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If Trading is War, Is All Fair?

An article in today’s New York Times focuses on high-frequency traders and the efforts that they are making to avoid regulations that may limit their growing power in the markets.

According to the article, “Critics say traders with access to the fastest machines win at the expense of ordinary investors by seizing on the best deals and turning fast profits before other traders.”

Many attribute last May’s “Flash Crash” to high-frequency trading, although according the article, “Regulators did not blame high-frequency traders for causing the sell-off.”

High-frequency trading firms defend that the technology they utilize to build their business is part of “stock-exchange modernization” and helping to create “a level playing field.”

How do you feel about high-frequency trading? Has its rise affected your own trading? How have you had to change the way you trade to remain competitive?

As one of the comments on the article suggested, would it be foolish to think an average trader can beat an automatic trading professional?

Bill Gross' Advice To Traders As Stocks Crash- Stay out of the bathroom

In a time when the S&P fluctuates with unprecedented velocity and investors need HFT-like reflexes to catch any momentum move, this may be the most practical advice to traders we have heard today.

In an email to Bloomberg, the former (and currently in contention for the title with Jeff Gundlach) bond king Bill Gross says to “stay out of the bathroom” as stock markets enter bear territory.

For those who ate Chipotle.coli for lunch, our condolences.

“Markets are recognizing the limited tools they now have to prop up assets AND real economies,” Gross, who manages the $1.3 billion Janus Global Unconstrained Bond Fund, said in an e-mail.
Stocks fell around the world today, with U.S. equities trading at the lowest levels since August as oil plunged below $30 a barrel. Treasuries gained as U.S. economic data did little to ease concerns that global growth is slowing.


 
“Wealth effect constructed with paper – sometimes corrugated/strong, sometimes toilet/flimsy,” Gross said in a Tweet on Friday from the Janus Capital Group Inc. account. “Stay out of the bathroom.”
Gross warned in December that markets were headed for a fall and urged urged investors to de-risk their portfolios or “look around like Wile E. Coyote wondering how far is down,” a reference to the cartoon character whose schemes to catch the bird Road Runner always backfire, often with a plunge over a cliff.
In his e-mail, Gross said that zero-percent interest rates and quantitative easing created leverage that fueled a wealth effect and propped up markets in a way that now seems unsustainable.

His conclusion: “The wealth effect is created by leverage based on QE’s and 0% rates.”

In other words, it was all an illusion.

JPM Develops A.I. Robot To Execute High Speed Trades, Put Humans Out Of Work

With high-margin FICC revenues stuck in a secular decline across the financial industry, banks are forced to extract as much profit as possible from existing product lines. Which explains why JPMorgan will soon be using a “first-of-its-kind robot” to do away with carbon-based traders altogether and execute trades across its global equities algorithms business using a “robot”, after a recent trial of JPM’s new artificial intelligence (AI) program showed it was “much more efficient than traditional methods of buying and selling“, the FT reports.

JPMorgan, the world’s biggest bank by revenue, believes it is the first on Wall Street to use AI with trade execution and said it would take rivals 18 to 24 months and an investment of “multiple millions” to come up with similar technology.

 The AI — known internally as LOXM — has been used in the bank’s European equities algorithms business since the first quarter and will be launched across Asia and the US in the fourth quarter, Daniel Ciment, JPMorgan’s head of global equities electronic trading, told the Financial Times.

In the latest victory for robot kind over humans, LOXM’s job will be to execute client orders with maximum speed at the best price, “using lessons it has learnt from billions of past trades — both real and simulated — to tackle problems such as how best to offload big equity stakes without moving market prices.” (more…)

Learn from Jesse Livermore's personal life than from his trading techniques :Jesse Livermore Boy Plunger

1929-crash

Jesse Livermore, the so called “Boy Plunger” and probably the greatest Wall Street Trader who ever lived, died $340,000 in debt.

Many look at his life to learn the secrets of his often extraordinary trading success. A better track for financial prosperity is to study and learn from mistakes he committed in his personal life.

The clues for true riches can be found there. The lessons from his personal failures are exponentially more important for modern investors than his exploits in the commodities and stock markets.

During the Stock Market Crash of 1929, Jesse Livermore made $100 million dollars betting that the stock market would plummet in spectacular fashion.

When he arrived home after another appalling day of market bloodletting in October of 1929, both his wife and mother-in-law met him at the door in tears. (more…)

Advice and money making system

This advice from Henry Clews is all you will need to make money.

But few gain sufficient experience in Wall Street to com-
mand success until they reach that period of life in which
they have one foot in the grave. When this time comes
these old veterans of the Street usually spend long intervals
of repose at their comfortable homes, and in times of panic,
which recur sometimes oftener than once a year, these old
fellows will be seen in Wall Street, hobbling down on their
canes to their brokers’ offices.

Then they always buy good stocks to the extent of their
bank balances, which have been permitted to accumulate for
just such an emergency. The panic usually rages until
enough of these cash purchases of stock is made to afford
a big “rake in.” When the panic has spent its force, these
old fellows, who have been resting judiciously on their oars
in expectation of the inevitable event, which usually returns
with the regularity of the seasons, quickly realize, deposit
their profits with their bankers, or the overplus thereof,
after purchasing more real estate that is oa the up grade,
for permanent investment, and retire for another season to
the quietude of their splendid homes and the bosoms of their
happy families.

What follows is very important in so many ways.

If young men had only the patience to watch the specu-
lative signs. of the times, as manifested in the periodical
egress of these old prophetic speculators from their shells
of security, they would make more money at these intervals
than by following up the slippery ” tips ” of the professional
“pointers” of the Stock Exchange all the year round, and
they would feel no necessity for hanging at the coat tails,
around the hotels, of those specious frauds, who pretend to
be deep in the councils of the big operators and of all the
new ” pools ” in process of formation. I say to the young
speculators, therefore, watch the ominous visits to the Street
of these old men. They are as certain to be seen on the eve
of a panic as spiders creeping stealthily and noiselessly
from their cobwebs just before rain. If you only wait to
see them purchase, then put up a fair margin for yourselves,
keep out of the u bucket shops “as well [as the “sample
rooms,” and only visit Delmonico’s for light lunch in busi-
ness hours, you can hardly fail to realize handsome profits
on your ventures.

Great stuff,indeed, written over a hundred plus years ago.

Are You Doing These 7 Mistakes ?

*  You’re a momentum trader and you’re trading a slow, low volatility market;
*  You’re a trend trader and you’re trading a choppy, range market;
*  You’re a research-oriented big picture trader and you’re getting caught up in short-term price action;
*  You’re a skilled short-term trader and you’re locked in a longer-term directional market view;
*  You’re a contrarian fader and you’re getting run over in high volume directional flows;
*  You’re an independent thinker, but you’re distracted and influenced by the views of others;
*  You’re a trader who reads others well at the table, but you’re isolated from other traders;
A great way to lose money is to not understand yourself and how you’re wired cognitively.  If you’re a deep thinker, you’ll lose money sitting at the trading table.  If you’re a fast thinker, you’ll lose money dabbling with investment theses.  The route to success is to be who you are when you’re functioning at your best.  Working on improving your discipline, controlling your emotions, and following your process is not helpful if you’re sitting at the wrong table to begin with.

10 worst performing stock markets in 2014

10. Malaysia – Bursa Malaysia stock exchange

Loss in 2014: -10pc

How to access this market: The best route to this stock market is via the iShares MSCI Malaysia ETF, which tracks the up and down movements of shares listed in Malaysia. 

9. Mexico – Bolsa Mexicana de Valores SAB de CV stock exchange

Loss in 2014: -12pc

How to access this market: One option is to buy a fund that has a significant chunk of its money in Mexican shares, such as the Blackrock Latin American Investment trust, which has around 30pc of its money in the country. Alternatively there is SPDR MSCI Mexico Quality Mix ETF and the iShares MSCI Mexico Capped ETF. 

8. Brazil – Bovespa stock exchange (more…)

40 Great Quotes from Ed Seykota

  1. “If I am bullish, I neither buy on a reaction, nor wait for strength; I am already in. I turn bullish at the instant my buy stop is hit, and stay bullish until my sell stop is hit. Being bullish and not being long is illogical.”
  2. “Fundamentalists figure things out and anticipate change. Trend followers join the trend of the moment. Fundamentalists try to solve their feelings. Trend followers join their feelings and observe them evolve and dis-solve.”
  3. “The feelings we accept and enjoy rarely interfere with trading.”
  4. “Systems don’t need to be changed. The trick is for a trader to develop a system with which he is compatible”
  5. “It can be very expensive to try to convince the markets you are right.”
  6. “There are old traders and there are bold traders, but there are very few old, bold traders.”
  7. “I would add that I consider myself and how I do things as a kind of system which, by definition, I always follow.”
  8. “Systems trading is ultimately discretionary. The manager still has to decide how much risk to accept, which markets to play, and how aggressively to increase and decrease the trading base as a function of equity change.”
  9. “Trying to trade during a losing streak is emotionally devastating. Trying to play “catch up” is lethal.”
  10. “The elements of good trading are: 1, cutting losses. 2, cutting losses. And 3, cutting losses. If you can follow these three rules, you may have a chance.”
  11. “Losing a position is aggravating, whereas losing your nerve is devastating.”
  12. “The markets are the same now as they were five to ten years ago because they keep changing – just like they did then.”
  13. “Luck plays an enormous role in trading success. Some people were lucky enough to be born smart, while others were even smarter and got born lucky.”
  14. “Having a quote machine is like having a slot machine at your desk – you end up feeding it all day long. I get my price data after the close each day.”
  15. “A losing trader can do little to transform himself into a winning trader. A losing trader is not going to want to transform himself. That’s the kind of thing winning traders do.”
  16. “If you can’t take a small loss, sooner or later you will take the mother of all losses.”
  17. “It is a happy circumstance that when nature gives us true burning desires, she also gives us the means to satisfy them. Those who want to win and lack skill can get someone with skill to help them.”
  18. “Risk no more that you can afford to lose, and also risk enough so that a win is meaningful.”
  19. “Dramatic and emotional trading experiences tend to be negative. Pride is a great banana peel, as are hope, fear, and greed. My biggest slip-ups occurred shortly after I got emotionally involved with positions.”
  20. “Be sensitive to subtle differences between ‘intuition’ and ‘into wishing’.”
  21. “The trading rules I live by are: 1. Cut losses. 2. Ride winners. 3. Keep bets small. 4. Follow the rules without question. 5. Know when to break the rules.”
  22. “I usually ignore advice from other traders, especially the ones who believe they are on to a “sure thing”. The old timers, who talk about “maybe there is a chance of so and so,” are often right and early.”
  23. “I set protective stops at the same time I enter a trade. I normally move these stops in to lock in a profit as the trend continues. Sometimes, I take profits when a market gets wild. This usually doesn’t get me out any better than waiting for my stops to close in, but it does cut down on the volatility of the portfolio, which helps calm my nerves. Losing a position is aggravating, whereas losing your nerve is devastating.”
  24. “I intend to risk below 5 percent on a trade, allowing for poor executions.”
  25. “I don’t judge success, I celebrate it. I think success has to do with finding and following one’s calling regardless of financial gain.” (On losing streaks and over-trading) “Acting out this drama could be exciting. However, it also seems terribly expensive. One alternative is to keep bets small and then to systematically keep reducing risk during equity drawdowns. That way you have a gentle financial and emotional touchdown.”
  26. “In order of importance to me are: 1) the long term trend, 2) the current chart pattern, and 3) picking a good spot to buy or sell.”
  27. “Win or lose, everybody gets what they want out of the market. Some people seem to like to lose, so they win by losing money.”
  28. “Fundamentals that you read about are typically useless as the market has already discounted the price, and I call them “funny-mentals”. However, if you catch on early, before others believe, you might have valuable “surprise-a-mentals”.”
  29. “If you can’t measure it, you probably can’t manage it… Things you measure tend to improve.”
  30. “The key to long-term survival and prosperity has a lot to do with the money management techniques incorporated into the technical system.”
  31. “If you want to know everything about the market, go to the beach. Push and pull your hands with the waves. Some are bigger waves, some are smaller. But if you try to push the wave out when it’s coming in, it’ll never happen. The market is always right”
  32. “To avoid whipsaw losses, stop trading”
  33. “Pyramiding instructions appear on dollar bills. Add smaller and smaller amounts on the way up. Keep your eye open at the top.”
  34. “Markets are fundamentally volatile. No way around it. Your problem is not in the math. There is no math to get you out of having to experience uncertainty.”
  35. “Our work is not so much to treat or to cure feelings, as to accept and celebrate them. This is a critical difference.”
  36. “Before I enter a trade, I set stops at a point at which the chart sours.”
  37. “Trading requires skill at reading the markets and at managing your own anxieties.”
  38. “The positive intention of fear is risk control.”
  39. “Speculate with less than 10% of your liquid net worth. Risk less than 1% of your speculative account on a trade. This tends to keep the fluctuations in the trading account small, relative to net worth. This is essential as large fluctuations can engage {emotions} and lead to feeling-justifying drama.”
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