Mitigating Risk - Stay On the Path: Don't Wander Off Alone

After copious minutes of grueling, detailed research, I have concluded that mitigating risk is a very tricky thing; all the while, discovering some factors that do in fact help to some degree. BUT…You cannot eliminate all risk, particularly in a concentrated portfolio. Having said, here is what my grueling and detailed minutes of the research into Risk Mitigation show:

  1. Don’t Invest More Than You Can Afford to Lose

This seems so obvious that it goes without saying. Then…why say it here? Well because a fairly large percentage of investors do invest more than they can afford to lose and in a high percentage of the time it’s done through Margin.

  1. Stay On The Path

If you don’t have an investing plan - then take the time to think one up: thereafter, stay on the plan path. Again - this is simple stuff but straying off the path often leads to disaster.

  1. Don’t Wander Off Alone

We all do it. We search for investments and sometimes find ones that are off the general highways and byways of the land. One could argue that one of the things that made the Fool so successful was that it created a place to travel in groups. Traveling in groups is safer.

4). Make Noise Along the Way

It’s a verifiable, proven fact that making noise is a proven mitigator of risk. Participating frequently along the way helps: don’t be afraid to state your opinions - or - politely and in good faith as a fair broker question the opinions of others.

  1. Stay Alert

What this means is that it’s a must to review Quarterly reports, News and Press Releases from your investments. Keep your eyes open and note the terrain and vegetation around you. Simple as that.

  1. Don’t Rundoff - First You Better Think

Think before you act. Just because folks are screaming that the sky is falling doesn’t necessarily mean it’s so. Look at it this way:

You can read one such study your very own self here:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/375692692_Bear-caused_human_fatalities_in_Yellowstone_National_Park_characteristics_and_trends

It’s all there for those who have ears…well…eyes to read I suppose.

Despite all the potential for Bear/Human conflict in Yellowstone there have only been 8 recorded Fatalities from Bear attacks in Yellowstone National Park.

Common Characteristics of Fatal Bear Attacks:

  1. Geographic location.

All 8 fatalities occurred in just
3 geographic areas of the park. Four of the fa-
talities occurred within or near Hayden Valley,
2 within or near Pelican Valley, and 2 within or
near the Old Faithful development complex.

  1. Time of Year

All 8 fatalities occurred from
June to October, with 3 occurring in August.
August is a period when bears are hyperphagic
and increase diurnal activity as they intensify
their search for food to gain weight for hiberna-
tion

  1. Time of Day

Most attacks that occur at night
are likely motivated by bears seeking access to
human foods or are predatory (Herrero 1989,
2002). Half of the fatal bear attacks in YNP
occurred in late evening/early morning time
periods (2200–0500 hours), and half occurred
during the day.

  1. Gender of People Killed by Bears

Six of the 8
people killed by bears in YNP were adult men
and 2 were adult women. The data from YNP
are consistent with those of Smith and Herrero
(2018), who reported that in Alaska, USA, bears
attacked adult men considerably more often
than women, and children comprised only a
small proportion of attacks.

  1. Group Size of People Killed by Bears

Of the 8
people killed by bears in both front country
and backcountry areas combined, 5 were alone
when attacked, 2 were in parties of 2 people,
and 1 incident involved a party of 3. The av-
erage group size for all bear-caused fatalities
combined was 1.5 (±0.8 SD) people per party.
The average group size for the 6 fatalities that
occurred in backcountry areas was 1.3 (±0.5 SD)

No groups larger than 3 people had a member
killed by a bear in the park.

  1. Fatal Attacks in On-Trail vs Off-Trail areas

The danger of surprise encounters with grizzly
bears decreases if bears know where to expect
people (Herrero 2002). Because most hikers
in YNP stay on designated trails (Coleman et
al. 2013), bears are less likely to anticipate en-
counters with people who are traveling off-trail
and, therefore, more likely to react with defen-
sive aggression to off-trail encounters

In a survey of backcoun-
try recreationists in YNP, off-trail travelers
observed grizzlies 3–4 times more frequently
than on-trail travelers

  1. Use of Bear Spray

Bear spray has proven effective
at stopping aggressive behavior by bears during
surprise encounters and in reducing the length
and severity of attacks when they occur

  1. Circumstances of Attacks

Of the 8 fatal bear
attacks, 3 involved surprise encounters, 1 in-
volved a bear seeking human foods, and 1 ap-
peared predatory (Table 2). In 3 incidents there
were no witnesses, and available evidence did not
allow the exact cause of attack to be determined.
Seeking human foods was ruled out in those 3 in-
cidents. In 2 of the fatal surprise encounters, the
bears involved were known to be conditioned
to human foods, which likely contributed to the
proximity and possibly the outcome of those
encounters. In 1 of the 3 incidents where the pri-
mary cause of the attack could not be determined,
the bear may have been provoked by the victim, a
photographer who may have approached within
the bear’s defensible personal space for a photo-
graph and/or mimicked elk (Cervus canadensis)
vocalizations to get the bear’s attention. Imitating
the sounds of prey may attract bears and cause
attack.

  1. Role of Food-Conditioned Behavior

Bears conditioned to human foods or
garbage are often involved in fatal attacks in
424 Human–Wildlife Interactions 16(3)
national parks (Herrero 1970a, 1970b, 1976,
1989; Gniadek and Kendall 1998; Herrero and
Higgins 2003). In 3 of 8 fatalities, the bears had
known histories of feeding on human food or
garbage. However, attempting to obtain human
foods was considered the primary motivation
in only 1 of those 3 attacks and a secondary fac-
tor in 2 incidents. In 5 fatalities, the bears in-
volved were not known to be conditioned to
human foods (NPS 1984, 1986; Frey et al. 2011,
2012; Wilmot et al. 2016). The first 3 fatal bear
attacks in YNP (the 1916, 1942, and 1972 inci-
dents) all involved bears that were conditioned
to anthropogenic foods, which likely contribut-
ed to the circumstances and outcomes of those
fatal encounters.

  • Frequency and Risk of Fatal Bear Attacks

During the 147-year period from 1872 to
2018, there were 183,464,899 recreational vis-
its to YNP, and 7 people were killed by grizzly
bears (~1 fatality every 21 years). Therefore, the
per capita risk of being killed by a grizzly bear
was 1 fatality for every 26,209,271 visits

Note: There is an additional victim whereby authorities could not determine conclusively that the cause of death - despite high probability; was due to a bear attack.

There were no known black bear-caused hu-
man fatalities in YNP from 1872 to 2018.

In com-
bination, all these studies indicate that regard-
less of frequent opportunity, and despite their
ferocious reputations, bears, grizzly or black,
rarely kill people.

The risk of fatal grizzly bear attack was not
equal between different types of recreational
activities (hiking or camping) and broadscale
geographic regions (front country or back-
country) of the park. For visitors frequenting
front country areas (developments and road
corridors) from 1872 to 2018, there was 1 bear-
caused fatality for every 91,732,450 visits. No
visitors were killed by bears in >37,664,417
overnight stays in designated roadside camp-
grounds from 1930 to 2018. From 1972 to 2018,
permitted visitors recorded 1,975,917 overnight
stays in backcountry campsites and dispersed
camping zones, and 1 permitted visitor was
killed while in their campsite. The risk of fatal
grizzly bear attack for recreationists camping
in designated backcountry campsites or dis-
persed camping zones was 1 fatality for every
1,975,917 overnight stays. One person camping
illegally without a permit was also killed by a
grizzly. From 1992 to 2018, park visitors spent
an estimated 6,394,944 recreation days hiking
in backcountry bear habitat in the park, and 3
backcountry recreationists were killed by griz-
zlies while hiking during that time period. The
risk of fatal grizzly bear attack for backcountry
recreationists traveling on foot was 1 fatality for
every 2,131,648 backcountry recreation days.
Another method to measure the risk of fatal
bear attack is the number of bear encounters
that occur per fatality. From 1991 to 2018, 1,851
encounters between backcountry recreationists
and grizzly bears were recorded, and 3 people
were killed by grizzlies during that period for
a calculated fatality rate of 1 fatality per 617
reported grizzly bear encounters. I believe that
estimate is biased high because incidents re-
sulting in fatalities are much more likely to be
reported or discovered than non-injurious or
benign encounters.
Comparing the number of people killed by
grizzly bears in YNP to the number of people
dying in the park from other causes provides
perspective on the risk of fatal bear attack.
During the 147-year period from 1872 to 2018,
7 people were killed by grizzly bears inside
YNP. During the same time period, 121 people
in YNP died by drowning, 39 by falling off of
cliffs, 26 by suicide, 22 in airplane crashes, 21
from thermal burns (after falling into boiling
thermal pools), and 19 in horse-related acci-
dents

  • Trends In Fatal Bear Attacks

Although fatal bear attacks in YNP are rare,
there has been an increase in the frequency in
recent years, with 3 (all by grizzly bears) oc-
curring in the 8-year period from 2011 to 2018,
whereas there had been only 5 fatal bear attacks
(4 grizzlies, 1 unknown species) in YNP during
the previous 139 years (1872 to 2010).

  • Management Responses to Fatal Bear Attacks

When bears in YNP injure or kill someone
without consuming the body, after reacting with
typical defensive aggression during surprise en-
counters, park managers generally do not take
any action against the bear. However, in inci-
dents where bears both kill and consume people,
even in defensive reactions to surprise encoun-
ters, YNP managers generally kill the bears in-
volved (White 2016). Park managers killed the
bears responsible for 5 of the 8 fatalities that oc-
curred in YNP. In 1 additional incident, the bear
would have been killed, but capture attempts
were not successful. The objective of killing
bears involved in the killing and consumption
of people is not for punishment or retribution; it
is to prevent them from killing and consuming
other park visitors in the future.

All the Best,
BDH Investing

9 Likes

They say don’t run from bears but they never said anything about climbing from them. Grizzlies can’t climb trees so if you have a nice pine tree and can climb fast enough you can get away from them. Black bears are another thing. If a black bear comes after you it can go right up a tree. But if you have a hatchet or knife, up a tree isn’t a bad place to be, especially when they can only come for you in one direction, and going up a tree it slows them down. So what does this have to do with investing?

You don’t need to risk it all, sometimes looking for a little safety isn’t a bad idea.

6 Likes

Well I decided to take a closer look at Crwd today and decided my method of playing this would be to sell puts. So I brought out my magnifying glass and put crwd under it. I couldn’t deduce a proper buy point so I had to bring out the fancy tools. I put it under a microscope and studied it very intently for at least 10 minutes. After putting it through all the methods I use, Greed, Money on hand, chances of losing , I deduced that the proper method was to sell a put with a strike of $245 for $3.40 with a date of 7/26. So I get interest of 1.40 percent (always round up because it looks more impressive) for 4 days of risk. The way that I came up with the $245 dollar strike was after putting it under the microscope I found that the lowest it could go was $246 dollars so realizing that my methods are not always correct I gave it a dollar leeway. Any how, while waiting for Crwd to decide what it was going to do I thought I could get a little fishing money.

3 Likes

I love it! Thank you.
(Decided to skip the CRWD’ed outdoors. Leave CRWD bear to someone else)

MoneySlob

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Thats a whole lot of deducing right there. You have both my envy and my admiration.

Note: If its Brown - Lay Down; If its Black - Fight Back; If its White - Goodnight.

All the Best,

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Potentially the best decision of all and certainly one with zero risk.

All the Best,

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Ok It looks like my microscope was out of wack. I took another option on Crwd at a strike of 245 because my microscope said it was still a good trade. But what I forgot to tell everyone is my wife grabbed my microscope out of the closet and accidently dropped it. I recalibrated it by putting it on my trusty weight scale, which always has been on the dot, but unfortunately I found out that weight scales are not the proper way to calibrate a microscope. It looks like I am in Crwd on Friday and will start writing calls.

2 Likes

Selling put for CRWD at this time is a huge risk. We don’t know what the financial liability for the outage will be, may be it will be small, but may be it will be so large for CRWD

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That is true, it is a huge risk and that is why I have a microscope to ferret out the true worth of Crowdstrike. If you do not have a microscope I wouldn’t recommend doing this trade, of course it helps if you do not drop your microscope.

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How much does one of those microscope thingys cost? Looks like I need one. Do they come with instruction manuels?

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Now Champ the really good ones cost a ton of money but I picked mine up off of Temu and got it for a really good price. 2 dollars including shipping and taxes. It comes with a manual but it is written in Chinese so I had to run it through chatgpt to interpret it. Who says AI doesn’t do anything? It only has 2 knobs and one thingy majigger to dial it in. I could have the majigger term wrong because it was in Chinese. But I think I might have to buy another one because this one got Crowd all wrong. It was only supposed to go down to $246.

2 Likes

Chinese? Oh my goodness -why didn’t you say so. Are the instructions in Cantonese or Mandarin? Look…I got my hair a little mussed on this CRWD thing and if your microscope can help…why that would be just dandy and I would be very humbly appreciative. As it turns out, I know an American Chinese lady who runs a Chinese buffet and laundry a few miles from here. (The egg rolls are always fresh and the wonton soup is incredible). While I don’t think she speaks Chinese herself - she has a niece who is visiting from China for the summer. I am pretty sure the niece speaks very, very fluent Chinese because she can’t speak English other than something about house fried rice and soy sauce.

Did you know that they don’t have Fortune Cookies in China? Those were invented in America which I find odd as the durn things don’t look nothing like cookies. Now Oreos - why those are pure American patriotic cookies.

Note: Get back to me on the mandarin vs cantonese thing and we should be able to get your stock microscope system all bucked out quickly.

All the Best,

3 Likes

Another Chinese fun fact, while Cantonese and Mandarin are spoken very differently, in written form it is almost the same…

Most words in Mandarin and Cantonese are written with the same characters . This gives the languages a level of mutual intelligibility, allowing Mandarin speakers to understand written Cantonese and vice-versa. However, that doesn’t mean that both dialects use the exact same words all the time.

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Ok this helps. At least I can get 10 dollars back from Crowdstrike.

1 Like