We all know that sentiment is a critically important ingredient in the pricing of tradable assets. But it is extremely difficult to move from this general and somewhat amorphous principle to a trading/investing edge. Richard L. Peterson takes up this challenge inTrading on Sentiment: The Power of Minds Over Markets (Wiley, 2016).
Peterson is the CEO of MarketPsych, a firm that in 2011 joined forces with Thomson Reuters to produce the Thomson Reuters MarketPsych Indices (TRMI), sentiment data feed covering five asset classes and 7,500 individual companies that Thomson Reuters distributes to its clients. As the Thomson Reuters website explains, these indices use “real-time linguistic and psychological analysis of news and social media to quantify how the public regards various asset classes according to dozens of sentiments including optimism, fear, trust and uncertainty.”
Odds are that, unless you’re a bank or hedge fund employee, you won’t have access to TRMI. Peterson’s book is the next best thing, although you have to realize that if you want to incorporate sentiment (not some proxy for sentiment) into your trading decisions and can’t do big data analysis yourself, you’re working with one hand tied behind your back.
Trading on Sentiment is divided into five parts: foundations, short-term patterns, long-term patterns, complex patterns and unique assets, and managing the mind.
Archives of “economics” tag
rssHedge Fund Market Wizards – Joe Vidich
A critical distinction of all great investing books is that every time you re-read them, you find insights that you somehow missed the previous times. Recently I had the opportunity to re-read some of the chapters in Hedge Fund Market Wizards. The section about equity traders is my favorite one, so I delved into it again. In this post, I am featuring some interesting observations from Jack Schwager’s conversation with Joe Vidich:
1. Position sizing is a great way to manage risk
The larger the position, the greater the danger that trading decisions will be driven by fear rather than by judgment and experience.
If you are diversified enough, then no single trade is particularly painful. The critical risk controls are being diversified and cutting your exposure when you don’t understand what the markets are doing and why you are wrong.
It is really important to manage your emotional attachment to losses and gains. You want to limit your size in any position so that fear does not become the prevailing instinct guiding your judgment. Everyone will have a different level. It also depends on what kind of stock it is. A 10 percent position might be perfectly okay for a large-cap stock, while a 3 percent position in a highflying mid-cap stock, which has frequent 30 percent swings, might be far too risky.
2. Charts are extremely important.
One of the best patterns is when a stock goes sideways for a long time in a narrow range and then has a sudden, sharp up move on large volume. That type of price action is a wake-up call that something is probably going on, and you need to look at it. Also, sometimes whatever is going on with that stock will also have implications for other stocks in the same sector. It can be an important clue. (more…)
Traders Should Have These 5 Qualities
1) Capacity for Prudent Risk-Taking – Successful young traders are neither impulsive nor risk-averse. They are not afraid to go after markets aggressively when they perceive opportunity;
2) Capacity for Rule Governance – Successful young traders have the self-control needed to follow rules in the heat of battle, including rules of position sizing and risk management;
3) Capacity for Sustained Effort – Successful young traders can be identified by the productive time they spend on trading–research, preparation, work on themselves–outside of market hours;
4) Capacity for Emotional Resilience – All young traders will lose money early in their development and experience multiple frustrations. The successful ones will not be quick to lose self-confidence and motivation in the face of loss and frustration;
5) Capacity for Sound Reasoning – Successful young traders exhibit an ability to make sense of markets by synthesizing data and generating market and trading views. They display patience in collecting information and do not jump to conclusions based on superficial reasoning or limited data.
A common trait you'll see among the world's best investors
In 1968, a self-described “gun-slinging nitwit,” fresh out of Harvard Business School, Grantham played the go-go market at its peak. By 1970, he had lost all of his money. “I like to say I got wiped out before anyone else knew the bear market started,” Grantham recalled years later.
Think about that. The man who today relentlessly warns of risk began his investing career by losing all of his money and then sitting through a 12-year bear market.
What lasting impact did this have on his outlook? How did this experience influence his opinion of markets today?
Likely, a lot.
People like to assume they can think objectively. But you and I are just a product of the experiences we’ve had in life. And most of those experiences were random and out of our control. Would Grantham hold his bearish stance if, by luck, he began his investing career at the start of a bull market? Or doubled his money his first year out of college, rather than losing it all?
There’s evidence to suggest the answer is “no.” (more…)
JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH ON STOCK MARKET MEMORY LOSS
Where else but in the markets can short term memory loss be both beneficial and profitable?
John Kenneth Galbraith, an economist, says the financial markets are characterized by…
“…extreme brevity of the financial memory. In consequence, financial disaster is quickly forgotten. In further consequence, when the same or closely similar circumstances occur again, SOMETIMES IN A FEW YEARS, they are hailed by a new, often youthful, and always extremely self-confident generation as a brilliantly innovative discovery in the financial and larger economic world. There can be few fields of human endeavor in which history counts for so little as in the world of finance.” [emphasis mine].
CHANGE IS ESSENTIAL
The stock market, just like life, can change on a dime. In the market, just as in life, we must learn to adapt to change. What separates the great trader from the rest of the crowd is his or her ability to change based on current market conditions. In other words, NO EGO ALLOWED. Mark Douglas, in his first book entitled The Disciplined Trader writes,
“There must be a difference between these two types of traders-the small majority of winners and the vast majority of losers who want to know what the winners know. The difference is that the traders who can make money consistently on a weekly, monthly, and yearly basis approach trading from the perspective of a mental discipline. When asked for their secrets of success, they categorically state that they didn’t achieve any measure of consistency in accumulating wealth from trading until they learned self-discipline, emotional control, and the ability to change their minds to flow with the markets.”
We trade the current market conditions as they unfold with a plan to trade one way or the other. To do otherwise would be to fight an undefeated foe.
NUGGETS OF WISDOM
1.) It’s not valuation that matters. It’s risk and reward in the growth cycle of each company. – Leigh Drogen “The Coming Tech Crash”
2.) Most importantly for the upside of the market, no one owns stocks.
There are millions of traders flipping stock with institutions in high growth names, but there are no rational conversations about the growth opportunities.
– Howard Lindzon, There’s no Bubble. There’s Entrepreneur Envy!
3.) The media latches on to Steve Jobs not distributing the cash and thank god he laughs in their faces. Why should he trust the public with that cash. The public has proven to be imbeciles.
– Howard Lindzon, There’s no Bubble. There’s Entrepreneur Envy!
4.) Err on side of caution, hit the gas when deemed apropos, and don’t paradiddle. – A comment to Chessnwine’s post , “You call yourself a trader, you sonofabitch”
5.) Nietzsche was right- what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. – Pension Pulse, “Put Yourself First“
6.) “You’ve got to have the passion to do your time. If you haven’t done the time, you just can’t get there.” He goes on to argue that only by paying one’s dues through time, effort, devotion, and experience can we, “develop the rich experiences that make life meaningful.” – Top 10 Things That Determine Happiness
7.)Economists who adhere to rational-expectations models of the world will never admit it, but a lot of what happens in markets is driven by pure stupidity – or, rather, inattention, misinformation about fundamentals, and an exaggerated focus on currently circulating stories. – Robert Schiller, via Stone Street Advisors ” Driven by Stupidity“
8.) No company gets to be worth twice as much in 60 days as it was before to any intelligent person, so when that happens, we take advantage of it. – Steve Wynn , via Stone Street Advisors “ Driven by Stupidity“
9.) Keep in mind that you dont have to be sending orders to be working. Avoid nurturing the belief that nonparticipation is not working. This leads to overtrading or compulsion which is the practice of poor risk management.
10.) A series of loses first eats into your account balance, and then begins to eat into what is most important of all: your confidence. Trade with confidence or don’t trade at all. If you cant take the heat, stay out of the kitchen.
Explaining "Real" Money To Your Children
Money is a very important part of all our lives. The understanding of money, how it works, and how we treat it can dramatically improve or diminish our quality of life.
Based on my writings and videos on YouTube, you might think my definition of money is gold and silver, but it’s not. Money is simply a medium of exchange. It can be represented by everything from gold to horse manure. Okay, maybe not horse manure, but it’s not a far stretch with the most popular form of money today being central bank notes loaned out into existence.
The state would love to have you believe that money can only originate from itself, yet people have organically started to use bitcoins and other crypto-currencies as a medium of exchange. Nevertheless, our culture continues to worship fiat currency as if it is the only type of money. I can’t change the fact that at this moment in time the U.S. dollar is the measuring stick for goods and services when it comes to prices. Trying to disprove and dispute this fact was something I struggled with early on when I used to teach my children that only gold and silver were money.
Today, I simply teach them about money as a medium of exchange. (more…)
7 Points For Traders
1. Hope is not a strategy.
2. Plan your entry and exit before you make a trade.
3. If you are unsure of what to do, get out.
4. Only trade when you have an edge.
5. Track all your trades. If a strategy loses money, abandon it.
6. Do not focus only on potential gains but also on potential losses. Trade only when the risk/reward ratio is favorable.
7. Don’t let a very good profit disappear or turn into a loss because you want an even bigger profit.
Never Break Rule
It seems like there has been a steady stream of information and opinion flowing on breaking rules. Originally I had planned to talk about the pros and cons of breaking rules. I realized that would be a disservice. The following is not negotiable.
Day trader vs professional trader.
Rules are what separate a day trader from a professional trader. The only good time to break a rule is never. Barriers are made to be broken not rules, you can have one or the other not both. If you break a rule, what power does anyone of the other rules have? Do you have a rule for breaking rules and what if you break those rules? It adds unnecessary levels of complication.
The most important rule.
Eventually I will back traders assuming there is not some horrible tax or regulation that makes it a stupid risk. A trader must create their own rules. They know themselves the best. The rule that cannot ever be broken is losing more than limit down. I will fire them that day. I do not even like to take clients who break that rule. They are destined to fail. (more…)