Archives of “speculator” tag

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Confusion and Frustration for Traders

  
  Education
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Maslow one commented that, when all you have is a hammer, you tend to treat everything as a nail. So it is with psychologists that involve themselves in markets. Lacking an understanding of actual speculative strategies and tactics–not to mention portfolio construction–they reduce performance problems to the lowest, psychological denominator. In so doing, they confuse cause and effect: they observe frustrated traders and assume that relieving frustration is the key to making money.

The professional speculator, unlike the retail daytrader, rarely falls into performance problems because of derelict discipline or runaway emotions. Rather, it is the very competence of the professional that leads to performance challenges. *It is when pros are most in sync with markets, identifying and profiting from themes and patterns, that they are most vulnerable to ever-changing patterns of direction, volatility, and correlation*. The confidence that permits healthy risk-taking under the best of speculative conditions inevitably gives way to confusion and frustration when skilled participants are no longer in sync with their markets. (more…)

Quotes on Psychology

  
  Education
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The most important single factor in shaping security markets is public psychology. – Gerald Loeb

Wall Street never changes. The pockets change, the suckers change, the stocks change, but Wall Street never changes because human nature never changes. – Jesse Livermore

There is nothing more important than your emotional balance. – Jesse Livermore

There are styles in securities as there are in clothes. A security may be undervalued, but if it is also out of style it is of little interest to the speculator. He is, therefore, compelled to study the psychology of the stock market as well as the elements of real value. – Phil Carret

When events have thinking participants, the subject matter is no longer confined to facts but also includes the participants’ perceptions.  The chain of causation does not lead directly from fact to fact but from fact to perception and from perception to fact. – George Soros

Jesse Livermore’s Money Management Rules

  
  Education
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If you haven’t read this book “Reminiscences of a Stock Operator” written in 1923, read it! It is purpordetly the unofficial biography of one of the greates traders ever; Jesse Livermore.  The rules Jesse followed back at the turn of the last century are still very much applicable today.

1) Don’t lose money. Don’t lose your stake. A speculator without cash is like a store-owner with no inventory. Cash is your inventory, your lifeline, and your best friend. Without cash, you are out of business. Don’t lose your line. There is no place in speculating for hoping, for guessing, for fear, for greed, for emotions. The tape tells the truth.

2) Always establish a stop. A successful speculator must set a firm stop before making a trade and must never sustain a loss of more than 10 percent of invested capital. I have also learned that when your broker calls you and tells you he needs more money for a margin requirement on a stock that is declining; tell him to sell out the position. When you buy a stock at 50 and it goes to 45, do not buy more in order to average out your price. The stock has not done what you predicted; that is enough of an indication that your judgment was wrong. Take sour losses quickly and get out. Remember, never meet a margin call, and never average losses. Many times I would close out a position before suffering a 10 percent loss. I did this simply because the stock was not acting right from the start. Often my instincts would whisper to me: “J.L., this stock has a malaise, it is a lagging dullard. It just does not feel right,” and I would sell out of my position in the blink of an eye. I absolutely believe that price movement patterns are repeated and appear over and over with slight variations. This is because humans drive the stocks, and human nature never changes. Take your losses quickly. Easy to say, but hard to do. (more…)

Hope Quotes for Traders

  
  Education
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hope-trader“The speculator’s chief enemies are always boring from within. It is inseparable from human nature to hope and to fear… The successful trader has to fight these two deep-seated instincts. He has to reverse what you might call his natural impulses. Instead of hoping he must fear; instead of fearing he must hope. He must fear that his loss may develop into a much bigger loss, and hope that his profit may become a big profit.”

– Reminiscences of a Stock Operator 

“Hope is not a strategy.”

– Rigo Durazo

“There is no worse course in leadership than to hold out false hopes soon to be swept away.”

– Winston Churchill

“It is not enough to rely on luck or hope to carry us past the weak parts of our game. These parts must be attended to. The system must be whole and complete.”

– Zen and the Art of Poker (more…)

Ignorance, Greed, Fear and Hope

  
  Education
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Ignorance, Greed, Fear and Hope

In the book “Reminiscences of a Stock Operator,” Edwin Lefevre writes: 
“The speculator’s deadly enemies are: Ignorance, Greed, Fear and Hope.“

In today’s commentary we will take a look at “Hope” and see why it is one of the four deadly enemies of successful market timing. 
Each of us has a desire for success. That is why we use market timing in our investing. Not only to increase our gains in both bull and bear markets, but importantly to protect our capital against loss. 
But that same desire for success can stand in the way of our ability to recognize reality, even if it is right before our eyes. All of us have a survival instinct that typically causes us to focus on good news. Bad news is avoided, or at least put on the back burner. 
When we take a position in the market, whether bullish or bearish, we hope it will be successful. Hope can be such a powerful emotion, that when the same trading plan that told us to enter a position originally, reverses and tells us to exit immediately, our emotions may very well focus on the possibility that if we just hold on a bit longer, any loss may be erased.  (more…)

Least Resistance

  
  Education
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A man ought not to be led into trading by tokens. He should wait until the tape tells him that the time is ripe. As a matter of fact, millions upon millions of dollars have been lost by men who bought stocks because they looked cheap or sold them because they looked dear. The speculator is not an investor. His object is not to secure a steady return on his money at a good rate of interest, but to profit by either a rise or a fall in the price of whatever he may be speculating in. Therefore the thing to determine is the speculative line of least resistance at the moment of trading; and what he should wait for is the moment when that line defines itself, because that is his signal to get busy. ——-REMINISCENCES OF A STOCK OPERATOR by Edwin LeFevre

The Difference Between a Speculator and a Gambler

  
Analysis, Education
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A speculator strives to be professional, honorable, intellectual, serious, analytical, calm, selective and focused.
Whereas the gambler is corrupt, distracted, moody, impulsive, excitable, desperate and superstitious.
It’s not the market that defines whether a participant is a Gambler or a Speculator, it’s his behavior.
 

Gambling vs. Trading

  
  Education
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“Gambling is taking a risk when the odds are against you.  Speculating is taking a risk when the odds are in your favor.”  Victor Sperandeo

“the only difference between gambling and trading is that your amount at risk and amount of potential reward varies with trading.”  I agree, but there’s more to it.  The parallels are obvious, from the lack of control over outcome to the illusion of knowledge to the physiological effects of having a stake in the outcome.  However, the differences are substantial…and mostly mathematical.

The expectancy in gambling is ALWAYS terrible, while market speculation at times offers outstanding opportunities.  To get a 2:1 or 3:1 opportunity in gambling, one needs to accept incredibly low odds of victory.  In financial markets, those 2:1 or above opportunities come around like clockwork and offer high enough probability that long-term positive expectancy is possible.  Not only that, but the market speculator has the opportunity to adjust his or her position after the game begins…when was the last horse race where you could take a little off the table after the first turn?  Or reclaim most of your bet when your horse stumbles out of the gate?

I’ll leave the neuroscience to the experts, but it seems to me that we need to coordinate our left brain(rational) and right brain(experiential) in laying out the role of each.  We want to allow our intuition to shine through, but within the overall structure of positive expectancy.  No matter how hard one tries, the math of gambling can’t come close to touching the opportunities for building a business out of the markets.

Trader Vic’s Principles of Trading

  
  Education
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It’s a helpful book to return to when market conditions get tough. A great place to start is Vic’s “business philosophy,” as encapsulated in three rules:

1. Preservation of Capital

2. Consistent Profitability

3. Superior Returns

Below is Sperandeo in his own words:

Preservation of Capital

Preservation of capital is the cornerstone of my business philosophy. This means that, in considering any potential market involvement, risk is my prime concern. Before asking, “What personal profit can I realize?”, I first ask, “What potential loss can I suffer?” (more…)

10 Insights from Benjamin Graham

  
  Education
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Benjamin Graham doesn’t need an introduction. His sober look at the stock market has built an enormous following and for a good reason.

1. “If you are shopping for common stocks, choose them the way you would buy groceries, not the way you would buy perfume.”   –  It is true that perfumes come and go out of popularity, but no trend lasts forever. There are trends that last 3 months; there are trends that last 3 years.

2. “Obvious prospects for physical growth in a business do not translate into obvious profits for investors.” – it depends on to what level has the expected growth been already discounted. The truth is that it is really hard to forecast growth in quickly developing businesses. The market always overdiscounts at some point, but in the meantime trend followers could make a killing. You never know how long or how fast a trend could go.

3. The only constants in the markets are change and uncertainty. Not only business environment changes, but also people’s perceptions of stocks change.

Most businesses change in character and quality over the years, sometimes for the better, perhaps more often for the worse. The investor need not watch his companies’ performance like a hawk; but he should give it a good, hard look from time to time.

4. Different catalysts matter for the different time frames:

Basically, price fluctuations have only one significant meaning for the true investor. They provide him with an opportunity to buy wisely when prices fall sharply and to sell wisely when they advance a great deal. At other times he will do better if he forgets about the stock market and pays attention to his dividend returns and to the operating results of his companies.

5. The difference between a trader and investor

The most realistic distinction between the investor and the speculator is found in their attitude toward stock-market movements. The speculator’s primary interest lies in anticipating and profiting from market fluctuations. The investor’s primary interest lies in acquiring and holding suitable securities at suitable prices. Market movements are important to him in a practical sense, because they alternately create low price levels at which he would be wise to buy and high price levels at which he certainly should refrain from buying and probably would be wise to sell.

6. How to think about risk (more…)

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