Hedge funds had nearly $20 billion pour into their coffers last month, as investors flocked back amid revived market optimism.
Hedge funds booked inflows of $19.6 billion in August, according to HedgeFund.net. Total hedge fund assets rose 2.56 percent, or $47.09 billion, to hit $1.886 trillion in August, the report said.
The influx of investments made August the third month in four that inflows outweighed outflows, HedgeFund.net said.
It is often said that markets hate uncertainty and it is true. We do live and trade in uncertain times. But, as traders and investors, we must all learn to love and appreciate uncertainty. With uncertainty, also brings opportunity. Understanding this concept is so very important and learning how to profit from uncertainty consistently is going to make a critical difference between your success and failure.
Traders learn through experience the importance of examining and evaluating the markets through placing percentages on various future market scenarios. For example, at the hedge fund I worked at last week, every morning traders assemble for a 30 minute premarket meeting where everyone at the firm works closely together to outline the various potential scenarios for the market that day and then place specific odds on what they think is most likely to occur and why. One trader every day is in charge of diagramming out the different market scenarios on a whiteboard which resembles a flow chart so that the firm has a structured and easy to follow game plan. That game plan is also copied and stored so that the firm can later review it to learn and prepare in future days. In fact, at the end of every trading day they have another meeting to review the game plan and what went right and wrong and why.
By having the plan in place with various market scenarios outlined and positions to profit from those scenarios, uncertainty is no longer a factor. In fact, traders learn to love uncertainty because uncertain market conditions tend to favor those who are the most prepared to handle anything and everything Mr. Market could throw their way.
When the market does something outside of that original plan (it doesn’t happen as often as you might think), there is always a Plan B, Plan C, and so on with a number of preconfigured trading ideas to profit if the market moved in a specific manner different than the most likely scenario. By having this planned structure in place, everyone can then focus on price action and trading setups as they occur instead of flying by the seat of their pants or, even worse, finding themselves held hostage or paralyzed by the ticker.
I had the distinct privilege of looking through the archive of firm’s game plans for the past year and was amazed by how well the firm positioned itself according to the plan AND more importantly how it handled itself when the market did something unusual. In fact, just reviewing past game plans would be incredibly useful as a teaching mechanism for new traders who have little understanding of how the pros plan their work and work their plan. If you’re like me, you’ll begin to respect the other side of the trade much more than you probably do already.
As you might imagine, the process of formulating a game plan based on setting percentage odds for various scenarios was very interesting and useful for me to watch and participate in. It also stressed how important it is to have a plan, but at the same time be flexible enough to adjust as market conditions change. I usually spend at least an hour of prep time before every trading day, but after last week’s experience I will be doing more prep than before. That’s how important I think this kind of exercise can be!
So, the question becomes, are you adequately prepared every trading day? In working with many traders over the years, most are not as prepared as I saw with my very own eyes last week. In fact, given the firm’s results compared with other traders I know, I have good reason to think that kind of high-level preparation frequently can separate the winners from the losers.
Yes, it is true that we call can get lucky (every trade in theory has a 50% chance of working out, correct?), but over time the market will remove that luck factor and your success will be determined primarily on consistency and how you plan and deal with uncertainty in the markets. If you spend time every morning engaged in developing your own plan, I think you’re bound to see steady and significant improvement. As Sun Tzu once said, “every battle is won before it is ever fought” and that’s true for those who engage in doing battle with the market in such uncertain times.
So far the Apprenticed Investor series has discussed a lot of don’ts. Don’t do this, don’t do that; avoid talking to these kinds of traders; don’t say or think these kinds of things.
Well, it’s time to shift gears, and since trading is an active enterprise, I’ll discuss some things you should do. I plan to expand on these ideas significantly in future episodes.
Taken together, the following 10 rules will not only help you with the philosophical grounding necessary for thoughtful — and successful — investing, they will help you avoid some of the more common mistakes made by investors and traders early in their careers.
This is the “Zen of Trading;” It is more than an overview — it’s an investment philosophy that can help you develop an investing framework of your own.
1. Have a Comprehensive Plan: Whether you are an investor or active trader, you must have a plan. Too many investors have no strategy at all — they merely react to each twitch of the market on the fly. If you fail to plan, goes the saying, then you plan to fail.
Consider how Roger Clemens approaches a game. He studies his opponent, constructs his game plan and goes to work.
Investors should write up a business plan, as if they were asking a Venture Capitalist for start-up money; just because you are the angel investor doesn’t mean you should skip the planning stages.
2. Expect to Be Wrong: We’ve discussed this previously, but it is such a key aspect of successful investing that it bears repeating. You will be wrong, you will be wrong often and, occasionally, you will be spectacularly wrong.
Michael Jordan has a fabulous perspective on the subject: “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
Jordan was the greatest ball player of all time, and not only because of his superb physical skills: He understood the nature and importance of failure, and placed it appropriately within a larger framework of the game.
The best investors have no ego tied up in a trade. Those who refuse to recognize the simple truism of “being wrong often” end up giving away unacceptable amounts of capital. Stubborn pride and lack of risk management allow egotists to stay in stocks down 30%, 40% or 50% — or worse.
3. Predetermine Stops Before Opening Any Position: Sign a “prenuptial agreement” with every stock you participate in: When it hits some point you have determined before you purchased it, that’s it, you’re out, end of story. Once you have come to understand that you will be frequently wrong, it becomes much easier to use stop-losses and sell targets.
This is true regardless of your methodology: It may be below support or beneath a moving average, or perhaps you prefer a specific percentage amount. Some people use the prior month’s low. But whatever your stop-loss method is, stick to it religiously. Why? The prenup means you are making the exit decision before you are in a trade — while you are still neutral and objective.
4. Follow Discipline Religiously: The greatest rules in the world are worthless if you do not have the personal discipline to see them through. I can recall every single time I broke a trading rule of my own, and it invariably cost me money.
RealMoney’s Chartman, Gary B. Smith, slavishly follows his discipline, and he notes that every time some hedge fund — chock full of Nobel Laureates and Ivy League whiz kids — blows up, the mea culpa is the same: If only we hadn’t overrode the system.
In Jack Schwager’s seminal book Market Wizards, the single most important theme repeated by each of the wizards was the importance of discipline. (more…)
I’m sure every trader has run into some kind of negativity from know-it-all chodes who just don’t get what this subject is about – it goes something along the lines of “What good does it actually do? You are just stealing other peoples money?” blah blah *yawn* blah….
Here’s a great quote from a book I’m reading “Hedge Fund Edge” that demolishes their complaints:
“Principle 7: Develop a Love and Respect for Trading, Free Markets, and Individual Liberty and Initiative.
Profits are just the gravy. When they test a group of traders, one of the traits that almost all successful traders and investors share is a deep understanding of how trading and investing is part of the process that allows humankind to progress. Even day-traders provide critical liquidity that allows others to hedge, companies to raise capital, and investors to invest with limited risk. Stock selection allows investors to become second-level venture capital firms, with their demand helping provide access to financing in areas where the people need capital most. The more you understand the remarkable way in which freedom and free association work to produce economic gain and real progress for humankind from new innovations and technologies, the more likely you are to feel a strong sense of purpose at being a part of such an incredible system. And the stronger your sense that your efforts are creating something good that is bigger than yourself, the more committed, enriched, excited, and innovative you will become.”
… so put that in your pipe and smoke it.
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From time to time I have been asked to offer my perspectives on things I have found common in successful traders. I have always struggled with my reply to that question because there are only a few traders of which I have gained enough understanding of what they do every day to achieve their results.
However, in Van Tharp’s latest book “Super Trader,” he provides 10 common characteristics frequently found among the best of the best among the hundreds of traders he’s worked with throughout his career. Like me, I think you may find it of interest!
They all have a tested, positive expectancy system that’s proved to make money for the market type for which it was designed.
They all have systems that fit them and their beliefs. They understand that they make money with their systems because their systems fit them.
They totally understand the concepts they are trading and how those concepts generate low-risk ideas.
They all understand that when they get into a trade, they must have some idea of when they are wrong and will bail out. (more…)
“[Michael Marcus] also taught me one other thing that is absolutely critical: You have to be willing to make mistakes regularly; there is nothing wrong with it. [He] taught me about making your best judgment, being wrong, making your next best judgment, being wrong, making your third best judgment, and then doubling your money.”
– Bruce Kovner, Market Wizards
Bruce Kovner, now retired, is one of the all-time trading greats.
His observation is strikingly similar to the Soros observation (paraphrase): “It doesn’t matter how often you are right or wrong — what matters is how much you make when you are right, versus how much you lose when you are wrong.”
In many ways trading is remarkably different from any other profession. Imagine if doctors, lawyers, or company executives were encouraged to “make mistakes” on a regular basis. (They do make mistakes of course. They just can’t admit them, let alone be open about them.) (more…)
“[Michael Marcus] also taught me one other thing that is absolutely critical: You have to be willing to make mistakes regularly; there is nothing wrong with it. [He] taught me about making your best judgment, being wrong, making your next best judgment, being wrong, making your third best judgment, and then doubling your money.”
– Bruce Kovner, Market Wizards
Bruce Kovner, now retired, is one of the all-time trading greats.
His observation is strikingly similar to the Soros observation (paraphrase): “It doesn’t matter how often you are right or wrong — what matters is how much you make when you are right, versus how much you lose when you are wrong.”
In many ways trading is remarkably different from any other profession. Imagine if doctors, lawyers, or company executives were encouraged to “make mistakes” on a regular basis. (They do make mistakes of course. They just can’t admit them, let alone be open about them.) (more…)
So far the Apprenticed Investor series has discussed a lot of don’ts. Don’t do this, don’t do that; avoid talking to these kinds of traders; don’t say or think these kinds of things.
Well, it’s time to shift gears, and since trading is an active enterprise, I’ll discuss some things you should do. I plan to expand on these ideas significantly in future episodes.
Taken together, the following 10 rules will not only help you with the philosophical grounding necessary for thoughtful — and successful — investing, they will help you avoid some of the more common mistakes made by investors and traders early in their careers.
This is the “Zen of Trading;” It is more than an overview — it’s an investment philosophy that can help you develop an investing framework of your own.
1. Have a Comprehensive Plan: Whether you are an investor or active trader, you must have a plan. Too many investors have no strategy at all — they merely react to each twitch of the market on the fly. If you fail to plan, goes the saying, then you plan to fail.
Consider how Roger Clemens approaches a game. He studies his opponent, constructs his game plan and goes to work.
Investors should write up a business plan, as if they were asking a Venture Capitalist for start-up money; just because you are the angel investor doesn’t mean you should skip the planning stages.
2. Expect to Be Wrong: We’ve discussed this previously, but it is such a key aspect of successful investing that it bears repeating. You will be wrong, you will be wrong often and, occasionally, you will be spectacularly wrong.
Michael Jordan has a fabulous perspective on the subject: “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
Jordan was the greatest ball player of all time, and not only because of his superb physical skills: He understood the nature and importance of failure, and placed it appropriately within a larger framework of the game.
The best investors have no ego tied up in a trade. Those who refuse to recognize the simple truism of “being wrong often” end up giving away unacceptable amounts of capital. Stubborn pride and lack of risk management allow egotists to stay in stocks down 30%, 40% or 50% — or worse.
3. Predetermine Stops Before Opening Any Position: Sign a “prenuptial agreement” with every stock you participate in: When it hits some point you have determined before you purchased it, that’s it, you’re out, end of story. Once you have come to understand that you will be frequently wrong, it becomes much easier to use stop-losses and sell targets.
This is true regardless of your methodology: It may be below support or beneath a moving average, or perhaps you prefer a specific percentage amount. Some people use the prior month’s low. But whatever your stop-loss method is, stick to it religiously. Why? The prenup means you are making the exit decision before you are in a trade — while you are still neutral and objective.
4. Follow Discipline Religiously: The greatest rules in the world are worthless if you do not have the personal discipline to see them through. I can recall every single time I broke a trading rule of my own, and it invariably cost me money.
RealMoney’s Chartman, Gary B. Smith, slavishly follows his discipline, and he notes that every time some hedge fund — chock full of Nobel Laureates and Ivy League whiz kids — blows up, the mea culpa is the same: If only we hadn’t overrode the system.
In Jack Schwager’s seminal book Market Wizards, the single most important theme repeated by each of the wizards was the importance of discipline.
5. Keep Your Emotion In Check: Emotion is the enemy of investors, and that’s why you must have a methodology that relies on objective data points, and not gut instinct. The purpose of Rules 1, 2 and 3 is to eliminate the impact of the natural human response to stress — fear and panic — and to avoid the flip side of the coin — greed.
Remember, we, as a species, were never “hard-wired” for the capital markets. Our instinctive “fight or flight response” did not evolve to deal with crossing moving averages or CEOs resigning or restated earnings.
This evolutionary emotional baggage is why we want to sell at the bottom and chase stocks at the top. The money-making trade — buying when there’s blood in the streets, and selling when everyone else is clamoring to buy — goes against every instinct you have. It requires a detached objectivity simply not possible when trading on emotion.
6. Take Responsibility: Many folks believe “the game is fixed.” To them, I say: get over it. Stop whining and take the proper responsibility for your trades, your losses and yourself.
Your knowledge of the game-rigging gives you an edge. So use your hard-won knowledge to make money.
We have a national culture of blame-passing, and it infected investing long ago. Enron did not cause your losses, and neither did stock-touting analysts, or talking heads on CNBC. You did, and the sooner you accept this, the better off you will be.
A Chinese proverb is particularly insightful as applied to trading: “He who blames others has a long way to go on his journey. He who blames himself is halfway there. He who blames no one has arrived.”
7. Constantly Improve: Investing is so competitive that you cannot afford to stand still. Investors should constantly seek to raise their skill level by learning as much as possible about the markets, the economy, trading technologies and various schools of investing thought. But whatever you read, you must do so with a keenly skeptical eye, while retaining an open mind (‘taint easy to do).
One way to constantly improve is to find something for which you have a peculiar natural proclivity for and develop that gift. It may be moving averages, or position sizing, or MACD, or Bollinger Bands or the Arms index. Perhaps you have an expertise in some aspect of technology, or a particular sector.
This is essential because a developed expertise yields ancillary benefits. It bleeds over into everything else, with net positive results. The specific area of expertise you own does not matter as much as having one. Those of you who have been trading for a while will know exactly what I am referring to.
8. Change Is Constant: Heraclitus was a Greek philosopher best known for his “Doctrine of Flux”: “The only constant is change.”
That doctrine is especially true in the markets. Therefore, as you constantly upgrade your skills, you must remain supple enough to adapt to an ever-changing field of play.
Human nature — especially in herds — is unchanging. But these behaviors must be contemplated within their larger context. Add a new element — PCs, lower trading costs, the Internet, vast amounts of cheap data, even CNBC — and you introduce a new factor that impacts all the players on the field.
As conditions change, you must decipher how they impact your strategy, your emotions and your trading — and adjust accordingly.
9. Learn to Short/Hedge Stocks: Short is not a four-letter word. Successful traders learn to play both sides of the fence. That’s less controversial today than it was as the market was first falling apart, but it is no less true.
When a particular strategy isn’t working, the market is telling you something. Thoughtful traders must consider whether there are bigger issues than their own trading mechanics when they enter a losing streak.
In Law School, students learn they have to be ready to argue either side of a case. You never truly knew a case until you could argue both for and against it. Only when you were able to see its warts could you truly appreciate the beauty.
The trading corollary is that you should never own a stock unless you know what makes it an attractive short. Each buy and sell decision should be an argument pro and con.
The market is cyclical; count on a bear market every four years or so. Unless you plan on sitting out for 18 to 24 months once or twice each decade — as much as four years out of 10 — you better learn to either short stocks or hedge long positions.
10. Understand Sector Strength and Market Trend: This rule generates the most “pushback” of any on the list, because it’s so counter-intuitive: Stock selection matters less than you think.
Studies have convincingly demonstrated that about 30% of a stock’s progress is determined by the company itself; a stock’s sector is equal to at least another 30% (if not more). The overall direction of the market is an even bigger factor, counting for some 40%.
If you own the best company in the wrong sector, or buy the greatest stock when the broader market is going the other way — both positions are likely to be losers. But if you see a strong sector, the market trend will help out even the weakest stock in the bunch.
So that’s the 10 rules I call the “Zen of Trading.”
Investing skills are worthless without a broader framework in which to practice them. The above rules will provide you with that frame of reference. They were as true 100 years ago as they will be true 100 years from now. Those who develop a plan and an investment philosophy are on the path to achieving trading success.
Last night in London, Jim Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings, was interviewed by CNBC after US Fed announced its decision of leaving the rates alone.
Rogers is very critical to the Fed whose solution to the crisis has been “printing money”, a strategy that he does not see sustainable, “there will be no trees left” if the Fed keep on printing money. Rogers’s contempt to the US Fed is obvious, to a point that he stated that he isn’t paying attention to them at all. He thinks investors are better served to read and think and come up with their our opinions. “Sometimes I got it wrong, sometimes Igot it right” he said.
Commenting on the US Housing market, Rogers thinks that the market will stay low for many years to come to work out the inventories.
I found his answer to the recession question evasive at the best, for the CNBC anchor was looking for a “Yes” or “No” for an imminent double-dip recession. “We’re going to have another recession, I guarantee you… By 2012 say, it’s time for another recession.” – anybody could have said that, for recession comes and goes.
But, “The next time it’s going to be worse because we’ve shot all of our bullets,” he warned us. Rogers has been advocating investing in commodities.
Does boredom cause you to do silly things? If so, you’re certainly not alone.
More and more I see traders make simple mistakes primarily because they are bored with what they are doing NOT because they don’t know what they’re doing.
Contrary to popular opinion, traders and investors often do get bored. I know I certainly have. After all, if you’re doing it correctly, good trading and investing should be both boring and routine. If that’s not the case for you, it probably is because you’re either trading far too aggressively (i.e. the gambler) and/or you have no risk management skills whatsoever.
In my experience, most humans and including those of us who are very disciplined and focused, will from time to time seriously crave to change things up a little. No one, including me, likes to do exactly what they need and should do every day. Most of you are no different than me. The problem is that when we both get bored, very bad things tend to happen if we don’t first realize that our trading and investing is being negatively impacted by boredom and do something about it.
For example, in my experience traders tend to either disconnect from the market entirely (which can be dangerous with positions open or lost opportunity) or they do the exact opposite by increasing their overall risk to “make it more interesting.” Likewise, investors tend to become far more active (i.e. they turn into traders and churn positions) just to do something to keep themselves preoccupied or they buy and sell stocks that normally they wouldn’t even consider. In either case, neither one tends to work very well.
When you start to see the signs that you are becoming bored and have the urge to do something “different,” I recommend mixing things up a little. For example, when I become bored with my trading and daily routine I often do the following which seems to help:
Head to the gym (intense and exhausting exercise is the best cure for boredom I know)
Mix up the daily routine (I like to flip my day around and do things I usually do at the end of the day first)
Try to learn something new (I often try to study a different sector/different market now, but in previous years I would enjoy playing around with a new indicator or two)
Read about something you know nothing about (if you do this, you’ll be amazed by how much it will stimulate your brain)
Take some time off and do something else (while I always have a long “honey-do” list to keep me busy, that’s also why there are golf courses!)
Now, for those of you who make a living trading and who feel they cannot leave the game for an hour, much less an entire trading day, I have some suggestions for you as well: (more…)
