Archives of “Investment” tag

rss

6 Rules of Michael Steinhardt

  
  Education
#  #  #  #  #  #

1. Make all your mistakes early in life: The more tough lessons you learn early on, the fewer (bigger) errors you make later. A common mistake of all young investors is to be too trusting with brokers, analysts, and newsletters who are trying to sell you something.

2. Always make your living doing something you enjoy: Devote your full intensity for success over the long-term.

3. Be intellectually competitive: Do constant research on subjects that make you money. Plow through the data so as to be able to sense a major change coming in the macro situation.

4. Make good decisions even with incomplete information: Investors never have all the data they need before they put their money at risk. Investing is all about decision-making with imperfect information. You will never have all the info you need. What matters is what you do with the information you have. Do your homework and focus on the facts that matter most in any investing situation.

5. Always trust your intuition: Intuition is more than just a hunch — it resembles a hidden supercomputer in the mind that you’re not even aware is there. It can help you do the right thing at the right time if you give it a chance. Over time, your own trading experience will help develop your intuition so that major pitfalls can be avoided.

6. Don’t make small investments: You only have so much time and energy so when you put your money in play. So, if you’re going to put money at risk, make sure the reward is high enough to justify it.

Anti-Fragile Trader

  
  Education
#  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #

The Anti-Fragile Trader is someone that puts on very small position sizes in low probability trades, but shifts huge amounts of risk to the trader on the other side of the trade. The methodology of the anti-fragile trader is to bet on the eventual blowup of the traders making high risk trades for a small premium.

The favorite tool of the Anti-Fragile Trader is the out-of-the-money option contract. For pennies on the dollar, they can control huge amounts of assets. While they expire worthless the majority of the time, when a random Black Swan event hits the market affecting the option contract, they can return thousands of percent on capital at risk, and makeup for all the past losses.

The creator of the anti-fragile concept, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, traded long option strangles, betting on both directions to capture any huge trend event up or down. A company being purchased and rocketing up, or a disaster and a company stock sent crashing, was hugely profitable for Taleb. He also bought option contracts on futures markets. The key is very tiny bets on these trades versus total account equity. Tiny losses and tremendous wins was what made the system profitable. (more…)

The greater the story, the greater the bubble

  
Analysis, Education
#  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #

The greater fool theory explains almost every bubble

Some things have an intrinsic value. The most-obvious example is a stock with a dividend. The absolute floor for an equity is its dividend and so long as their is a profitable business behind it, the value is a multiple of that dividend.

Other things don’t have an intrinsic value. This includes virtually everything that doesn’t produce a yield. Oftentimes, prices of those things rise and fall based on future expectations of what profits or yield might be. In other cases, there is an estimation of utility. Oil, for instance, can be refined into gasoline which can be used to move things or for dozens of other uses.

Oftentimes there is a dispute about utility or a dispute about future profitability, which can lead to a dispute about prices. One way to resolve this is a model but oftentimes that’s so fraught with assumptions that it’s useless.

So how do you establish prices? Obviously, via the market.

This is when storytelling, which is another way of saying a sales job, takes over.

Cryptocurrencies are an obvious example. A Bitcoin has no yield but it has some utility. To some, that utility is replacing the US dollar as a global transparent currency. To others, it’s a way to facilitate transactions. And for others still, it’s a handy tool for criminal transactions. How you price it then, depends on how you view the future utility.

Or does it? (more…)

Candlesticks: Patterns Signalling Range-Trading

  
  Education
#  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #
  • Doji
    • Psychological state of uncertainty.
  • Engulfing / Outside bars
    • This pattern must appear after a preceding trend in the price.
    • An outside bar would have taken out the stops of both the bulls and the bears, with no follow-through. Hence both sides become less confident and this leads to range-trading behavior.
  • Hammer bottom
    • After a downtrend, the market opens near to the previous close, drops a lot, before closing the period up towards the level at which it opened.
    • Signals an end of the downtrend where the next period will be characterised by range trading.
  • Shooting star
    • After an uptrend, the market opens near the previous close, rallies a lot, but closes the period down towards the level at which it opened.
    • Signals that that supply and demand have become more balanced, and this balance can mean range trading.
  • Hanging man
    • After an uptrend, market does not rise much but falls a lot, before closing back up near to the level at which it opened.
    • This is bearish, and represents the last buyers getting into the uptrend.

3 Types of Traders

  
  Education
#  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #

Three popular trading personality types are intuitive, data oriented, and impulsive.

The data-oriented trader focuses on concrete evidence and is often very risk averse. They seek out as much supporting data for a trading decision as possible. The trader who prefers to do extensive back-testing of a trading idea exemplifies data-oriented type. Consider incorporating elements of data oriented trader personality into your trading style regardless of your natural inclinations.  Make sure you have adequate information (a reason) before executing a trade. Particularly important is to have and trade a detailed trading plan in which risk is minimized and entry and exit strategies are clearly specified. Most often however, the data-oriented trader may take things a little too far. Searching for “the perfect” knowledge that just doesn’t exit in the trading world. At some point, one must accept the fact that he or she is taking a chance and no amount of data analysis can change this fact.

The intuitive trader is the opposite of the data-oriented trader. Trading decisions are based upon hunches and impressions rather than on clearly defined data. There’s a difference between being an intuitive trader who develops this style over time and one who is naturally intuitive. The experienced intuitive trader, bases decisions on data and specific market information. But, as a seasoned trader, analyzes the data quickly and efficiently. It happens so quickly that it seems like it occurs intuitively, but it is actually based on solid information. Ideally, all traders should gain extensive experience to the point where sound decisions are made with an intuitive feel.

A third trader personality type is the impulsive trader (gambler). This is the most dangerous style. The impulsive trader allows his or her decisions to adversely influence trading decisions. Rather than looking at information logically and analytically, information is discounted completely. The impulsive trader seeks out risk and enjoys taking risky, exciting trades. Impulsive traders can often make huge profits one day and see large draw downs the next. Your personality can have a huge influence on your trading performance. Identify your assets and liabilities, and work around your personality when it is necessary. 

Trading Wisdom by – Jon Tait

  
  Education
#  #  #  #  #  #  #

One of the most puzzling paradoxes of trading is that you have to show up every day, but most days your best move is to do nothing.

I don’t day trade, but I do look at a lot of time horizons, sometimes as short as 1 minute bars. But I’ve learned to focus my attention on shorter time horizons only when longer time horizons are at a critical juncture. My trading life became much simpler when just owning a stock was no longer a reason to look at a shorter time horizon than daily bars. I don’t even load up the quote streamer until I’ve made the decision to buy or sell a stock that day based on daily and weekly charts.

It can be more optimal to trade extremely short time horizons, but the benefits of trading very short term don’t scale linearly due to transaction costs becoming more difficult to beat. 

For me, it is important to not have to grind for every dollar. I don’t want a full time job from the markets, but I do want to make high returns on my money, so I consistently reform my trading to be in line with these goals.

I start off every campaign in a stock very fickle, weak handed. As a position works for me and I pyramid into a larger position, I become a strong hand; I’m dug in.

15 Ways to Manage Trader Stress

  
  Education
#  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #
  1. Only risk 1% of total trading capital per trade with stop losses and proper position sizing. Proper positions sizing makes the emotional impact of any one trade only one of the next one hundred a totally different mental perspective than an all in/have to be right Hail Mary trade.
  2. Only trade a  position size you are comfortable with.
  3. Trade a method or system you believe in based on back testing of a positive expectancy.
  4. Know where you will get out of a trade before you get in.
  5. Only trade with a detailed trading plan.
  6. Believe in your ability to follow your trading plan. YOu must have faith in yourself to lower your stress levels.
  7. Know yourself as a trader and only take your kind of trades. Take trades that will leave no regrets because they were good trades regardless of out comes.
  8. Do not listen to any unsolicited advice about the trade you are in, follow your own plan. Noise can really cause stress and mess up a trade, trade with emotional horse blinders on, keep out others voices and listen to your trading plan.
  9. Sit out markets that you are uncomfortable trading due to volatility or other looming risks. Know when it is time to trade and time to ‘go fishing’. This can save you a lot of emotional capital.
  10. Do your homework before you trade. Be confident in your trade until it hits your stop. Get out when your stop is hit, you already lost money don’t lose sleep as well.
  11. Keep your ego out of your trading, run it like a business.the P& L is your focus not your ego and not trying to prove anything to anyone else.
  12. Only trade when the odds are believed to be in your favor. It is much less stressful trading with the trend than against it.
  13. Do not blame yourself for losses if you followed all your rules. The market giveth and the market taketh away, just keep taking your entries and exits.
  14. If you do not know what to do, DO NOTHING.

  15. To lower stress levels trade less and get away from watching every single price change. Day traders could trade only the open and closing hour, swing trader and trend traders could just take opening or closing signals. You could go from every tick to just checking in every hour or so if you have options or hard stops in. Most of the days trading is random noise, and randomness will stress you out focus on your time frame and only the quotes that really manner when they manner. 

 

Jesse Livermore and natural disasters

  
  Education
#  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #

Those of you who have read Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, Edwin Lefevre’s classic book reportedly based on Jesse Livermore, will know that ‘Larry Livingston’(Livermore) profited from shorting stocks immediately prior to the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Initially the market held up, but Livermore was patient enough to sit in his positions, and the market finally succumbed to a sharp downdraft after a couple days.

In Michael Covel’s book Trend Following, there is a section devoted to major events that have occurred, which have significantly affected the markets, and that it was pointed out how often a trend follower was trading in the correct direction at that particular time. By definition, a trend follower would be trading in the correct direction when there is a major market specific event (such as the 1987 market crash, the dot.com bubble, the 2008 crash etc), but also more often than not when other major events occur, such as the collapse of Barings Bank, 9/11 etc.

Back to Livermore. While he started shorting stocks on a hunch prior to the earthquake, I follow the trend on the indices as a basis for whether I should be long or short stocks. Indeed, Livermore himself came to the same conclusions:

“I began to see more clearly – perhaps I should say more maturely – that since the entire list moves in accordance with the main current… Obviously the thing to do was to be bullish in a bull market and bearish in a bear market. Sounds silly, doesn’t it? But I had to grasp that general principle firmly before I saw that to put it into practice really meant to anticipate probabilities. It took me a long time to learn to trade on those lines.”

(more…)

You wanna be right? Or make money?

  
  Education
#  #  #  #  #  #

We all have ego. Everyone likes to be right, likes to be seen as intelligent, and likes to be a winner. We all hate to lose, and we hate to be wrong; traders, as a group, tend to be more competitive than the average person. These personality traits are part of what allows a trader to face the market every day—a person without exceptional self-confidence would not be able to operate in the market environment.

Like so many things, ego is both a strength and a weakness for traders. When it goes awry, things go badly wrong. Excessive ego can lead traders to the point where they are fighting the market, or where they hold a position at a significant loss because they are convinced the market is wrong. It is not possible to make consistent money fighting the market, so ego must be subjugated to the realities of the marketplace.

One of the big problems is that, for many traders, the need to be right is at least as strong as the drive to make money—many traders find that the pain of being wrong is greater than the pain of losing money. You often have minutes or seconds to evaluate a market and make a snap decision. You know you are making a decision without all the important information, so it would be logical if it were easy to let go of that decision once it was made. (more…)

Balenthiran 17.6 Year Cycle

  
  Education
#  #  #  #  #  #  #

Interesting take on the longer term Secular Bear Market Vs. Cyclical Bull Market, via Kerry Balenthiran:

“My research has identified that a 17.6 year stock market exists within the markets consisting of downtrends lasting 2.2 years and uptrends lasting 4.4 years (2 x 2.2 years), with a combined cycle length of 17.6 years. I have called this cycle the Balenthiran Cycle and demonstrate how the intermediate turning points match stock market behavior going back to the early 1900s and extrapolate the cycle forwards to provide a market roadmap of the next secular bull market to 2035 and subsequent secular bear market to 2053.”

A few caveats: The 17.6 year cycle has been bantered about for a long time by various people. (See “previous” below).

Second, I would add is that cycles can be interrupted by external events — like Bailouts, QE, etc.

Last, the world changes over time, and I doubt that any oscillation period dependent upon humans would stay all that consistent over decades and centuries.

Go to top