Prashanth Krish | Portfolio Yoga

Should Retail Investors / Traders indulge in Derivatives

Twitter is a place for discussions, collaborations, fights and what not. Today’s post has much to do with one such discussion which more or started when while replying to a friend, I put it out that I was long in Nifty (as we dwelled on how markets may behave on Monday following the carnage (if one could say that) one saw in Dow on Friday).

Vijay Pahwa commented on the tweet and tweeted “Even the best of traders lose money. A layman shd focus on investing in stocks. No trading system can predict mkts!”. Well, for starters he thinks too high of me to place me in the same box as the best of traders. If anything I hope I am above average (especially since I have survived) and not in the bottom of the bracket.

This comment started a new thread on its own and in one such tweet, he tweeted the following

While I don’t know the source of the 95% (am told by various brokers its even higher), I have to agree with at least the first part of the statement. Second part is questionable given that there is so much of Survivor bias in the data we have and one never knows which fund will have lost money regardless of how long one held the same.

A google search provided me with what could be the Worst Mutual Fund “Ameritor Security Trust” which lost money despite being in the market for 50 years. If you think India is different, think again. CRB Mutual Fund was closed after 20 years with investors getting back 64% of what they invested.

Given the evidence, the question that naturally comes is whether a retail investor should ideally dip his toes into the world of derivatives. While I have been a trader for the last many years, if there is something I agree with the naysayers, it would be that most of them have no business to take part in that trade.

But human greed is tough to conquer. When one thinks there is a opportunity in a certain stock, would you just buy what you can afford (Cash Segment) or try to leverage it (using either Futures, Options or Margin Trading – provided by a lot many brokers) to make the best of the situation?

While I trade in Derivatives, I trade only in Nifty and not Individual Stock Futures. But Stock Futures are the more famous cousin in India where it out-trades Index Futures (measured in Turnover) by nearly 3 times. In fact, Stock Futures turnover is higher than even Stock Options turnover showcasing the bias that has meant that liquidity begets liquidity and there is hardly any trades in majority of the stock contracts.

Stock Futures has had a interesting history in the United States. From Investopedia I learn that Stock futures were in fact banned from 1982 until 2000 and though it trades today, the volumes are way lower than what you see in Individual Stock Options.

In India though, Individual Stock Futures has been the rage. Then again, where else on earth would you see a retail trader having access to a contract worth 5.7 Million (MRF, near its peak) without there being a iota of necessity with regard to whether he is even financially fit to buy such a contract. If you thought, that was excessive, you should have seen the contract value of Gaur Gum hit the roof when it climbed an astonishing 2000% in just around 18 months. Since contract is for specific quantity, there is no revision.

For instance, when MCX started offering Gold contracts, the value of 1 Kilo (its normal contract) was around 8 Lakhs. Today, the same contract has a value of 31 Lakhs. With SEBI revising the minimum lot value from 2 Lakhs to 5, a lot of stocks have so absurd a quantity that its enticing to the retail investor to try his luck and see whether he can make it big.

Unlike delivery based investments where you can lose only what you invest, when you deal in futures you can lose a lot more. While risk is limited when you buy options, that is theoretically not comparable since you cannot really bet big on options without taking the risk of having a large part of your capital wiped out. For instance, while there is high risk in stocks, you can bet 10 / 20 or even 40% on a single stock,the probability of you being wiped out (especially if you are buying Index Stocks) is pretty low, in Options, you can get wiped out pretty easily.

Trading attracts the best of the minds since its a constant challenge and winning means that you are literally the member of a high class club with very few long term members. But trading is not even comparable to other endeavors since the risk is asymmetric.

Just as I was about to write this post, I came across this very view by Eric Peters

Trading is tougher than most realize, the odds of success are fairly small and when that window of opportunity opens, very few have any stamina (financial or otherwise) left to take the big calls that would lead to the big gains.

If you were to count the number of advisors who offer you the recipe for success in markets, you quickly realize that this is a market for selling shovels to gold diggers. Brokerage houses survive thanks to Sepculators, more so those who do it in Stock Futures as they have very small holding periods are liable to churn excessively.

While I have no clue as to what might be the optimal number of trades, for me it comes to (based on my system history), 1 trade in a fortnight. As Adam Grimes blogged and I quote,

“On some level, professional trading is boring, and it should be. What we need is structure, routine, and a methodology that points toward repetitive elements of market behavior. What we don’t need is excitement. Be a bricklayer.”

Trading is not for the fainthearted, nor for those looking to make some quick bucks, not for those who cannot afford to spend the time required (its a full time job regardless of how little amount you trade) and definitely not for those who think its a path to glory and riches.

People love the story of Jesse Livermore but forget the fact that he went bankrupt not once but twice. Having had a close encounter myself, its amazing that people think that bounce back is easy. Its not and generally ends with the trader abandoning the markets rather than come back in force.

To conclude, in my opinion, its not Leverage that kills but the inability to understand and handle the risk that finally kills the trader. Leverage in the hands of a able trader is a opportunity, in the hands of a speculator, its a self-destruct button.

If you aren’t a full time trader, stay away from derivatives and at the very least you can enjoy the up’s and down’s of the market for a long time to come (regardless of whether you actually make money or not). There is no such thing as hand-holding out here.

Airtel and the case of Authority Bias

Last Saturday, I received a phone call on my land line (Airtel) with the caller having confirmed he was speaking to the right number, informed me about a change in a scheme I had subscribed to. To give you a background, Airtel offers for its Landline users 2 schemes where in you can make unlimited outgoing calls for paying a certain fee.

For a fee of Rs.99/- per month, you can call unlimited number of local as well as STD numbers

For a fee of Rs.49/- per month, you can call unlimited number of local calls.

I had opted for the later since most calls are local in nature since the fee appeared to be nominal given the number of calls we usually make.

The caller after having confirmed my number proceeded to inform me that due to a TRAI ruling, they were no longer offering the 49/- plan and if I wanted to make unlimited out going calls I need to shift to the 99/- plan. While I was not interested in hiking my already inflated bill, I was curious as to why TRAI of all the people would want Airtel to disband a scheme especially when Reliance Jio is coming up with a similar unlimited (no additional fee either) plan.

Rather than just agree to taking up the 99/- plan, I asked the caller as to more information on which circular by TRAI prohibited this scheme and more details about it. After trying to evade, he finally asked me to call up the help line (121) for more info.

Since my experience with 121 has been more about long wait times, I decided to ask the query on Twitter where I have found them to be more helpful and faster when it came to responding. While it took them 5 days to finally respond, I finally received a phone call from some one in Airtel who informed me that the 49/- plan was very much active and I needn’t worry. He also confirmed that if there were to be such changes in the future, it will be one provided in written format (rather than being vocal).

All well that end’s well, Right? At least in this case, thanks to me asking questions, I did stop them from charging another 50 bucks for a service that I wouldn’t make use of

But lets get back to the Title, Authority Bias. Wikipedia explains it as under;

“Authority bias is the tendency to attribute greater accuracy to the opinion of an authority figure (unrelated to its content) and be more influenced by that opinion.”

If the guy who called me repeated the same to say another 100 or even 1000, how many do you think would stop to question and how many will meekly accept the change. After all, TRAI is the Authority when it comes to Telecom and if they are saying something, it has to be right, Right?

Marketing is all about exploiting our cognitive biases and the guy was just trying out a way to make people pay more without there being a reason to do so. A couple of decades back, I was taken to a very famous ENT Specialist since I had been for long suffering from incessant cold. After examining me, the Doctor said that I needed to be operated and after that I would be free of such cold for Life.

My parents fell for it since the Doctor was very well known and his clinic was lined up with Certificate after Certificate he had received (not sure how many were study related and how many thanking him for being a participant). While they paid up, I endured weeks of pain and for a while, his word was right. I was really free of cold. 6 months later, one fine day the cold started as if it was never gone.

What my parents experienced was Authority Bias, you really cannot question your Doctor since he is the Authority and if he says, its unlikely to be false.

Lets switch to investing since this blog is about investing and avoiding the mistakes therein. If you are a watch financial media, you know about the various experts who come on television expounding their views on markets. Have you ever stopped to ask, Who made them the Expert in the first place? Do they have track records to show how good their analysis has been? Have they won any awards (not that the Award itself would make it right) proving their theories (like for example The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2013
which was awarded to Eugene F. Fama, Lars Peter Hansen and Robert J. Shiller “for their empirical analysis of asset prices”)

Marc Faber for instance is seen as a Expert and appears on Financial Media regularly. But is he really a Expert? Lets check some of his calls (image credit to Ritholtz)

Based on the above pic, would you still treat him as a Expert?

In God we trust; all others bring data – W. Edwards Deming.

Everyone has a opinion and based on simple statistics, 50% of them could turn out to be true. But then again, its only in hindsight that we know which 50% was right – but if you were on the wrong side, its a truth that is too delayed to be of any use.

Recently PSU Banks have been on a roll and yet if you were to search the web, you will ‘n’ number of experts extrolling one to keep away from PSU Banks. They may indeed be right in thought, but markets have shown them to be wrong and I doubt even one of them coming up with a reason as to why PSU Banks are hitting new 52 week highs if there is indeed nothing good in them.

To appear on financial television as a Expert, you don’t need to have proven your expertise. I in fact know guys who have lost big sums of money (other people’s money) and yet get called to provide a view on the future of the market. Its more about having the “right connections” + ability to be coherent in front of the camera + willing to swing for the fences.

Predictions of big moves 6,000 / 12,000 are widely welcomed and even debated without there being a iota of reasoning that is backed by data (that could be tested). Today for instance, I found someone who has predicted that Sensex will rise by 50% over the next two years. I have no clue as to whether he will be right or wrong, but history suggests that 50% move in 2 years is not really normal (based on data [from 1990], the probability comes to just around 36%).

Two years down the lane, no one would even remember if it had gone wrong (if right, be sure that it will be flashed as sign of the Genius he is) but that ain’t the worst part. Assuming he is right, how does one play it given the low odds of it happening. Buy and Hope??

I am no expert but I do know one thing which is that if you can understand the cognitive biases we fall prey often, it will do wonders to your life and investing. For selling bullshit is far tougher to someone who knows to ask the right questions.

Look Ahead Bias and its Impact on Trading Results

As most system traders, my mind is constantly thinking of ideas that I think can help me beat the markets comprehensively without too much of a effort (no day trading types for example). So, today as I was doing what people do in bathrooms (having a bath), I suddenly had this idea for a new test – it wasn’t really new since I had tested parts of the ideas yesterday and this was more of a build on top of the model I had tested.

Given that so many such wonderful ideas end as failure, I knew there was no point in calling out EUREKA and rushing to the system to test it out pronto though I did kind of write down the general thesis of the idea before I forgot about it and went off to meet up with a few friends.

But as soon as I was back, it was to test out the system and man, had I hit the jackpot. The logic was simple and yet it seemed to work very well, in fact too well. Draw-downs were minuscule and the equity curve was pretty smooth. I was so excited that I even wondered for a second about posting this chart out on Twitter (how else do you think we system traders massage our ego’s :D)

System-1 and System-2 are both from same system though System-2 had a additional trend filter which seemed to clean out even better. At that point I was already thinking of how much equity to allocate to this bugger.

The only fly in the ointment happened when I then went ahead with bootstrapping the results. The output (p-value) was not something I anticipated (and regardless of anything else I found later would have killed the system). One thing experience has taught us is that if its too good to be true, its most likely not true.

So, the next step was to recreate in fresh all the steps I took from clean data and was the output a revelation. Here is the chart with both the original equity curve and the new ones (Realty-1, Realty-2)

Realty-1 was still okay though way below the originals while Realty-2 was a disaster. Do note that all of the above is before any slippage / brokerage / STT, etc. Add that and you will question the need to trade.

So, what went wrong?

For starters, the system had two Independent variables wherein decision was taken based on how Variable 1 acted and where Variable 2 was placed. Now, theoretically the idea was that if Variable 1 ended the day positively, I would look whether Variable 2 traded above a certain parameter and then bought Nifty 50 at end of the day.

Now, this meant that I should look at changes in the next day of Nifty 50 of the next day (holding period was of 1 day) and take that change as either my Profit (if it ended the day positively) or as Loss (if it ended in Negative zone). But while coding I had made a small error which meant that rather than take the next day’s figure, it was taking the current day’s figure.

In essence, it looked ahead by taking the returns of the day when the system was triggered rather than the next day. Remember, when the day opens, I have no clue as to how Variable 1 or Variable 2 will close and yet the system conjured that I was already long from previous night and would based on the decision close out my position.

Look ahead bias is one of the frequent biases you shall come across as a system trader for this one bugger makes a bad system look great and a okay system look like you have hit the jackpot. Realty-1 is still nice and may be worth working upon, but for now, sleep was calling.

And rather than Rinse-repeat-Rinse, I shall post the following pic on Look Ahead Bias from the website Quantstart.com

The future is Passive

The big news this week was about the inflow into Vanguard, the world’s largest mutual fund company which attracted $198.4 billion in the first eight months of this year drawing money from Active Mutual Funds and even Exchange Traded Funds as investors poured money into its low cost Index funds.

On the other hand, we in India recently had a SIP day when more than 30,000 investors signed up (in other words, parted with their money) to active funds in the hope that these funds will deliver more than what passive investing will return.

While I am a believer in ETF’s being the future, for now, one cannot dispute the fact that a lot of active funds have generated better returns (historical) than a passive Index. But the question that is rarely asked is

How are Indian Mutual Fund Managers generating Apha even as American Mutual Fund managers have a hard time catching up with the passive returns?
Secondly, the bigger question is, how long this out performance will sustain. Will the next 30 years be similar to the previous 30 years?

Lets first address the first part – the Alpha generating Fund Manager. A lot of funds have indeed generated Alpha over the last ‘n’ number of years but as the recent experience with HDFC showcased, if the fund manager bets wrong (and bets big on it), one would be destined to under-perform for a pretty long period of time. So, basically it boils down to fund managers being able to pick right and sit tight (not that most do as you can see from their churn ratio’s, but that is the basic idea).

The reasons for managers to generate Alpha is many, but one key fact is that the Indian Markets is still dominated by Retail investors. As Aashish P Sommaiyaa, CEO of Motilal Oswal tweeted, the number of Share holders in RIL, RCOM, SBI etc is greater than most MFs investor base.

In United States on the other hand, Institutions dominate the landscape. In markets, its common knowledge that the retail investor (includes us) are the weak hands while Institutions are the strong hands. As long as the ratio is maintained, funds can and will beat the passive indices comfortably.

But competition is brewing in the fund industry itself with more funds being launched and more monies being collected. With there being just around 400 or so stocks that funds invest in, as time goes by, it would be tougher to beat the rest of the pack unless a manager makes some serious bets and then comes a winner.

Take for example, the number of Mid Cap funds over the last 10 years. On ValueResearch I find that there are only 18 funds with a track record of 10 years or longer. But if you come down to 1 year, you find as many as 40 funds in the same Universe. Assets under Management too has exploded significantly while the number of stocks they can invest in hasn’t caught up in a similar way.

This is also showcased by the difference in returns between the best and the worst funds. On a 10 year time frame, the best fund has generated twice the returns of the worst surviving fund. Among funds with 5 year track records, this difference is 2.5X and for those with 1 year track record it spirals to 5x.

But lets get back to United States and the developed markets. Let me quote from an in-depth study by S&P Dow Jones Indices here

“There is a widely held belief that active portfolio management can be most effective in less efficient markets, such as emerging market equities, as these markets can provide managers the opportunity to exploit perceived mispricing. However, this view was not substantiated by our research, as over 70% of active funds underperformed their benchmarks across all observed time horizons.

In the U.S., the performance of equity markets remained solid, albeit weaker than previous years. However, over 84% of U.S. active funds underperformed the S&P 500® over the past one-year period. This poor performance continued over the longer term, as over 98% of active funds trailed the benchmark over the past 10 years.”

Let me put that in perspective. If you had invested in any mutual fund in US in 2006 (when it was still very much a bull market), you had a 2% probability that you will come out a winner in 2016. While I don’t think Indian funds will match such numbers over the next 10 years, its very much a possibility as you extend the time frame.

In 1995, a news paper reported this on the Pager Industry and its future growth prospects

“Just as microchips moved in the 1980s from the computer into washing machines, toasters and telephones, so tiny paging microchips are being developed for lighting, cars, vending machines, and notebook computers. “We’re at the tip of the iceberg of paging applications,” said Jeff Hines, paging analyst at brokers Paine Webber.”

While the paging industry did touch Indian shores, by the time people became aware, the Cell Phone had arrived and made it obsolete. Investors in United States are realizing only now that not all active funds are created equal and most funds find it tough to beat a simple index despite (or is it thanks to) their staggering fees / research.

I have no doubt that the Mutual Fund industry will continue to grow in size since there is plenty of money out there looking for avenues to invest but that doesn’t mean that they will all perform. Some will, most will not and many in between will just perish.

Its hence important that you analyze the facts carefully and take a call based on your reading of the situation and how it can / could develop from hereon. As a saying goes “”The past is history. The future is a mystery. The present is a gift.”

Today, the average investor has access to information that wasn’t there a decade back. The one’s who will thrive in the future are the one’s who make the best of the opportunities that such information / knowledge provides.

Cost of huge Returns

Michael Batnick who is Director, Research at Ritholtz Wealth Management tweeted out the following chart of Amazon

Implicit in the message (my presumption since nothing was blogged / tweeted) was that its not enough to buy a great stock, you need to have the stomach to take big draw downs like Amazon say (90%+ after the IT bubble crashed in 2000).

But what is missed is the fact that Amazon was one of the very few survivors of the carnage of the 2000’s. While I don’t have the actual stats, my guess is that greater than 80% of the stocks that were listed at that point of time don’t even exist (in any form) today. Pet.com / Webvan.com / eToys.com being some of the biggest losers.

The same is the case with Indian IT stocks as well with very few surviving the carnage. In Bangalore which was and has been a Infotech hub, we had stocks like Shree MM Softek, International Computech, Cybermate Systems among others (50 IIRC) that no longer even exist. Bigger ones you may remember would be Pentafour Software / DSQ Software / Aftek Infosys among many others.

Returns don’t come from suffering unbearable draw-downs. Returns come when you are able to balance out the risk with probable rewards and if your stock is down 80% or more, you have a 20% or lower chance of ever getting your money back. Things like Amazon / Apple happen, but only in hindsight do we recognize the great opportunity that it was.

And last but not the least, while its seem one easy way to avoid total destruction would be to be well diversified, it has to be across asset classes / sectors / industries. Buying 10 NBFC companies (Today’s hot sector) or 10 Pharma would either make you very rich or very poor and is not definitely for someone who wants to achieve returns greater than what a simple Index fund would provide.

A small table listing out % of stocks that are at different draw-down levels. Remember, these are those who survived and continue to be listed – many don’t.

Random thoughts, Financial Planning

Till very recently, Finance was simple. You earned X, spent Y and the remainder Z was usually put away in a Fixed Deposit for a rainy day or as savings for a future goal – House / Marriage, etc. Equity exposure was the last thing most people had in mind unless of course you were in Mumbai or Gujarat where it seems markets run through their blood veins.

Most articles on finance end with a phrase “Please consult your financial adviser or investment adviser” when it comes to advising on what to Buy / Sell. But who is a financial adviser in the first place?
When it comes to other fields, you have recognized degrees that suggest that the person you are approaching for advice has the necessary qualifications to help you. A Doctor for example needs to study and pass a 5 ½ year course in Medicine before he can start advising on what medicine you need to take, a Lawyer needs to pass a Law Exam (once again after 6 years of study (non-Integrated)).

While I can prepare my company’s balance sheet, I cannot sign it off and that falls to a guy who has passed his CA exam (which takes time given the low passing percentage) and this after spending a minimum of three years working under an existing chartered accountant.

But when it comes to advising one about how to achieve one’s goals, there was no exam as such and anybody could and did claim to be a financial advisor even though many barely had a clue on how to guide the person who came to him for help in managing his finances.

These days everyone claims to be a financial advisor, be they selling tips on what stocks to buy or advising you on what mutual fund to invest in with most of them now flaunting a SEBI Certificate that enables them to claim to be a registered investment advisor.

Most of the Indian middle class I doubt has much exposure to a financial advisor who can advise on our finances in totality. The Mutual Fund distributor advises on which funds to buy, the distant aunty of ours throws in a few LIC policies which she claims shall secure our and our children’s future while the stock broker (if you haven’t yet gone fully online) provides you with ideas on what stocks to Buy and last but the biggest of all, our neighborhood friendly PSU Bank offers to sell Fixed Deposits.

In other words, financial advice is based more on what they want to sell than what we really need to buy but then again, Finance for long has become a push based strategy than pull. But are we well served by buying what is advised by those who honestly do not have a clue on what our requirements are, let alone our goals / dreams and fears?

Yesterday I decided to ask my twitter followers the one thing they look forward when choosing their financial advisor. Some of the answers I received;

“Credible track record, transparency around compensation, Strong grounding in ethics. Trust. That comes from multiple factors – incentive structure, track record, investment philosophy, clear communication etc, Trustworthy, Integrity.”

As W. Edwards Deming once said, ““In God we trust; all others bring data.” Trust is important, but trust without data to back it up it is nothing more than a cognitive bias more specifically referred to as Dunning–Kruger effect.

When we invest for a Goal, we are investing in a uncertain future with the only road map being of the past and it’s hence important that we select the right people to help us in that journey of ours since if one screws up, the impact is one for the life time.

A lot of friends compare advising (finance) to how a Doctor advises his patient but the fact they miss out is not only are there specialist but even they (many a time) ask you take a second opinion when it comes to say a operation / method of treatment. When it comes to investing, how many advisors have you met who say, why not take a second opinion on whether this path is right for you or not?

An advisor is not a seller, Period. He needs to assess your financial position, your goals, your wishes, your fears and provide you with advise based on what is best based on current set of data and one that could undergo change as time passes by. An Advisor has a Fiduciary duty to act in the best interest of you and you alone. He will of course charge you a fee for doing the work, but then again, we all understand there is no free lunch.
While it’s easy to believe that choosing the best stock / best fund will make a large difference to our final results, the truth is that its Asset Allocation that is more important than the never ending search for the holy grail of funds / stocks.

If you have invested 90% of your money in the wrong asset classes, even great investing of the remainder 10% barely will scratch the surface. Empirical evidence has shown that most funds find it tough to beat a simple 60 / 40 allocation that is rebalanced regularly and yet, we get impressed by the tip selling friend who claims great returns on back of his advise.
It’s shown (once again data backed) that costs are the prime killer of returns in the long run, but based on selective / recency bias, funds that charge as much as 3% of your AUM on a yearly basis continue to gain fresh funds.

Most investment advisors I have seen seem to suggest strategies which believe that you shall continue to earn and save for the next 20 /30 years. What if economy went into a recession and you lost your job not to mention the unmentionables – health / death, etc. Is your plan still worth the paper it’s written on?
Preparing for all contingencies is essential and if you cannot ask the right questions, you shall be taken for a ride since end of the day, the risk is yours only. Gains if any are always shared.

Dipa Karmakar and the Risk Quandary

Before the start of this Rio Olympics, I am sure that less than one percent of people had even heard about the name of the Gymnast coming from a small state in North East India but by yesterday, she was a toast in the media with most of us hoping that she may defy the odds and provide us with the first medal. Finishing fourth is a proud achievement given the kind of support system she had versus the support system of other competitor’s and it’s entirely due to her hard work that she is now recognized and has made a name in the world of gymnastics.

But there is a dark side as well as Dipa was one of the only(?) gymnast in this Olympics to try out the artistic gymnastics vault called “Produnova” and is only the 5^th to complete it successfully in a international competition. But as Wikipedia says and I quote,

“Controversy was sparked after Fadwa Mahmoud’s first competitive Produnova attempt, where she nearly landed on her neck.

As long as the gymnast lands on her feet first, she will get credit for the vault, and because of the Produnova’s massive difficulty value, it is easy to get a high score even with poor execution. This has led several gymnasts in countries that lack funding for gymnastics to attempt the vault in order to increase their chances of medaling and therefore obtaining more funding. There have been calls for the Produnova vault to be banned due to the high level of risk”

Now, compare this to the risk taken by amateur traders. Given that most of them lack capital, they essentially try to for broke by risking big and hoping that it pays off. Unfortunately that is seldom the case as most traders end up broke after a few such try outs as high risk never means high reward all the time since otherwise it couldn’t be high risk in the first place.

For a few months now, I have been tracking open interest data of FII’s and Clients and for me, it holds up as to how Institutions think versus how Retail folk think. For starters, FII’s are never short put options (Net) which means that they Buy Put options as an Insurance policy (as its designed to be) against their Long positions. Retail on the other hand are happy to be short Puts almost all the time.

In fact, since 2012 from where my data starts, they are short futures as well as short call options and furthered by long puts only 20% of the time. 39% of the time, they are Long Futures, Calls and Puts and 41% of the time, they are either Long or Short Futures and Long or Short Call Options while remaining long puts.

In markets history, there have been very few instances of a Market Melt up while Meltdown is an often repeated headline that occurs in a regular fashion and when such a incidence happens, you know how retail clients will be positioned.

The basic idea of having options was to provide a way to limit losses by buying Insurance but given the leverage it provides, it has been happy hunting grounds for those looking for quick bucks since it provides the kind of leverage no other product does.

While stocks can take months or years for it to return 100% return, in an option you can witness 100% and more within a single day and sometimes within a few minutes. No wonder that it attracts clients who are more than happy to stake a bet hoping that lady luck favors them.

The fact that you are risking 100% of the capital posted since it can as well as easily (and normally) does goes to Zero is often overlooked with the premise being that you lose only what you bet and no more.

In the Race Course, in a Casino as well as in the Lottery business it’s always the bookies who end up on the winning side all (or almost all) the time. While there will always be a few winners in extreme short term, over the long term the only guys going to the Bank to deposit their winnings are those on the other side.

Both in the Casino and the Options market, it seems that both the Player and the house have equal advantage but as everyone knows, “The house always Wins” even though its edge is not too great. In the derivative markets, it’s said that 95% of all options expire worthless but that doesn’t mean that option writing is an easy way to generate profits. I should know it better since nearly a decade back; I nearly went bankrupt writing options. Victor Niederhoffer blew his fund as well as personal money selling put options. Nick Leeson blew up Barings Bank selling put options on the Nikkei among many other disasters (mostly of the unspoken kind).

I find it amusing when experts say, “Risk only money you can afford to lose” which to most I am sure seems to suggest that it’s better to invest in Gold / Real Estate where such investments do not merit such statements (though the same, heck, even bigger risks exist in those asset classes).

Everyone who has made it big has risked it all (thanks to Survivor Bias, we can safely ignore those who failed), be it in Land / Gold or going solo (Entrepreneurship). But risking it all doesn’t have to mean losing it all – there is a wide difference between those two and the key to survival (remember, Survival not Success) is to understand that difference.

Motilal Oswal has a motto that says “Bet Right, Sit Tight”. I on the other hand think, Bet Right (at least hopefully its Right), Bet Big (no point scoring a few pennies when you are right, Right?) and be ready to change your view if the market doesn’t move in the direction you assumed it would (Sitting tight is equivalent to sticking one’s head in the sand and hoping that the storm will eventually pass over).

As much as I wish Dipa Karmakar well, I do hope that the lessons future gymnasts not take from her success is to try out the most risky moves in an attempt to win honor and medals.

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