La Chapelle withdrew 4391 stores.

4. Chanel is discontinued.

5. Hermes is discontinued.

6. Patek Philippe discontinued production.

7. Rolex discontinued production.

8. The world's luxury industry has crumpled.

9. Nike has a total of $23 billion US dollars preparing for the second stage of layoffs.

10. Gold's gym filed for bankruptcy

11. The founder of AirBnb said that because of pandemic, 12 years of efforts were destroyed in 6 weeks.

12. Even Starbucks also announced to permanently close their 400 stores.

13. WeWork isn't in a great spot either

The list goes on & on....

See the US economy landscape :

Nissan Motor Co. may close down in USA

1. Biggest Car Rental company (Hertz) filed for bankruptcy - they also own Thrifty and Dollar

2. Biggest Trucking company (Comcar) filed for bankruptcy - they have 4000 trucks

3. Oldest retail company (JC Penny) filed for bankruptcy - to be acquired by Amazon for pennies

4. Biggest investor in the world (Warren Buffet) lost $50B in the last 2 months

5. Biggest investment company in the world (BlackRock) is signalling disaster in the world economy - they manage over $7 Trillion

6. Biggest mall in America (Mall of America) stopped paying mortgage payments

7. Most reputable airline in the world (Emirates) laying off 30% of its employees

8. US Treasury printing trillions to try to keep the economy on life support

9. Estimated no. of retail stores closing in 2020 - 12,000 to 15,000. The following are big retailers that have announced closing:

- J. Crew

- Gap

- Victoria's Secret

- Bath & Body Works

- Forever 21

- Sears

- Walgreens

- GameStop

- Pier 1 Imports

- Nordstrom

- Papyrus

- Chico's

- Destination Maternity

- Modell's

- A.C. Moore

- Macy's

- Bose

- Art Van Furniture

- Olympia Sports

- K Mart

- Specialty Cafe & Bakery

and many many more

Unemployment claims reached an all-time high of 38+ million - unemployment is over 25% (out of 160 million of work force, close to 40 million are jobless). With no income, consumer demand is falling drastically, and the economy will go into a free fall. This is just USA...

Under the weight of the new crown pandemic, many giants are facing the crisis of failure. 5 months of pandemic created a LOT of debt, and tens of thousands of companies went bankrupt. If you have business & your company is still there, and there are no pay cuts or layoffs, pl treat your company & customer well. Humans are facing the pandemic that cannot be controlled. The second half of 2020, is the challenge of corporate strength & relationship

 2020 is about survival. Take care of yourself & your loved ones. Be happy with what you have!”

I get plenty of such messages. I agree that today, we see a lot of turmoil and we are heading into possibly another Wave for the Covid-19 across many countries…it is going to get worse before it gets better!

Clearly there is a disjoint between the Wall street markets and the Main street markets…Many countries are feeling the effects of massive unemployment, desperate situations to survive, and saving their livelihoods...This disjoint will defiantly seep into a bad ending…thought the US can print unlimited money, the laws of the universe will have it time to bite back at the world #1…I am bracing for the worst. Are the stock markets running up and up based on the economy's support? Do your due diligence...

If you are optimistic, great! But play a bit of defense…it is always good practice!

I admit: "I hate to be wrong". Deep down inside my own psyche, I am a pretty confident guy. Many times, I know I am right, my timing may be wrong, but given enoguh time, I am usually proven right...

But here's the thing...timing is crucial. I could be right 2 years ahead, 2 months ahead...but in the meantime, if I had taken action of a view that I am totally convinced about, I could be holding on to a losing trade and praying everyday that it would go my way, and keeping "integrity" to my view and everyday dying with another cut to my trading account.

"Do I want to be right or do I want to make money?"

I have lost A LOT of money doing this

So here are 5 observations I have seen iin other traders and myself (the biggest culprit):

1. You blame others - "market manipulators", brokers, scammers for your bad trades. That is making excuses, not being critical about your own issues and finding ways to improve. Stubborn people tend to make a lot of excuses.
2. You mock or look down on others on how stupid they are about their trades or actions. Be cocky. You can be constructive about your criticism in a positive way, but putting others down and having disdian - I know lots, you know nothing...these ppl tend to be losers themselves, becos they have to have a self reassurance about their knowledge and skills. NO one is a master of the markets and the markets ALWAYS humble us.
3. You are convinced and stick to a Trade plan, with no success, even though you have been losing on each trade. Never wanting to review and check with others about what is wrong...be ready to make changes
4. You double down or do the same trade after already losing - you could be fighting the trend
5. You tend to trade counter trend - This is not a good strategy. You think think that you know something that the markets does not know. That their collective wisdom cannot be better than you single view...

If you identify with any of the 5 above...time to stop being so rightous!

Have you  “decided”?

Many times deciding on something does not equate to taking action on the decision, though there are number of motivational gurus out there which says that…yes! you've got to decide but deciding is one thing and actually doing it is another.

So what does it mean to decide and not to ?

It means that you are in a state of inaction and when no action happens,it essentially nothing happens .

You got to understand that not only do have to take action, you got to take action – “despite of”.

“Despite of” means –

• despite off my fear
• despite of my inadequacies
• despite of my lack of resources
• despite of the lack of time
• despite of what people think or say

I have to take unconditional action because action moves things forward and I have to keep moving forward, even if it is only 1 step.

If we want to succeed, we need to become someone who takes action no matter what.

We need to become a “whatever it takes” kind of person, as a warrior and as a person who fights for what he wants. We cannot go then say: “I don't know… it's gonna be a bit difficult, therefore maybe another time or one day I will do this, one day I will do that”

We just switch our thinking to be – “today is day one”

For me, today is day one of my blog and I have been waiting for a very long time primarily because I always felt that I was quite inadequate in getting things perfect and only when I'm dead perfect will I move forward and display my talent to the world.

Well this current thinking is a flaw because we can never get things perfect and because we can never get things perfect, we never get to start.

I often stay within my own comfort zone because I can live within my own fantasy to say that yes I am creating the best this, the best that…

But really my best is never seen, my best is never experienced, my best is never heard.

I will just put it out…and see what happens.

Let’s take action together!