Self Development Idea (15): The Template for Your Journey

Recently, I have come across a very interesting book with profound insight – “The Hero with a Thousand Faces” – released in 1949, by Joseph Campbell.

Since then, it became the "Bible" of movie script writers.  And, the stages of the hero's journey outlined in the book had influenced a number flimmakers...  Such as George Lucas's Star Wars, Disney's The Lion King, etc...







The.
There are many articles on the internet wrote about the details on each step on the template, and I found an excellent short video clip in Youtube that illustrate the points clearly:
Here is the link if you cannot see it below: -> LINK

Now, I AM curious... 
Is there any metaphor that we can learn something from this?

Of course.  Since the Hollywood script writers can use it so successfully over and over, again and again to create movies that can resonate with the audience, meaning that there is something within the viewers even the viewers themselves may not consciously aware of it...

See, I believe that the Author, Joseph Campbell did not write this book to with the intention to inspire filmmakers or story writers.  He wrote this to inspire all his readers and gave them many examples of how Hero in the past had acheive their success and what stages (challenges) they had been through. 

There is a Chinese saying, "人生如戏 戏如人生"  - "A Life is just like a Movie, a Movie is just like a Life."   So true! 
Then, isn't it a good idea to use the template to recognize what stage are we in the journey of life right now, and then continue to write the scripts for our own magnificent journey?

Life is without meaning.  You bring the

meaning to it.  The meaning of life

is whatever you ascribe it to be. 

Being alive is the meaning.

- Joseph Campbell

<HOME>

<Comment>


------------------------------- Added on 17 Nov 2014 --------------------------------
Here is a nice template (original source from here) for you to write a story... It can be your OWN STORY too. :-)

Personal Finance (10): The Biggest Leaking Hole in the Personal Financial Bucket

Imagine that every one has a personal financial bucket as a preparation for their retirement. And, they would go out to work as hard as the bee in order to fill them up.  But, what happen in reality is that there is a Big Leaking Hole at the bottom of their bucket that most might not be aware of or did not take it seriously yet…

For this, I AM refering to the Global Public Debt, and here is the link:

http://www.economist.com/content/global_debt_clock

Now, there are few projects that can be done with these data.

Example one: What's the Growth Rate of the Global Public Debt?

Here are some other Inconvenient Questions for individual who has the interest to Ponder and Find out:

* What is the Public Growth Rate of your own country? (One can take down the data on the right hand corner year by year to workout the chart.)

* On the right column of the Global Public Debt Clock, there is a item "Public Debt vs GDP" by country.  What does it mean when it is approaching 100% or some even go over the 100% mark?
Think in terms of a public company, what would happen if it keep lossing money year over year?

* On the "Public Debt per Person"...  That is the Leaking Hole in individual financial bucket...  Even you don't spend it, it is the load you have to carry, which include newly born babies and 90 years old senior citizens.  Why is it continue to grow, and some even with exponetial rate?

* With the current debt rate, there are already so much trouble with the economy.  What would the economy outlook with a higher debt rate future (as predicted by the trend of the chart.)?  Would there be more financial crisis such as the fiscal cliff event?

Of course,  as the exact data would not be easily available to the public, these data are good for reference and benchmark purposes,

One may be FEAR to find out the answer by himself...
And, when one facing  FEAR, he has two choices:
1. Forget Everything And Run.
2. Face Evidence And Rise!

(YouTube Link)
This 59 second video explains the concept & situation clearly!

“The world is not a problem; the problem

is your unawareness”

-Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

<Home>

comment

Season Greeting (3) : About Time...

Wishing you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2013!

I thought it is a good idea to write an Early Season Greeting message this year...  At least a few days before 21 Dec 2012. 

 

See... 

There are so many versions of 21 Dec 2012 prediction with hundred (if not in thousand) of books around.  These stories are from thousand years Mayan Calander, hundread years Nostradamus Prophecy, modern Channels, Scientists,  NASA and even Hollywood... 

And, what's more exiting than we are going to test them in two days time! :-)

 

 

Anyway, here is version with more positive outcome...  It says that the mass public is going to have higher consciousness spiritually after the 3 days event.

(click here if you don't see the following video clip)

 

And...

What if NOTHING strange happen AT ALL?

Can we learn anything from it?

 

I think so.

 

"Work expands so as to fill the time available

for its completion."

- Parkinson's law

 

“Somebody should tell us, right at the start of our lives,

that we are dying. Then we might live life to the limit,

every minute of every day.  Do it!  I say.  Whatever

you want to do, do it now!   There are only so

many tomorrows.”

- a spiritual teacher

At least we can use it as a metaphor and learn to think better in how to spend our time more effectively, and doing it according to our highest joys.  There used to have dinosaurs and Atlantis Civilization on this same earth and they were all disappeared long ago... 

 

Here are some planning tools that you may be interested:
Big Picture; Weekly Planner; Yearly Planner; Long Term Planner; Instructions


 

 

<Home>

comment

Self Development Idea (14) - There are Pattern of Cycles in Life

A week ago, I attended a Trading Seminar on CFD (a kind of leveraged derivative product).  And, I was surprised to notice something interesting, there is some kind of a pattern, that worth the while to write it down.

Just like the products in the market, everything that lives has a pattern of cycle in their life, and it goes through the phases of birth, growth, fruitage, and decline.

Isn't it true that when a baby is born, he will have to go through some patterns that designed for him.

Such as go through the kindergarten, primary school, secondary school, college and university, then start to work, .... , retire and then die.

So, back to the subject that I want to write about, and here is the "Pattern" that I noticed in the seminar:

It was held in a big lecture theatre.  There are three columns of seats and each column has about 30 rows of seats.  Though it was not full-house, I figured out that there was about 350 participants.  I paid attention on the age of the participants in the recess time.  I can divide them into three age group of participants.

1) The age group of 30-45 (25%) 

2) The age group of 45-55 (50%)

3) The age group of 55-60 (25%)

And, when the seminar start, the speaker asked: "How many of you are the first time to attend such seminar?"  I saw about 50% of the people in the room put up their hands.

Do you noticed that most of the people, at least in this place, wait until they are retired or about to retire, then they start to learn about the stock market.

It was quite a "happy" seminar, because the speaker flipped through a couple of historical charts and showed the audience that how money can be easily made with some very simple strategies.  Also, with the leverage, a few ten of thousands dollars is all you need to make more than the averaged pay worker in the country.  

A few rounds of applause had gone round the theatre when the speakers shown some strategies to handle the historical charts and emphasis that it can be easily done with very little training - where to buy and when to sell.

Since, the speaker had mentioned that no one can take any audio recording nor video, or he will sue the person...

Then... I saw many hard working participants taking tons of notes while the speaker delivering the presentation.

And, me too...  make my own note after the seminar.  Just a few words with a picture, and it is attached below.

Well, this is NOT to make joke of the beginner participants for believing that there is easy money out there for them to pick,  for I'd been there, done that ten over years ago...   RATHER, the intention is to alert all to take time to know about this stuffs... 

 

Personally, I view this as a failure of the public education system (worldwide) that there is no syllabus in educating students on the area of personal finance and stock market in their early stage of life.

 

 

See.  If we can know some kind of challenges (pattern of cycles) that we will have to face years down the road.  Wouldn't it be good to spend time in learning more about it and be prepared first before we need to handle it face-to-face?   As sooner or later, most likely one will come to a point where he need to handle his personal finance as saving in the banks is not getting any yield, and fund managers are not reliable nowadays.

 

"Most people tip-toe through life, hoping

they’ll make it safely to death."

– Bob Proctor

 

 

-----------------------Add on 13 Dec 12----------------------

 

This is a typical chart from advertisement. 

Unfortunately, they do not supply with a time machine to take full advantage of it.

 

 

 

<Home>

Project Freedom (10): Trading with the BBC Breadth Indicator

Deleted on 2016-04-11.

Project Freedom (9): Trading with the Mutiple-Time-Frames Moving Distribution Charts

Deleted on 2016-04-11

Project Freedom (8): Follow the Money

Follow The Money: When China Stimulates its Economy, Buy Coal!

When the world economy was running into trouble since the beginning of 2008, China announced the 4000Billion RMB Project (四万亿计划) on the 18 Nov 2008. Soon after that, the economy turned around, though it did not last for very long...

Figure 1: The Correlation between FXI and KOL

The above illustration shows the XinHua China 25 index, the Global Coal ETF Charts, and their correlation.

As China is the world Largest Coal Consumer, when they stimulate their economy they need more energy for their power plants, more material to built infrastructures and consumer products, therefore the demand for coal would increase.

Figure 2: One year after the China Economy Stimulation Plan

 

The above chart shows the Result a year after the stimulation.  Though the XinHua China 25 index rose for 85%, there were many other sectors/countries performed much better than that.
 

The Top Ranking was KOL (Global Coal ETF), follow by Metal, China Real Estate and other related material producing countries.

YES…   These are History.

Is there anything that we can learn from it???

Figure 3:  China market bound on 7 Sep 2012 with new stimulation plan

 

Of course!!! 
 

Now…  Let’s look at these news:

1.  分析称我国将投资超1万亿加强基建刺激经济

  (The analyst from China said that the government will invest more than 1000 Billion RMB to strengthen their infrastruture to simulate the economy)

2.  万亿项目获批股市“一阳指”  
   (China market bounds up on the news on new stimulation plan approval)

3.  China approves US$158b in infrastructure

Yes.  The history will repeat itself to high degree (provided there is no major war and natural disaster).

 

Notes:
1)   This is similar worldwide...  It follows the Pareto Principle, since the recorded history, that 80% of the wealth belongs to the 20% of the people (these numbers are just getting bigger in spread - 90% vs 10% or worst).   The more money the governments pour into their economy would only benefits to the minority who know how to get it.   Normal working class would normally working harder to keep their job, and therefore miss the opportunities and suffer from the aftermath through inflation.


2)   Even though the world economy is in deep trouble, and it will reveal the trouble later at a bigger scale when there is not way to cover up.  But, at the moment, these stimulus could help to prolong the grow before the final collapse.  Just like giving another heavy dose of drug to keep the already exhausted sport man to continue the game...  

Therefore, timing it with charting for proper entries and exits to ride the trend is important, never argue with the mass psychology that forms Mr. Market with logic using the conscious mind.

 

"A speculator must concern himself with making money out

of the market and not with insisting that the tape must

agree with him.  Never argue with it or ask for

reasons or explanations."

- Jesse Livermore

<Home>

Games that People Play(3):- Strategical Horse Racing by SunBin

Case 1:  Happened before 320BC:

-------------------------------------------------8<----------------------------------------------

孙膑赛马:

战国时候，齐国大将田忌很喜欢赛马。他每次和齐威王赛马，都要押上重金赌输赢。他们把各自的马分为上、中、下三等。比赛时，上等马对上等马，中等马对中等马，下等马对下等马。由于齐威王每个等级的马都比田忌的强，每次赛马，田忌都以失败而告终。

一次，田忌又比输了，正闷闷不乐地离开赛场，他的朋友孙膑对他说：“从刚才比赛的情形看，齐威王的马比你的快不了多少，下次比赛，你只管下重金和他赌输赢，我有办法让你取胜。”田忌疑惑地看看孙膑：“你是说给我换几匹好马吗？”孙膑摇头说：“不是。”田忌知道孙膑足智多谋，看着他胸有成竹的样子，没再多问。

等到比赛那天，孙膑向田忌面授机宜说：“第一场，用你的下等马去同他的上等马周旋；第二场，用你的上等马去对付他的中等马；第三场，你用中等马对付他的下等马。”结果，第一场比赛田忌输了，第二、三场比赛赢了，最终以2：1获胜。这下，齐威王目瞪口呆，只好眼睁睁地看着田忌得意地拿走了自己的千金。

-------------------------------------------------8<----------------------------------------------

Brief Translation:

Strategical Horse Racing by SunBin:

SunBin(孙膑; died 316 BC), grandson of SunTzu(孙子) who is famous for his "Art of War", was a military advisor who lived during the Warring States Period of China history.

During that time, there was a military general of Qi State(齐国) - TianJi (田忌).  TianJi often invited to have horse racing competitions by his king - King Wei (齐威王).  Everytime, they both put heavy bet on the competition.  The competition consisted of 3 races.  So, they used their first class horses for the first race, second class horses for the second race, and third class horses for the third race.   Because King Wei had faster horses in all the three categories than TianJi had,   TianJi had always lost.

Once, SunBin was a guest of the Tianji and invited to attend the race.  Again, Tianji lost all the three races again and felt very upset.  SunBin spoke to Tianji:"I noticed that the horses that King Wei has in each category is not much faster than yours.  Next time, you can smiply put heavier bet, and I have a strategy for you to win the competition."

Wait until the next race, SunBin asked TianJi to use his 3rd class horse to race with KingWei 1st class horse in the first round.  TianJi's horse lost by far distance in the first round.  In the second round, SunBin used TianJi 1st class horse to win KingWei 2nd class horse.  And, in the final round, SunBin used TianJi 2nd class horse to win KingWei 3rd class horse.  KingWei was shocked to see the result and TianJi won BIG TIME during that race.

Case 2: Happening Now:

Pictures from Smart Money Magazine.

It was an old conspiracy that USA would keep most of their crude oil reserve untounched while promote gas-guzzler vehicles to use up other countries crude oil first....  Then, when it come to a time that other countries oil reserve is about to finish, they would anounce they just discover that they have many new oil fields at home...

Now, lets look that this month issue, August 2012, Smart Money magazine feature story: The Return of Fossil Fuels.  The headline says:

 "Enormous new oil and gas discoveries under American soil are having a game-changing impact on the entire economy - affecting everything from what we're putting in our portfolios to what we're parking in our driveways.  How to play the new energy boom."

So, is this news just a coincident?  Or, just another strategical game practised from The Art of War?

May be the above queations are not important.  What important is the implication?

So, US has surplus in their food supply, water supply, energy supply and strongest military advantage...  Why should they care about debt?   Therefore, print money and be happy.

.


.

<HOME>

.

Questions From The Future.

The most valuable Natural Resource that we wasted is the DIVINE LOVE within us.  And then, in exchange, we replaced it with EGO, and keep expanding it...  That's the cause for all the world's problems we have today.

IMAGINE that if you were to invite by aliens to have a tour in to the galaxy and return to earth a 100 years later... Or, reincarnated onto earth plane few generations later.... 

What will the earth look like when you return?

Or If you have a choice,

What would you like to see?

The following diagram illustrates how material wealth is produced.  We can either grow it on earth or mine it from earth and process it. 

Gold Mining:

Satellite Photos on Amazon Deforestation:->

Photo on year 2000:

Photo on year 2009:

Dilemma for modern Economy:
Apparently, the modern society MAINLY measure wealth by counting how much toys can a person accumulate.  The more and faster it progress, the harder the earth will be squeezed.   And, Easter Island is just an example.

.
Here is a relevant video by Professor Albert Bartlett :
"The Greatest Challenge" humanity is facing



---------------------------------------------------8<---------------------------------------------------------

“To reverse the effects of civilization would destroy the dreams of a lot of people. There's no way around it. We can talk all we want about sustainability, but there's a sense in which it doesn't matter that these people's dreams are based on, embedded in, intertwined with, and formed by an inherently destructive economic and social system. Their dreams are still their dreams. What right do I -- or does anyone else -- have to destroy them.

At the same time, what right do they have to destroy the world?”

“We cannot hope to create a sustainable culture with any but sustainable souls.” 

― Derrick Jensen, Endgame, Vol. 1: The Problem of Civilization

---------------------------------------------------8<---------------------------------------------------------

Relevant picture added on 7 Dec 2012 found in facebook -"Knowledge of Today"

“Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realize we cannot eat money.” ~Cree Indian Proverb


--------------------------------------- Added on 7 Jan 2014 ---------------------------------------------

This is an Excellent documentary filmed based on the Pulitzer-Prize winning author - Jared Diamond.
The documentary explores how climate change, the population explosion and political discord create the conditions for the collapse of civilization... and how to go about solving the problem Now.

<HOME>

Project Freedom (7): The Galaxy Chart

Deleted on 2016-4-11.

Project Freedom (6): Back to Basics

Deleted on 2016-04-11.

Project Freedom (5): Using Multiple Time Frame for Trend Trending.

Deleted on 2016-04-11

Project Freedom (4): Understanding of the States of Market Trend and Rotational Trading Concept

Attached are a few charts aim to demonstrate the importance of understanding the State of Market Trend and the Rotational Trading Concept which could help one to handle his personal finance.

POINT I: Understanding of the States of Market Trend.

Fig 1.  ^STI Daily Chart (2 years)  (Click on the chart to Zoom in)

The above chart show a daily chart for ^STI from Apr 2010 to Apr 2012.  This particular period is selected to show that money put in the market (so call buy and hold investment) can ended up with zero percent return over years.

In the price chart, there are algorithms built-in to draw the trendlines (also act as dynamic support and resistance lines).  When the bar change color, it signal a possibility of change in trend. 

In the lowest pane, it is an indicator desgined specifically to measure the Vibrational Energy of the stock:

If the Energy is High and moving upwards, it signals a state of UPTREND MARKET.

If the Energy is High and moving downwards, it signals a state of DOWNTREND MARKET.

If the Energy is Low, it signal a state of SIDE WAY MARKET.

It also display the number of bars in the respective state of trend and its percentage over the period.  For example:

Over the two years period, when breakdown into percentage...
The UPTREND is      : 31.39%;
The DOWNTEND is : 18.05%;
The SIDE WAY is     : 50.56%.

Fig.2 ^STI Daily Chart (1997 Jan - 2012 Apr)

So, one may think that two years of data could be too short to make the point.  How about longer period of data? 

So, with the longer term of data, it show that the result is similar with the previous finding. And, lead to some basic understanding of the market trends structure...

Conclusions from Point I:
1) The Speed of UPTREND is SLOWER and DOWNTREND is FASTER.
2) BUY AND HOLD strategy is NOT WORKING in todays market.
3) One must be able to ride on the Trend in order to make profits from the market.

POINT II: Understanding of the Sector Rotational Trading Concept.

As the previous point illustrate that money put in one market/Stock/Fund are really productive about 30% of the time in UPTREND, 20% in DOWNTREND, and wasting time 50% of the time.
So, if one were to only LONG the market, does that mean 70% of the time he must wait???
Not true if he understand the concept of Sector Rational Trading.


Fig 3. State of Trends in S&P500(SPY)
and its 9 sectors(XLB,XLE,XLF,XLI,XLK,XLP,XLV,XLU,XLY) (Apr 2010 to Apr 2012)

See... 
The money in the market are of fix amount.  When the stock market is moving up strongly, people would pull money out of bond market and put into stocks and cause bond market to fall, and vice versa.  Similarly, the professionals would not put their funds in equal distribution into all sectors, they would pull the money out from the weak sectors to put them into the strong sectors.  And the sectors Relative Strength would keep changing over time.  In the picture, you can see the TREND is Out Of Phase from one another.

With the same token, one can then zoom into the individual stocks, in the strongest sector, to ride on the trend with the few strongest stocks

By the way, you may be interested to zoom into the chart and see the respective percentage of trends in various sectors.


Conclusions from Piont II:
1)  It illustrates a VERY IMPORTANT POINT that is IN CONTRADICTION with one of the popluar myth in the investment industry -->  That is DIVERSIFICATION the money into many sectors in equal portions as to reduce RISK.  As sectors trend pretty much follows the market (after all they are the components that create the market).

2)  In order to maximize the profit from the market and reduce risk.  One must always rotate money into the strongest few sectors when there is a trend.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I found a picture on the web and it is Very True. 

There are certain risks in life one can simply choose to avoid it, such as if one don't know how to swim and he choose not to go near the sea... He may miss some fun for that but find more fun somewhere else.

On the other hand, there are some risks one cannot avoid, such as financial crisis... Then, the only logical answer in dealing with it is to master it.  And,

if it is necessary...  Then, it doesn't matter how much time it may take.
Whether it may require 3 years, 6 years, 10 years or more,

something learnt is something gained. 

Time is ticking anyway regardless whatever nice phrases one may come out with. Such as:
"Only IF I have the time..."

With the current state of economy, which is full of potential for turbulences such as:
* Debts in certain countries in EuroZone building up,
* Energy Crisis due to Peak Oil,
* Over Population on earth,
* Aging of the Babyboomer in USA (in fact it is a worldwide problem, and more serious would be in China for its one child policy), and
* Increase in trend on Unethical issues exposed from corporation executives (worldwide)... etc.
I cautious myself not to be negative, but logically, it can only predict more financial crisis in local and global scale to continue happen in the near future...

So.  It is my simple idea that when more people willing to learn about it, then it would make market manipulation task more difficult for the minority and BALANCE IT.  Let's make it so! :-)

Bless You

KH Tang


A more throughout explaination on Sector Roation -> Back to Basics & The Galaxy Chart.

Personal Finance (9): Would Japan give us the next Surprise?!

Well,  just to forward a successful currency trader friend’s opinion(social service) from Australia, as I believe there are values inside for sharing ...
-------------------------------------------------------8<----------------------------------------------------
From: brijon

Sent: Sunday, March 11, 2012 3:29 AM
To: xxx

Subject: japan

brijon 5: GDAY

brijon 5: japans economy is the next finacial buble ready to go into meltdown

brijon 5: this is the next major shock comming to the worlds economic meltdown

brijon 5: a far bigger crises that is being hidden under the table

brijon 5: imports far exceed japans exports  now

brijon 5: energy imports oil is massive

brijon 5: there gdp is now one of the worst in the world

brijon 5: on 26th march all neucler plants are beuing shut down

brijon 5: so we are being like always are being kept in the dark about the real problems unfolding on the world economy

brijon 5:   

brijon 5: the carry trade is already in reverse as japans money flow  is now reversed for the carry trade

brijon 5: so the real disaster  for finacial markets is starting to unfold

brijon 5: as japan goes into finacial meltdown so all the world wil feel this massive effect on there economys

brijon 5: my opinion only

-------------------------------------------------------8<----------------------------------------------------

It might be a good starting point to do your own research/verification on the points mentioned in the mail, and access the current situation yourself.   Or, wait for the public media to give the “Surprise” after the insiders fully positioned themselves. Such as the previous man-made financial crisis.

Such as google for the news:

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20120310p2g00m0dm021000c.html 

Of course, most of the people might think that this in not relevant or unimportant to their personal financial matter... 
Think again!
The world has been coming up with many man-made economy SURPRISES, one after another, in the last decade.  And some surprises wiped up saving and investment in "reliable" banks!

Euro Zone Trouble, US Debt (See US Real Time Debt Clock <-) & Japan energy problems are ready to have chain-reaction to bring down world economy (just another big Ponzi Scheme anyway) when something is ignited.

Attached is the DEBT vs GDP ratio and Many in the top list already running into trouble.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2186rank.html

Another Source:

http://wallstcheatsheet.com/stocks/the-10-most-indebted-governments-in-the-world.html/

This is NOT crying wolf, as the wolf is already outside the door. Just a matter of timing.

Yes.  It is not that easy to find a Inspirational/Positive Quote to end this blog entry...

Anyway, though it is NOT a solution for all, and NOT even a solution for the majority...

Learn to Re-Balance Personal Asset timely in critical time could help to

minimize perosnal financial impact if not profits from it.

Project Freedom (3): Why and How Successful Traders CAN Keep Making Profits from the Market

Let's start by reviewing an old fable: “The Mathematician and the King”

Once upon a time there was a mathematician invented a chess game for a king.  The king was so happy about it and told the mathematician to name his reward.

“I don’t ask for much,” said the clever mathematician. “A single grain of wheat on the first square on the chess board, two grains of wheat on the second square, and double the number of wheat in every subsequent square….”

“So it shall be done,” said the king, who was not having any idea about the concept of exponential growth.

After the King got his men to work out the numbers, he was shocked that before reaching half of the complete chess board, the number had become bigger than total annual wheat production in his whole Kingdom.

The moral of the story is: TWO CONDITIONS are required to grow Rich. It takes both the “TIME” and “EDGE” to increase the number through exponential growth.

Now, let's see how these concept apply to trading:

* TIME: Every move to the subsequent square represents the “Time” required in the game. Adding all the individual step, short term, together become a long term. 


* EDGE: In the story, it has an “Edge” in doubling every next step. Similar to say that as long as there is a CONSISTENT edge, it would grow over time. The stronger the edge (Percentage growth over a fixed period of time) the faster the number grow, and Back Testing the system would help to identify which "Edge" is better.


Just like the house of any Casinos, as long as there are enough customers keep playing the game, they can keep making money because there are “Edges” built into all games by designed, though these edges may be very small in percentage in terms of winning probability bias towards the house.

(-> Here is a good article illustrating the Edage of a casino.  <-)

So...

When one can workout a consistent "EDGE" and keep himself continuously participate in the market... It is like, he is operating an online Casino by himself.

Of course, the "edge" must be much stronger than many other devaluation factors to be meaningful edge, such as "Inflation","currency devaluation","Tax", etc.This link has a picture to show how serious inflation could be over time:

http://blessedfool.blogspot.sg/2012/01/personal-finance-8-where-have-all-money.html

The moment when a trader is able to change from the state

of "understand the principle of probability" to the

state of "thinking in probability mind set",

he changes his world.
- Mark Douglas - "Trading in the Zone"

Personal Finance (8): Where Have All the Moneys Gone?!

(Click on the chart to Zoom-in)

In the above diagram:
1) The upper pane is the price chart shows a long term monthly chart of S&P500 ETF (SPY) for the past 19 years. 

2) The middle pane  shows that DEVALUATION of currency due to INFLATION. The Back/Blue/Green/Red color are representing 0,-3,-5 and -10 percent per year respectively.

3)  The lower pane shows the inflation adjusted value of the S&P500 Index.  Now, when factor in devaluation rate of  0,-3,-5 and -10 percent per year due to inflation, the number is more realistic in reflecting the "actual value" after all these years of investment.

Consider the annual inflation rate as of today, and think about how this FACT would affect your retirement plan (if you already have one).
For those people who simply look at their bank account balance without factor in the devaluation due to inflation could be having a shock at a later date.


So, after many decades of world peace since the end of WWII... 
After chopping down so many forests...
After using up about half of the total crude oil on earth...
After polluting so much rivers/air/environment under the name of development...
At the end: Where have all the moneys gone??!!

May be this song will give you some inspiration to find out.

Where have all the Moneys gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the Moneys gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the Money gone?
Gone to ????? every cent
When will we ever learn?
When will we ever learn?

->Home<-