Invest or Pull Out at Key Investment Nodes? Decision Wisdom from Qian Hexagram Nine in the Fourth Place "或跃在渊 (Leaping Up from the Deep)"

How do you judge the right time to invest? Last year, when the stock market hit a low point, Lao Zhou came to me for drinks over this exact problem, totally stressed out.

Lao Zhou is a friend I’ve known for over ten years. He runs a brick-and-mortar business, has some spare cash, and dabbles in stock trading on the side. That day he looked utterly glum, saying he just couldn’t make up his mind.

“Look at this market,” he said. “It’s been falling for almost a year—has it hit bottom yet? I want to buy the dip, but I’m scared I’ll catch a falling knife halfway down. If I don’t buy, I’ll regret it if it really takes off.”

I asked, “How much were you planning to invest?”

“Originally I wanted to put in a million,” he said. “But now I’m not sure. I thought about testing the waters with 200k first, but that feels too little—if it goes up, I won’t make much. If I put it all in, I’m scared it’ll keep dropping and I’ll get stuck holding the bag.”

I said, “That’s not making an investment decision—that’s gambling.”

“Hey, come on,” he said. “I’m being cautious.”

I laughed and said, “Let me tell you about a hexagram line. After I explain it, you’ll know if your current mindset makes sense.”

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What Does "或跃在渊 (Leaping Up from the Deep)" Mean?

This is the Nine in the Fourth Place line of the Qian (The Creative) hexagram, with the line text: 或跃在渊，无咎 (Leaping Up from the Deep, No blame).

The dragon is positioned above the deep waters but below the clouds and sky. One leap upward, and it becomes the Flying Dragon in the Heavens; one step back, and it can return to the depths. It is suited for both advance and retreat, hence "No blame"—there will be no major problems.

The most brilliant part of this line is the character "或 (huo / perhaps)".

What does "或" mean? It means maybe, possibly, not certain. It’s not that you must leap, nor that you must never leap. It depends on the situation—leap if conditions are good, retreat if they are not.

That is true wisdom in decision-making.

Many people approach investments and decisions in black-and-white terms. Either go all in, or pull out entirely. Either I’m all in, or I’m out of the game.

But the Nine in the Fourth Place tells you—that’s not how it works. You can embrace "perhaps". You can test the waters first, stay positioned to advance or retreat as needed, and feel things out as you go.

The Xiang Commentary says: 或跃在渊，进无咎也 (Leaping Up from the Deep: advancing brings no blame).

What does that mean? If you advance when you should, there will be no problems. The unspoken message? If you advance recklessly when you shouldn’t, there will be problems.

So "No blame" doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want and be faultless. It means if you advance and retreat with clear reasoning and a clear head, you won’t make major mistakes.

If you act blindly based on gut feeling, even the Nine in the Fourth Place can’t save you.

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Three Things to Check Before Deciding to "Leap"

So when you reach the position of Qian’s Nine in the Fourth Place, should you leap or retreat? How do you decide?

I think there are three things you need to figure out first. Once you have clarity on these, you’ll naturally know what to do.

First: Can you actually make the leap?

This is the most basic question. First, you have to assess objectively—with your current strength, resources, and luck, how confident are you that you can pull off this upward leap?

Don’t only think about the best-case scenario. Don’t buy into the idea that "as long as I work hard, I’ll succeed". That’s motivational fluff, not reality.

The reality is, hard work often doesn’t pay off. If the timing is wrong, the broader environment is bad, or you lack the necessary ability, you won’t make the leap no matter how hard you try.

So how do you assess it? I’ll teach you a simple method—list out the factors for success, mark which ones you already have and which you don’t. If you have most of the key factors, you can give it a try. If you’re missing most of them, you’d better wait a little longer.

For Lao Zhou who wanted to buy the dip, he had to ask himself: Is this really the bottom? Do economic fundamentals support a rally? What’s the policy outlook? And does he have the patience to hold for three to five years?

Once you think through these questions, the answer of whether to invest will come naturally. If you can’t think them through clearly, don’t make any rash moves.

Second: Can you retreat safely?

This is the point many people overlook. Before you leap, you have to think ahead—what if you can’t make the leap and fall? Can you land safely?

Why does Qian’s Nine in the Fourth Place have "No blame"? Because it hasn’t risen as high as the Nine in the Fifth Place—even if it falls, it won’t be fatal. There’s still the deep water below it—if worst comes to worst, it can retreat and survive.

But if you use leverage, borrow money, or even mortgage your house to make the leap, you’re no longer in the Nine in the Fourth Place position. If you make the leap, great—but if you don’t, you’ll crash straight into the Nine at the Top: 亢龙有悔 (Arrogant Dragon Brings Remorse).

That’s why there’s an old saying in investing: think about losing first, then think about winning.

First, ask yourself: what’s the worst-case scenario? Can you handle it? If you can accept even the worst outcome, go for it. If you can’t, take it easy.

Lao Zhou wanted to invest a million. I asked him, “If you lost all of this million, would it ruin your life?” He said, “Not exactly, but it would hurt.” I said, “It’s good that it hurts. That means you’re not at a point where you can casually lose a million. So don’t invest that much—invest an amount you wouldn’t feel bad about losing.”

That’s not cowardice—that’s rationality.

Third: Do you have the space for "perhaps"?

The core of "或跃在渊 (Leaping Up from the Deep)" is "或 (perhaps)". That means you can choose to leap, or choose not to leap. You have options.

That’s not the case for a lot of people. They think: I have to leap, I have no choice. If I don’t leap, I won’t survive.

When you reach that point, it’s no longer "或跃在渊"—it’s a last-ditch gamble. Nine out of ten people who bet everything on one throw lose.

Why? Because when you have no room to choose, you panic. When you panic, your decisions get distorted. When your decisions get distorted, even things that could have worked out will fail.

That’s why truly capable people always leave themselves room to maneuver, no matter what they do. With room to spare, you can stay calm. When you’re calm, you can make the right judgments.

This is true for investing, for starting a business, and for life in general.

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How to Advance and Retreat With Clear Reasoning

After all this talk, what should you actually do when it comes to execution?

I’ll give you three principles, all derived from the four characters "或跃在渊".

First principle: Enter in batches, exit in batches.

Since it’s a "perhaps", that means there’s uncertainty. With uncertain things, don’t bet everything all at once.

Want to buy the dip? Don’t go all in in one go. Split your capital into three or five batches and buy gradually. Buy more when it drops, and you won’t lose out when it rises. That way, your mindset stays steady.

Want to take profits? Don’t sell everything all at once either. Sell part of your position, keep part. What you sell locks in gains, what you keep lets you ride further upside.

A lot of people chase perfection—buying at the absolute bottom, selling at the absolute top. But in reality, no one can do that. Chasing perfection usually results in missing out.

"或跃在渊" doesn’t chase perfection. What it chases is this: you can survive whether you advance or retreat. No matter what happens, you won’t be wiped out.

That’s enough.

Second principle: Have a logic for advancing, and a bottom line for retreating.

What does it mean to advance and retreat with clear reasoning? It means when you advance, you know why you’re advancing. When you retreat, you know why you’re retreating. It’s not based on gut feeling or tips you heard—you have your own logic.

For example, if you buy a stock: what’s your logic for buying it? Is it undervalued? Is the industry booming? Is the company competitive? You have to be able to spell it out clearly.

And under what circumstances do you sell? Sell when your logic changes. If the valuation reaches a level you think is reasonable, sell. If industry momentum slows down, sell. If the company’s fundamentals take a turn for the worse, sell.

Don’t hold on and refuse to sell just because it’s going up, and don’t stubbornly hold on just because it’s going down. That’s not investing—that’s fighting with yourself.

Times change, and methods get simpler over time. But one thing has never changed: only people with principles can survive in the market.

Third principle: Don’t just stand still.

At the position of Qian’s Nine in the Fourth Place, you can leap, you can retreat—but you can’t just stand still.

What does standing still mean? It means you’ve clearly reached a critical juncture, but you’re still hesitating. You don’t dare add to your position, and you can’t bear to reduce it. You just drag your feet until the opportunity is gone, until you’re stuck holding losses, and only then do you regret it.

Hesitation is the biggest enemy of decision-making.

The "perhaps" in "或跃在渊" doesn’t mean you should hesitate. It means you should observe, judge, and then act. Once you’ve observed clearly and made your judgment, leap if you should leap, retreat if you should retreat.

The worst thing is when you neither leap nor retreat—you just hang there in limbo. You hang around, and a gust of wind comes along and blows you upward, so you think you’re really something. Then the wind stops, and you fall with a thud and crash.

That wasn’t your skill—that was your luck. And luck is something you can’t rely on.

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A Few Final Words

After hearing what I had to say that day, Lao Zhou thought for a moment and said, “I get it now.”

What did he do next? He didn’t invest a million, and he didn’t invest 200k. He invested 400k, buying in three batches, buying more as the price dropped. After he finished buying, he just left it there and stopped checking the market every day.

We had drinks again a while back. I asked him, “How’s your stock doing?”

He smiled and said, “Made a little. Not a lot, but I’m pretty happy with it.” He added, “If I’d gone all in back then, I definitely wouldn’t have survived that dip in the middle—I would’ve cut my losses long ago. Buying in batches changed my whole mindset. I didn’t panic when it dropped, since I still had money left to add to my position.”

I said, “That’s exactly what 或跃在渊 means.”

He said, “Forget the deep water or whatever. I just have one principle now: make the money I’m capable of making, lose only the money I can afford to lose. The rest? Whatever happens, happens.”

I said, “That’s some real insight you’ve got there. You’re almost as good as Wen Laoshi.”

He burst out laughing.

Actually, investing is as hard as you make it, and as simple as you make it.

The hard part is that you always want to make quick money, big money, money no one else can make.

The simple part is that you only need to figure out three things: How much ability do I have? How much risk can I handle? How much profit is enough for me?

Once you figure those out, you’ll find that most decisions aren’t actually that hard to make.

或跃在渊，无咎 (Leaping Up from the Deep, No blame).

It doesn’t mean every choice you make will be right. It means when you make your choice, you have a clear head. When you have a clear head, you won’t have regrets. No regrets—that’s what "No blame" means.

In this life, you don’t have to be right every time. You just have to have no regrets.

That’s enough, right?