I think every trader should have a panic button in their mind. What does it mean? When the trend changes, traders should get out of the previous bets right away, even though some of the charts look still favorable to the previous trend. Lock in the profit or take the loss, just get out. The sooner the better.
I conclude this is a “must have” technique in a trading friendly market, like what we are in right now.
“The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent” – The way the market reacts to certain news or events may not seem rational at times, but there is no sense in trying to fight the market – it moves where it moves and does not care one bit about your opinion.
“A fool and his money are soon parted” – If you are not smart about where you put your money, you will most likely lose it.
“The trading rules I live by are: (a) Cut losses, (b) Ride Winners, (c) Keep bets small, (d) Follow the rules without question, and (e) Know when to break the rules.” – Rules are important, but following them blindly does not necessarily lead to success. Know which conditions produced those rules in the first place, so that when the conditions change, the rules can too.
“Amateurs Focus On Rewards. Professionals Focus on Risk.” – Experienced traders think first about how much they can lose on a trade, base their calculations on that, and then see if they are happy with the potential reward the trade offers. Novices usually do the opposite, blinded by the allure of quick riches.
“There are just four kinds of bets. There are good bets, bad bets, bets that you win, and bets that you lose. Winning a bad bet can be the most dangerous outcome of all, because a success of that kind can encourage you to take more bad bets in the future. You can also lose a good bet, but if you keep placing good bets, over time, the law of averages will be working for you.”
–Larry Hite, Trader
Continuing:
“Life is nothing more than a series of bets and bets are really nothing more than questions and their answers. There is no real difference between, ’should I take another hit on this Blackjack hand?’ and ‘Should I get out of the way of that speeding and wildly careening bus?’ Each shares two universal truths: a set of probabilities of potential outcomes and the singular outcome that takes place. Everyday we place hundreds if not thousands of bets – large and small, some seemingly well considered and others made without a second thought. The vast majority of the latter, life’s little gambles made without any thought, might certainly be trivial. ‘Should I tie my shoes?’ Seems to offer no big risk, nor any big reward. While others, such as the aforementioned ’speeding and wildly careening bus’ would seem to have greater impact on our lives. However, if deciding not to tie your shoes that morning causes you to trip and fall down in the middle of the road when you finally decide to fold your hand and give that careening bus plenty of leeway, well then, in hindsight the trivial has suddenly become paramount.”
–Larry Hite, Trader
Continuing:
“Ancient man had no risk management. Everything was left to ‘fate’ and the whims of the gods. Because ancient man felt that he was merely a victim of circumstance he did not see a need to plan for the future. Therefore, he had no future. In his book Against The Gods: The Remarkable Story Of Risk, Peter Bernstein plots out the history of man’s discovery of the law of probabilities and risk management. Suffice it to say, economic progress seems to run parallel with man’s ability to discover, quantify, and manage risk. Risk and reward are two sides of the same coin. One is not present without the other. You cannot receive the reward unless you are willing to take the risk and you cannot expect to keep that reward unless you learn to mange that risk. It is imperative to master both subjects if you expect to be successful in any endeavor, especially the arena of investing/trading.”
–Source: Pearce Financial LLC
The only thing you can control as you face the markets each day? Your losses.
Marcel Link in his excellent High Probability Trading is not the first to equate the skills of the professional gambler with the skills needed to succeed as a trader but he does it very convincingly:
[The professional gamblers] don’t take unnecessary risks or gambles. They know when the odds are in their favor and will bet more when the odds get better. If the odds aren’t there, they won’t risk nearly as much, if anything. They know how to protect their winnings, and they know how to call it a day when Lady Luck is blowing on some other guy’s dice. Having this discipline lets them come back to the table the next day. […] (more…)
Just Today evening again completed reading this book and this was I think 10th time I had read this book.Iam telling you this is a Bible for Day Traders.
Here are some of the Quotes/Nuggets from this Book.Just spare some time and read them ……
Of course there is always a reason for fluctuations, but the tape does not concern itself with the why and wherefore.
My plan of trading was sound enough and won oftener than it lost. If I had stuck to it I’d have been right perhaps as often as seven out of ten times.
What beat me was not having brains enough to stick to my own game.
But there is the Wall Street fool, who thinks he must trade all the time. No man can always have adequate reasons for buying or selling stocks daily or sufficient knowledge to make his. play an intelligent play.
The desire for constant action irrespective of underlying conditions is responsible for many losses in Wall
Street even among the professionals, who feel that they must take home some money every day, as though they were working for regular wages.
It takes a man a long time to learn all the lessons of all his mistakes. (more…)
1. “The biggest investing errors come not from factors that are informational or analytical, but from those that are psychological.” Psychological mistakes are at the same time the biggest source of danger for an investor and the biggest source of opportunity when other people succumb to those mistakes. If you can keep your head about you when everyone else is losing theirs, you can profit in ways which beat the market. Howard Marks: “The absolute best buying opportunities come when asset holders are forced to sell.”
2. “Rule No. 1: Most things will prove to be cyclical. – Rule No. 2: Some of the greatest opportunities for gain and loss come when other people forget Rule No. 1.” Nothing good or bad goes on forever. And yet people extrapolate sometimes as if a phenomenon will go on indefinitely. “If something cannot go on forever it will eventually stop” famously said Herbert Stein. Situations in which mean reversion does not happen are rare enough as to make a mean reversion assumption a consistent friend to the investor.
3. “We don’t know what lies ahead in terms of the macro future. Few people if any know more than the consensus about what’s going to happen to the economy, interest rates and market aggregates. Thus, the investor’s time is better spent trying to gain a knowledge advantage regarding ‘the knowable’: industries, companies and securities. The more micro your focus, the great the likelihood you can learn things others don’t.” Focusing on the simplest possible system (an individual company) is the greatest opportunity for an investor since a company is understandable in a way which may reveal a mispriced bet. Howard Marks puts it simply: “We don’t make macro bets.”
4. “We can make excellent investment decisions on the basis of present observations, with no need to make guesses about the future.” This video has excellent material from Marks on why trying to make macroeconomic predictions is bound to fail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2It1fzcBoJU If great investors like Marks, Buffett, Munger, Lynch etc. can’t make macro forecasts, do you think economists can? If you do believe they can, “Where are the economists’ yachts?” Howard Marks notes that anyone can be right “once in a row” especially when the range of possible outcomes is small.
5. “There are two essential ingredients for profit in a declining market: you have to have a view on intrinsic value, and you have to hold that view strongly enough to be able to hang in and buy even as price declines suggest that you’re wrong. Oh yes, there’s a third; you have to be right.” Being a contrarian for its own sake is suicidal. Not being a contrarian at all means by definition you can’t outperform the market. Being genuinely contrarian means you are going to be uncomfortable sometimes. Howard Marks adds: “To achieve superior investment results, your insight into value has to be superior. Thus you must learn things others don’t, see things differently or do a better job of analyzing them – ideally all three.” (more…)
This exchange with a gentleman named Ed Seykota, who turned in a healthy 250,000 percent return for his clients over sixteen years, caught my eye:
What are the elements of good trading?
The elements of good trading are: (1) cutting losses, (2) cutting losses, and (3) cutting losses. If you can follow these three rules, you may have a chance.
How do you handle a losing streak?
I handle losing streaks by trimming down my activity. I just wait it out. Trying to trade during a losing streak is emotionally devastating. Trying to play “catch up” is lethal.
A little later in the interview, there was this:
What are the trading rules you live by?
a. Cut losses.
b. Ride winners.
c. Keep bets small.
d. Follow the rules without question.
e. Know when to break the rules.
Your last two rules are cute because they are contradictory. Seriously now, which do you believe: Follow the rules, or know when to break the rules?
I believe both. Mostly I follow the rules. As I keep studying the markets, I sometimes find a new rule which breaks and then replaces a previous rule. Sometimes I get to a personal breakpoint. When that happens, I just get out of the markets altogether and take a vacation until I feel that I am ready to follow the rules again. Perhaps some day, I will have a more explicit rule for breaking rules.
Never underestimate the importance of psychology and attitude as crucial elements of successful trading.
1) Gambler’s fallacy bias
People tend to believe that after a string of losses, a win is going to come next. Take for example that you are playing a game of coin tossing with a capital of $1000. You lost 3 bets in a row on heads and cost you $100 each bet. What will you bet next and how much would you stake?
It is likely you will continue to bet on heads and with a higher stake, say $300. You do not ‘believe’ that it can be tails consistently. People fail to realize coin tossing is random and past results do not affect future outcomes.
Traders must treat each trade independently and not be affected by past results. It is important that your trading system tells you how much to stake your capital which is also known as position sizing, so that the risk-reward ratio will be optimal.
2) Limit profits and enlarge losses bias
People tend to limit their profits and give more room to losses. Nobody likes the feeling of losing. Most investors tend to hold on to losses and hope their investments will turn around soon, and they will be happy if their holdings break even. However, chances are that they will amount to greater losses. On the other hand, if they are winning, most investors tend to take profits early as they fear their profits will be wiped out soon. Thereafter, they regretted that they didn’t hold a little longer (sounds familiar?).
One of the most important principle in trading is contrary to what most investors do – Traders have to LIMIT LOSSES and let PROFITS RUN. Losses are part and parcel of trading and hence, it is crucial to protect the capital from depleting too much – live to fight another day is the mantra for all traders. Large profits are thus required to cover the small losses – so do not limit profit runs.
3) I am right bias
Humans are egoistic in nature and we want to prove that we are right. High accuracy is not important in trading but making more money when you are right is. Remember what George Soros said, “It’s not whether you’re right or wrong that’s important, but how much money you make when you’re right and how much you lose when you’re wrong.”
Van K. Tharp mentioned there are 3 biases that will affect one’s trading:
1) Gambler’s fallacy bias
People tend to believe that after a string of losses, a win is going to come next. Take for example that you are playing a game of coin tossing with a capital of $1000. You lost 3 bets in a row on heads and cost you $100 each bet. What will you bet next and how much would you stake?
It is likely you will continue to bet on heads and with a higher stake, say $300. You do not ‘believe’ that it can be tails consistently. People fail to realize coin tossing is random and past results do not affect future outcomes.
Traders must treat each trade independently and not be affected by past results. It is important that your trading system tells you how much to stake your capital which is also known as position sizing, so that the risk-reward ratio will be optimal.
2) Limit profits and enlarge losses bias
People tend to limit their profits and give more room to losses. Nobody likes the feeling of losing. Most investors tend to hold on to losses and hope their investments will turn around soon, and they will be happy if their holdings break even. However, chances are that they will amount to greater losses. On the other hand, if they are winning, most investors tend to take profits early as they fear their profits will be wiped out soon. Thereafter, they regretted that they didn’t hold a little longer (sounds familiar?). (more…)
