Feliciano Bantilan

Investing for Take-off: Growth to Sky-is-the-limit Feliciano Bantilan

Publisher Marketing: The book presents a new way of seeing - and thus, of doing - investing in the stock market. The new way sees investing as dependent on the dynamics of the two forces driving the stock market - the random force and the causal force. The random force is a buy or a sell of shares of stocks, sending the price up or down. The causal force is a net-buy over a period, sending the price up. The sign of the contribution to return distinguishes the random force from the causal force - the former contributes both positive and negative change, while the latter, only positive change. This sign difference determines the trajectories of the two forces diverging over time. Over the long term, the sum of return changes arising from the random force is zero, due to cancellation; the corresponding sum from the causal force, in the absence of cancellation, grows with time without limit. Therefore, there must be a point in time, when the sum of the return contributions of the causal force starts to pull away from the corresponding sum of the random force. This time-point is the start of our portfolio take-off to unlimited growth. The time-point divides the lifetime of our portfolio into two stages - before the take-off stage and the take-off to unlimited growth stage. That is the new way of seeing stock investing. The new way does investing in the way epitomized by the Asian martial arts - "Do not meet force with force, but channel the force flow from your foe to throw your foe off-balance." We call it the go-with-the-flow psychology. The force-flows from the two forces tell us that natural timescales govern the random and the causal processes driving the stock market, as expressed by its return. We cannot command the two forces to alter their dynamics to suit our wishes. The random force continues to affect our return significantly, until it self-destructs into insignificance. The causal force, on the other, slowly builds up its contribution to our return, until about 15 years when the accumulation of its contributions starts to dominate that of the random force. We deal with the two forces driving the stock market by going with the flow, or by channelling the flow to our advantage. We cannot fight the random force. If we do, we are on the losing side, as many investors are in, unknowingly. We cannot prevent the random force from affecting our return. Return fluctuation is a natural outcome of random processes. We should expect fluctuations. A tell-tale sign of fraud is a claim by any money manager of return without fluctuation, say, 10-12% annual return, year in and year out. The notorious Bernie Madoff made such a claim to his clients. Madoff was able to dupe many, even those who ought to know better, because they were ready - prepared by eons of history - to hear the claim of a regular, smooth, and fluctuation-free return. Such claims conform to our wishes of what returns should be. Eons of history prepared all of us to accept such claims. This is the reason for our difficulty in dealing with the "red" numbers in our portfolio. Going with the flow psychology tells us to dance around the random force by doing nothing in response to return fluctuations, to wait until it self-destructs to insignificance in about 15 years. The causal force is a positive force. It grows our money. The go with the flow psychology tells us to ride the causal force by choosing the stocks to populate our portfolio. Optimal choice of stocks means optimal ride on the causal force - means optimal return. Patience, we cannot have enough. For, investing is a long-time process, not a quick fix. That is the new way of doing investing in the stock market. In resume, investing is dealing with the two forces driving the stock market - sidestepping the random force, while riding the causal force. At the same time, it is equally dealing with the weaknesses of our human nature. Portfolio Take-Off to Sky-is-the-Limit is the "Grail" of investing! Contributor Bio:  Bantilan, Feliciano Feliciano Bantilan earned his AB Philosophy from St Francis Xavier Major Seminary, Davao City, Philippines. After his MS Physics from The University of the Philippines at Diliman, Quezon City, he went to the USA on fellowship to pursue a PhD in Physics. He obtained his PhD in Physics from Duke University in 1983. He returned to his country and taught Physics at the University of the Philippines at Los Banos. Then, a bombshell dropped on his life: Parkinson's disease in 2002. The lowest point in his struggle with Parkinson's occurred in 2006, when his mobility was so impaired, he no longer could raise himself up on bed to sleep. He slept on a mattress spread on the floor. He would have episodes of near panic, due to difficulty breathing. Then, by a stroke of luck, still with severe movement difficulty--only a finger in his left hand could press keys of his laptop--he chanced upon the website of Dr Amy Yasko. A year and three months into her protocol, he began to get back some of his mobility, as well as some of his "brain." In addition, something more: all of a sudden, he began to think in verse. He enjoyed reading and reciting poetry since he was young. However, he never composed a poem in his life, until his partial recovery. At age sixty-five, he began writing poetry. The first two poems he composed made up his first book published on September 20, 2013, Einstein in Verse: Introduction to Special and General Relativity. The rest formed the content of his second book published on April 8, 2014, Life in Poetry: The Evolutionary 'Garden of Eden'. He published his third book written this time in prose, IQ plus EQ: The Arrow and the Hoisting Crane, on June 10, 2014. His fourth book, Portfolio Take-off: Stock Market Theory, he published on 1 October 2014. He published his fifth book, Investing for Take-off: Growth to Sky-is-the-Limit on 20 December 2014. This is his sixth book - DNA is not Destiny: A Continuing Story of Hope of a Parkinson's Patient.