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    Low P/E method

    If a stock were highly cyclical, wouldn't a low P/E indicate that it is near the bottom of that cycle, and thus a good time to buy? Perhaps this method is looking for absolute value, when in reality, a better strategy is to look for relative value. That is value relative to ones industry...
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    Low P/E method

    If buying value stocks were such a viable strategy, why would one not want to create a portfolio of all stocks that had a P/E lets say in the range of 0.1-5.0, with a mean of 2.1, and wait until until the mean had doubled to 4.2 and then sell the protfolio? Why would this not be a better...
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    How to start in OPTIONS trading?

    Well, I might suggest that they don't trade at all, and invest in mutual funds or ETFs, and then go live a happy life away from a computer screen. Also, it's just my opinion that for a retail guy to make money in options, you have to have some directional bias to the strategy, and then get...
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    How to start in OPTIONS trading?

    Again, if someone is new to options, but doesn't think they are good at predicting short term movement of the underlying, then no strategy will likely be profitable. Therefore, stay the hell away from options. If you already are long or short some stock, perhaps try a covered strategy. If...
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    How to start in OPTIONS trading?

    All other options strategies to reduce risk involve multiple option positions at the same time. This means more commission and chance for slippage that just reduce your profit potential. Perhaps a collar is more conservative, but then again it is two option positions as well. I would still...
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    How to start in OPTIONS trading?

    Compared to investing in T-bills or CDs, perhaps. However, of all the possible option strategies, CC is probably the most conservative.
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    How to start in OPTIONS trading?

    After you read the recommended reference material, you will still not make money as a retail options trader until you realize the most important aspect of an options price. The most important factor to an options price is the absolute price level of of the underlying instrument. Even more...
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    Technical Analysis Doesn't Work

    How do mean they are deceiving? Charts are just a graph of the price levels at which buyers and sellers agree to strike a deal through time. If you are looking for the motivation as to why a particular person decided to buy or sell, or if their future intentions are to buy or sell more, you...
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    Technical Analysis Doesn't Work

    Folks, the impirical evidence is that plenty of individuals and institutions over the years have made money (some times a lot of money) using nothing but TA. Therefore TA can work. However this doesn't mean it will work for you or that you can optimize a given indicator on a given security and...
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    Technical Analysis Doesn't Work

    Are you saying that he did not use the same data set or same lookback period to test each indicator? That would be mind blowingly stupid if that was the case. Of course no conclusions could be made from such a study. Does he test only single indicator performance or does he test combinations...
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    Technical Analysis Doesn't Work

    You're thinking about TA along the proper lines. TA should not be viewed as giving discrete right and wrong entry/exit signals. Rather, TA should be viewed more in probabilistic terms. That is to say that the entry/exit signals are a method to try and put the odds more in your favor over just...
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    Wireless Networks... How Big a Security Risk?

    Just use WPA2 with a random pre-shared key in TKIP+AES mode, and you will be fine. Don't trust the wireless networks at airports or coffee shops etc.
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    any scanner that's based on technical factors?

    Try here: http://www.stockfetcher.com
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    I've just reread chapters 8 and 9 of Livermore's Reminiscences

    There's no question Livermore developed a keen sense for market direction. However, he did not pay as much attention to risk management and position sizing. He took enormous risk, so that when he won, he won big, but when he lost, he lost big. Analogous to going all-in during poker. In the...
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    Quant?

    Right, that's why I recommend that he concentrate on business and math courses during the school year, and only during the breaks to start to learn programming. Whatever development environment is used, (Visual Studio, Eclipse, Matlab, Mathmatica), it is important to start learning that...
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    Quant?

    Have a look at the following reference article. http://finance-old.bi.no/~bernt/gcc_prog/recipes/recipes.pdf It's alright if you can't read this now, but this is basic C++ programming that you should be able to understand it a year from now. Then you can move on to OO programming and...
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    Quant?

    Concentrate on the business and math classes during the school year. You'll need the good grades. Start to pick up programming during the winter and summer breaks. Also, beg borrow or steal for an internship during these periods as well. Try to take some continuing education classes in it if...
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    Quant?

    So at what point do you teach yourself computer programming? So what if you understand Brent's Method for solving for implied volatility. Can you implement it as an algorithm in a C++ application? As others have pointed out, you will need programming skills to work as a quant.
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    Options pricing software

    No. The volatility input is an educated guess. Given the price of an option, the math can be worked out to solve for volatility (called implied volatility), but you can't know with absolute certainty what the volatility should be a priori to put into the pricing model. The volatility on the...
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    OTM puts with respect to black swan

    Even if OTM options are regularly underpriced, remeber what happened to Taleb. He bought OTM options exclusively, and still couldn't really make the strategy of Black Swans work. If you're good at predicting short term direction of the underlying, stick to ATM or ITM options for trading...
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