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Twelve of The Biggest Trading Losses in History

  
  Education
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LOSS-LOSSIf you are ever feeling down about your trading losses or feeling sorry form Ackman’s current disaster trades long J.C. Penney and short Herbalife then this article may put both of these losses into perspective. These losses really show how crucial it is to have a price level that will indicate that you were wrong and will need to stop out at. There is no reason to ever take a huge loss to your trading capital, position sizing, stop losses, and managing the risk of ruin is the first job of a trader, growing capital comes second.

“Two basic rules: (1) if you don’t bet, you can’t win. (2) If you lose all your chips, you can’t bet.” -Larry Hite

Here are 12 of the biggest trading losses of all time, heed the lessons of these tragedies and realize the traders on the other sides of these trades made a huge amount of money,

#12 German billionaire Adolf Merckle, one of the 100 richest people in the world, killed himself by jumping in front of a train—emotionally “broken” over a bad bet on Volkswagen in 2008.

Merckle’s business interests came out on the wrong side of 2008′s short squeeze of Volkswagen. Rival Porsche silently cornered the market on Volkswagen shares, and when they revealed the extent of their stake, the price of Volkswagen stock shot up to levels that made it briefly the world’s most valuable corporation. Many hedge funds who had bet against Volkswagen shares lost huge amounts of money, while Porsche made billions in profit. (more…)

Larry Hite on Risk

  
  Education
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LarryHiteSome wise views from Larry Hite:

“We don’t really trade silver…we don’t trade the S&P…we trade the differences. We really are risk managers. We take on risks, try to exploit them and we leave when they turn against us. That is what we get paid for. Basically we are in the risk transfer business. We take on what people want to sell, sell what people want to buy and hope to make a profit. The reason why one goes to a portfolio is because there are real limits to perfect knowledge. I’ll give you an example. Say you knew which commodity, stock or currency would appreciate the most in the following year, and you knew exactly what its price would be. We did this experiment looking backwards in fact in our database. The question of when you take a position is how are you going to trade the line…how much of a position are you going to leverage. Now, if you have perfect knowledge, would you leverage 5 to 1, would you leverage 10 to 1, 2 to 1? Well it turns out that if you leverage more than 3 to 1 that you are a loser. Because we found that if you did 3 to 1 you would have, even with perfect knowledge, you could go down a third. So that, the only perfect knowledge you could have, would be if you knew every wiggle on the line. Then you would know exactly how much to leverage. But you don’t.”

Larry Hite-Trend Following Legend Who Respects the Risks

  
  Education
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Larry Hite was featured in Market Wizards. Market Wizards is a must read for all trend followers. On one level you will learn various trading tips however on the other hand, do not be think that your trading will be so easy. Trend following as easy as it is, is very difficult.

Try to internalize some of Larry Hite’s trading tips for trend followers:

I have noticed that everyone who has ever told me that the markets are efficient is poor.

People develop systems and people will make mistakes. Some will alter their system or jump from system to system as each one has a losing period. Others will be unable to resist second-guessing the trading signals. People don’t change.

The very first rule we live by at Mint is: Never risk more than 1% of total equity on any trade. Secondly, we always follow the trends and we never deviate from our methods. In fact, we have a written agreement that none of us can ever countermand our system. Thirdly, diversify in two ways. A. we trade more markets worldwide than any other money manager. B. we use lots of different systems ranging from short term to long term.

Over-rated indicators: Overbought/oversold indicators.

Two basic rules: (1) if you don’t bet, you can’t win. (2) If you lose all your chips, you can’t bet.

Never trade counter to the market trend.

2 Trading Quotes

  
  Education
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“You can give anyone the best tools in the world and if they don’t use them with good money management, they will not make money in the markets. We’re convinced that a person could make a profit simply by buying and selling the markets according to the dart board if they followed all the right things as far as money management is concerned.”

— Welles Wilder

“Throughout my trading career, I have continually witnessed examples of other people that I have known being ruined by a failure to respect risk. If you don’t take a hard look at risk, it will take you.”

— Larry Hite

Quotes from Larry Hite – Trend Following Legend

  
  Education
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Larry Hite is a famous Trend follower. Lawrence Hite co-founded Mint Investments in 1981. By 1990, Mint had become the largest Commodity Trading Advisor in the world in terms of assets under management.

I suggest strongly you enter the ideas below into your trading psyche.

No matter what information you have, no matter what you are doing, you can be wrong.

One of the great things about the market is, the markets don’t care about you. The market doesn’t care what color you are. The markets don’t care if you are short or tall. They don’t care about anything. They don’t care whether you leave or stay.

The beautiful thing about the markets, they don’t like you, they don’t dislike you, they just don’t care. They are there everyday. You want to play, you can play. You don’t want to play, don’t play.

We approach markets backwards. The first thing we ask is not what can we make, but how much can we lose. We play a defensive game.

There are just four kinds of bets. There are good bets, bad bets, bets that you win, and bets that you lose. Winning a bad bet can be the most dangerous outcome of all, because a success of that kind can encourage you to take more bad bets in the future, when the odds will be running against you. You can also lose a good bet, no matter how sound the underlying proposition, but if you keep placing good bets, over time, the law of averages will be working for you.

Insightful quotes from Trading legend, Larry Hite

  
  Education
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No matter what information you have, no matter what you are doing, you can be wrong.

One of the great things about the market is, the markets don’t care about you. The market doesn’t care what color you are. The markets don’t care if you are short or tall. They don’t care about anything. They don’t care whether you leave or stay. 

… the beautiful thing about the markets, they don’t like you, they don’t dislike you, they just don’t care. They are there everyday. You want to play, you can play. You don’t want to play, don’t play.

We approach markets backwards. The first thing we ask is not what can we make, but how much can we lose. We play a defensive game.

There are just four kinds of bets. There are good bets, bad bets, bets that you win, and bets that you lose. Winning a bad bet can be the most dangerous outcome of all, because a success of that kind can encourage you to take more bad bets in the future, when the odds will be running against you. You can also lose a good bet, no matter how sound the underlying proposition, but if you keep placing good bets, over time, the law of averages will be working for you.

Importance of money management

  
  Education
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In Jack Schwager’s book Market Wizards, Schwager interviewed some of the world’s top traders and investors, nearly all of whom emphasised the importance of money management. Here are a few of my favourite excerpts:

‘Risk management is the most important thing to be well understood. Undertrade, undertrade, undertrade is my second piece of advice.Whatever you think your position ought to be, cut it at least in half. ’-Bruce Kovner

‘Never risk more than 1% of your total equity in any one trade. By risking 1%, I am indifferent to any individual trade. Keeping your risk small and constant is absolutely critical.’ –Larry Hite

‘You have to minimize your losses and try to preserve capital for those very few instances where you can make a lot in a very short period of time. What you can’t afford to do is throw away your capital on suboptimal trades.’ –Richard Dennis

Larry Hite Insights and Wisdom

  
  Education
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Larry Hite, who was profiled in Jack Schwager’s Market Wizards’ series, spoke recently to a group of students. An excerpt:

I believe I had to get into this business because it was simple. There are just a few questions you got to ask yourself. It’s like a checklist that you have to go through. I’m going to go through those questions, discuss them with you, and they can save you a lot of grief. I don’t know that they will make you a lot of money, but mostly they do. I mean, making money in the markets is more simple than it’s not. The trouble is that sometimes you get in the way, or if you’re working for a firm, they get in the way, because there are a lot of social implications. First I’m going to tell you a little about math. I have a guy that works for me, [who] graduated from Wharton, magna cum laude, and we were sitting around one day and we were, I don’t remember what we were doing but we had to figure out the compounded rates of return, and instead of using a calculator we were just looking at the numbers and doing it in our heads. He was young and just out of college, and he kind of felt puffed up about it. You know, it made us feel smart, which is a rare feeling for me. Then I said to him, “You know Michael, the problem with this is anybody can do this with six dollar calculator. You don’t have to be a phi beta kappa. Anybody can do this.”Larry Hite

Later he continued:

One of the great things about the market is, the markets don’t care about you. The market doesn’t care what color you are. The markets don’t care if you are short or tall. They don’t care about anything. They don’t care whether you leave or stay…I met the guy who wrote this best seller now called, Bringing Down the House, it’s about these MIT guys who beat the blackjack tables. And part of the problem, if you’re going to be a blackjack counter is that the casinos don’t like you. They actively don’t like you. And they come and tell you in rather strong things to take your business away. Well, the beautiful thing about the markets, they don’t like you, they don’t dislike you, they just don’t care. They are there everyday. You want to play, you can play. You don’t want to play, don’t play. And you can choose. You sit, there is no penalty. You know, when you stand you know…I don’t know how many of you play baseball…when your at bat if something comes through the strike[zone], if you don’t swing you still get a strike against you. But the markets are a no penalty game. You can stand there and wait. You can go home and wait. It doesn’t matter. And that’s really a terrific thing.Larry Hite

Many people lose sight of the main goal of trading the markets. Instead of worrying about making money, they worry about how much they are trading. Keep Hite’s words close, and don’t forget the main goal.

Trading Wisdom – Larry Hite

  
  Education
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Larry Hite – Turned a $2 million managed account into $800 million in 8 years.
LarryHite

Throughout my financial career, I have continually witnessed examples of other people that I have known being ruined by a failure to respect risk. If you don’t take a hard look at risk, it will take you. If you argue with the market, you will lose. It is incredible how rich you can get by not being perfect. Never risk more than 1% of your total equity in any one trade. By risking 1%, I am indifferent to any individual trade. Keeping your risk small and constant is absolutely critical. I have two basic rules about winning in trading as well as in life:

  1. If you don’t bet, you can’t win. 
  2. If you lose all your chips, you can’t bet. Frankly, I don’t see markets. I see risks, rewards, and money.

 

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