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$25 Billion Hedge Fund Manager Explains 'How To Be A Great Trader'

  
  Education
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Some perspective on ‘efficient markets’ from Elliott Management’s Paul Singer,

The fact that the vast majority of investors and traders cannot (with rare exceptions) beat the markets over long periods of time is not an argument for efficiency.Rather, the reason is that they are mostly doing the same thing sharing the same set of assumptions, and following the same impulses.

The fact that a basic assumption about the world is widely held does not make it true, nor does it make trading and pricing decisions based on that assumption efficient regardless of how liquid markets pricing in that assumption appear to be!

Certainly there are periods of time when some markets and submarkets appear to be efficient, but those who have vision, creativity and an understanding of the broader context of markets will make greater returns and/or attain a superior risk profile (assuming they do not get run over by standing rigidly against the sometimes-deeply false passions of the day expressed by the consensus).

How do the select few more or less continuously make money when the “efficient” markets are moving all over the place? Why do most investors fail, over long periods of time, to keep up with their desired index? And why do some people blow up? (more…)

What are these elements of planning? 6 Questions

  
  Education
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1) What you’re trading – Why are you selecting one instrument to trade (one stock, one index) versus others? Which instruments maximize reward relative to risk?

2) How much you’re trading – How much of your capital are you going to allocate to the trade idea versus other ideas?
3) Why you’re trading – What is the rationale for the trade? Why does the trade idea provide you with an “edge”?
4) What will take you out of the trade – What would lead you to determine that your trade idea is wrong? What would tell you that the trade has reached its profit potential?
5) Where you will enter the trade – Given the criteria that would take you out of the trade, where will you execute your idea to maximize the reward you’ll obtain relative to the risk you’ll be taking?
6) How you will manage the trade – What would have to happen to convince you to add to the trade, scale out of it, and/or tighten your stop loss?

12 Rules of Market Cycles

  
  Education
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1. Secular cycles are driven by the inflation rate (deflation, price stability, and higher inflation)

2. Secular bulls occur when P/E starts low and ends high over an extended period

3. Secular bears occur when P/E starts high and ends low over an extended period

4. Cyclical bulls and bears are interim periods of directional swings within secular periods

5. Cyclical cycles are driven by market psychology, illiquidity, or other generally temporary condition(s)

6. Time is irrelevant to the length of secular stock market cycles

7. Secular bulls require a doubling or tripling of P/E

8. Secular bears occur as P/E stalls and falls by one-third to two-thirds or more

9. When real economic growth is near 3%, there is a natural floor for P/E between 5 and 10, a natural ceiling around the mid-20s, and a typical average in the mid-teens

10. If economic growth shifts upward or downward for the foreseeable future, the natural range moves upward or downward, respectively

11. Inflation drives P/Es location within the range; economic growth drives the level of the range

12. The stock market is not consistently predictable over months, quarters, or periods of a few years; the stock market is, however, quite predictable over periods approaching a decade or longer based upon starting P/E

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