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10 signs you’re a narcissistic investor

  
  Education
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Some amount of narcissism (a strong belief in yourself) can be helpful in giving you the confidence to apply for a new job or ask for a raise but sometimes these same traits can become too extreme and you can find yourself part of the “narcissism epidemic” that psychologist Jean Twnege and Keith Campbell coined in their book of the same name.

The more you identify with these characteristics, the more likely you are to be a narcissistic investor.

  1. You always know what you’re doing.
    1. “I know I’m good because everybody keeps telling me so.”
  2. Everybody likes to hear your stories and you often boast about your latest or greatest winning trade during conversations.
    1. “Seeking admiration is like a drug for narcissists”, said Mitja Back a psychologist at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz Germany. “In the long run it becomes difficult because others won’t applaud them so they always have to search for new acquaintances from whom they get the next fix.”
  3. If an investment loses money it’s because someone else made a mistake, not you.
    1. I almost always hear how my broker sold me this (name a losing investment) vs. I bought this (name a winning investment).
  4. You’re a workaholic.You get upset when people don’t notice how well you’re doing financially. (more…)

The Legends Are Abandoning the Markets

  
Analysis, Education
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The legends are abandoning the markets. 

Stanley Druckenmiller founded his hedge fund Duquesne Capital in 1981. From 1986 onward he maintained average annual returns of 30%. He also managed George Soros’ Quantum Fund from 1988-2000. During that latter period he famously facilitated Soros’ “breaking of the Bank of England” trade: the legendary trade which netted over $1 billion in a single day. 

Druckenmiller closed Duquesne Capital in 2010, stating that he was no longer able to meet his investment “standard[s]” in the post-2008 climate (he made money in 2008 before the Fed began to alter the risk landscape). 

Druckenmiller’s key strength has always been macro-economic forecasting. That he would feel the capital markets were not offering him the opportunities he needed says a lot. 

Seth Klarman is another investment legend who is returning capital to clients. Widely considered to be the Warren Buffett of his generation, Klarman recently cited a lack of “investment opportunities” as the cause for his decision to downsize his legendary Baupost Group hedge funds. 

Other legends or market outperformers who have returned capital to investors or closed their funds to outside investors are Carl Icahn and Michael Karsch. Indeed, even value legend Warren Buffett is sitting on the single largest amount of cash in the history of his 50+ year career as an investor, stating that stocks are “fully valued” at current levels (Buffett largely does not believe in shorting the market, so his decision to be in cash is a strong indicator of opportunities). (more…)

It's Just Beginning-22 Signs That The Global Economic Turmoil so far in 2016g

  
Analysis, Education
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As bad as the month of January was for the global economy, the truth is that the rest of 2016 promises to be much worse.  Layoffs are increasing at a pace that we haven’t seen since the last recession, major retailers are shutting down hundreds of locations, corporate profit margins are plunging, global trade is slowing down dramatically, and several major European banks are in the process of completely imploding.  I am about to share some numbers with you that are truly eye-popping.  Each one by itself would be reason for concern, but when you put all of the pieces together it creates a picture that is hard to deny. 

The global economy is in crisis, and this is going to have very serious implications for the financial markets moving forward.  U.S. stocks just had their worst January in seven years, and if I am right much worse is still yet to come this year.  The following are 22 signs that the global economic turmoil that we have seen so far in 2016 is just the beginning…

1. The number of job cuts in the United States skyrocketed 218 percent during the month of January according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

2. The Baltic Dry Index just hit yet another brand new all-time record low.  As I write this article, it is sitting at 303.

3. U.S. factory orders have now dropped for 14 months in a row.

4. In the U.S., the Restaurant Performance Index just fell to the lowest level that we have seen since 2008.

5. In January, orders for class 8 trucks (the big trucks that you see shipping stuff around the country on our highways) declined a whopping 48 percent from a year ago.

6. Rail traffic is also slowing down substantially.  In Colorado, there are hundreds of train engines that are just sitting on the tracks with nothing to do.

7. Corporate profit margins peaked during the third quarter of 2014 and have been declining steadily since then.  This usually happens when we are heading into a recession.

8. A series of extremely disappointing corporate quarterly reports is sending stock after stock plummeting.  Here is a summary from Zero Hedge of a few examples that we have just witnessed… (more…)

These 13-cent stamps beat the U.S. stock market

  
Analysis, Education
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Are stocks always the best long-term investment?

Maybe not.

When some obscure Hawaiian stamps from 1851 go up for auction later this month, they are expected to fetch from $50,000 to $75,000 each.

And if they do, that will mean they have almost certainly been a better financial investment — probably a much better investment — over the past 165 years than the U.S. stock market.

The 13-cent so-called “Missionaries” were used by Christian missionaries in the Hawaiian islands to send letters home. At the time, Hawaii was an independent kingdom. The Associated Press reports that the stamps are part of a 77-stamp collection being sold by Bill Gross, the bond market guru. Ten such “Missionaries” in near-mint condition are being sold.

If the stamps sell for $50,000 each, that will represent a compound annual return of 8.1% over the initial 13-cent purchase price. If the stamps sell for $75,000, you can raise that to 8.4%. (more…)

3 Trading Lessons

  
  Education
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A good trade can lose money, and a bad trade can make money. Even the best trading processes will lose a certain percentage of the time. There is no way of knowing a priori which individual trade will make money. As long as a trade adhered to a process with a positive edge, it is a good trade, regardless of whether it wins or loses because if similar trades are repeated multiple times, they will come out ahead. Conversely, a trade that is taken as a gamble is a bad trade regardless of whether it wins or loses because over time such trades will lose money.

Ray Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater, the world’s largest hedge fund, strongly believes that learning from mistakes is essential to improvement and ultimate success. Each mistake, if recognized and acted upon, provides an opportunity for improving a trading approach. Most traders would benefit by writing down each mistake, the implied lesson, and the intended change in the trading process. Such a trading log can be periodically reviewed for reinforcement. Trading mistakes cannot be avoided, but repeating the same mistakes can be, and doing so is often the difference between success and failure.

For some traders, the discipline and patience to do nothing when the environment is unfavorable or opportunities are lacking is a crucial element in their success. For example, despite making minimal use of short positions, Kevin Daly, the manager of the Five Corners fund, achieved cumulative gross returns in excess of 800% during a 12-year period when the broad equity markets were essentially flat. In part, he accomplished this feat by having the discipline to remain largely in cash during negative environments, which allowed him to sidestep large drawdowns during two major bear markets. The lesson is that if conditions are not right, or the return/risk is not sufficiently favorable, don’t do anything. Beware of taking dubious trades out of impatience.

If you don’t learn from your losses who will?

  
  Education
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If you don’t try you don’t fail, if you don’t fail you don’t learn, if you don’t learn you don’t grow” – Om Malik

Failure is an inherent part of trading. No trader can get every trade correct. One of the lessons in the new Jack Schwager book, Hedge Fund Market Wizards, is that “Don’t try to be 100% right.” In fact the pursuit of perfection in trading will likely lead to catastrophic results. That is why some perspective on failure and loss is a key to staying in the trading game.

Atul Gawande, a surgeon and writer, has an interesting piece up at the New Yorker which is a transcript of a commencement speech he recently gave at Williams College.* Although he is discussing medicine his perspective on failure is worth contemplating. Here is a quote:

So you will take risks, and you will have failures. But it’s what happens afterward that is defining. A failure often does not have to be a failure at all. However, you have to be ready for it—will you admit when things go wrong? Will you take steps to set them right?—because the difference between triumph and defeat, you’ll find, isn’t about willingness to take risks. It’s about mastery of rescue.

It is a bit of cliche to say that your trading losses represent tuition paid. If you don’t learn from your own failures no one will. Those losses will then be not just a financial loss but a lost opportunity as well.

Book Review: Hedge Hogs: The Cowboy Traders Behind Wall Street's Largest Hedge Fund Disaster

  
  Education
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I’ve recently enjoyed reading Hedge Hogs: The Cowboy Traders Behind Wall Street’s Largest Hedge Fund Disaster, the story of how Amaranth blew up. It’s essentially a story of one man who was successful for a while and took on unbelievable amounts of risk trading natural gas futures while all of his supervisors, mostly the fund’s owner but some others as well lost all control or even desire for control. The book greatly details the actual trades and talks about many related personages, but it left me puzzled about how the trader who was mostly responsible for this disaster lasted this long. He had made a huge amount of money prior to blowing up, and even though he appeared to be quite intelligent the reasoning behind his trades are either inadequately or perhaps truthfully described as being close to random. He suddenly takes a liking to certain types of spreads and just bets on them evidently without much more than a seemingly unjustified belief that they will widen.

At some point he essentially became the market and and had to keep up the spreads by continuous buying until the fund blew up. The main trader and some others are portrayed as sociopathic degenerates driven by irrational beliefs as well as a strong desire to win at all costs. I would be interested to hear some energy trader’s or any commodity trader’s opinion about the book.

Hedge Fund Job Titles Defined

  
  Education
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Hedge Fund AnalystA person who spends their day tracking the activities of people whose job they would have liked.
Quantitative ResearcherA person who can attach probabilities to future events by looking backwards.
Portfolio ManagerA person who has an enormous breadth of knowledge across a range of industries and is an expert in none of them.
StrategistA person who spends their day looking down at global events from 25,000ft but never has to land to take an active decision themselves (see “ Journalist” and “Consultant”).
Head of Quantitative SolutionsA person qualified to Ph.D level who used to earn an annual bonus at a CTA.
Head of RiskThe person who stops portfolio managers earning a bonus.
In-House MarketerA person who can ascribe someone else’s success in the firm to their own activities.
Chief Operating OfficerThe person who is thought to keep hedge funds running as businesses.
Deputy Chief Operating OfficerThe person who actually keeps hedge funds running as businesses.
Chief Investment OfficerThe guy whose name is on everyone’s business card.
Head TraderChief Algo Selector
Compliance OfficerFulfills the statutory requirement to have a fifth column in every firm in the financial sector.
Head of ComplianceChief Snitch
Head of TechnologyThe only person in the firm authorised to have self-defined mission-critical costs no-one else understands.
Head of Investor RelationsThe person that works with the most important existing clients to tidy up the s*** created by the CIO.
Chief Executive OfficerThe person individually chosen by the founder and Chief Investment Officer to buy the paperclips and liaise with the auditors.

HEDGE FUND LEGEND: If One Of My Managers Is Getting Divorced, I'll Pull My Money Out-Must Watch Video

  
Education, Video
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The Washington Post has obtained footage of hedge funder Paul Tudor Jones from a panel discussion at the University of Virginia last month with fellow fund managers John Griffin and Julian Robertson. 

 During the panel discussion, PTJ made some comments that the biggest killers to trading success are divorce and women having babies.  

Here’s what he does when on of his manager’s is going through a divorce: 

“… Like, one of my No. 1 rules as an investor is as soon as my manager, if I find out that manager is going through divorce, redeem immediately.  Because the emotional distraction that comes from divorce is so overwhelming. The idea that you could think straight for 60 seconds and be able to make a rational decision is impossible, particularly when their kids are involved. You can automatically subtract 10 to 20% from any manager if he is going through divorce.” 

Watch the video below: Don’t Miss to WATCH 

[ooyala_video_embed ec=0yZmF1YjqbuW2Cm-89PlfzfaswMrngJf][/ooyala_video_embed]

Excerpt from Winning Methods of the Market Wizards

  
  Education
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Chapter 2: Hard Work

I am sure that the theme of this chapter comes as no surprise to you. We all know, (or at least most of us do) that to get anywhere in this life, no matter what your field may be, it is going to require some hard work along the way. There can’t be a harvest if you haven’t worked in the fields. And no where is this concept of hard work more evident than in the professional traders I have come to know over the years.

What is striking to me about this group of super-traders, the Market Wizards, is how almost every single one of them is a genuine workaholic. For these people, the level of commitment and dedication to trading is absolutely amazing, and it has engendered in them a performance level so intense and so consistent, it almost boggles the mind. When you look at these individuals, you find the kind of hard work that is almost inconceivable for most people to maintain even for one day, never mind as a lifestyle. But it is this difference in personality and commitment that makes the Market Wizards who they are, and accounts for much of their high levels of achievement.

In order for you to get a real sense of the kind of hard work we are talking about here, I think I should describe for you a couple of individuals and how they work. This will give you a good idea as to how intensely passionate they are about their pursuits.

 

David Shaw

David is a private, almost secretive individual, who has been running a very successful hedge fund for many years now. Basically, his fund is a very sophisticated form of arbitrage. Over the years, it has posted excellent results. (more…)

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