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You can never replicate the spot returns of a commodity. Unless you buy physical and store it at your house. And even that costs money (opportunity costs, transaction costs, storage, insurance etc.) And in the futures world you always pay transaction costs, slippage and must account for the...

A blast from the past: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/japans-debt-downgraded-as-yen-dives-1154414.html Japan's debt downgraded as yen dives Richard Lloyd Parry in Tokyo and Diane Coyle in London Saturday, 4 April 1998

I wonder the same when I see business school professors selling MBA courses and business books. If running a profitable business was so simple then why do these professors sell over-priced ivy-league degrees instead of running their own profitable business? Same thing isn't it?

What you're looking to do is called "backward adjusting" of historic future contract data. Here's a good introduction: http://www.automated-trading-system.com/what-everybody-ought-to-know-about-continous-futures-contracts/

I refrain from shorting things when they have been strong. Silver is no exception. I'll happily play the short side once it sells off and makes new 10 or 20 week lows.

Obviously 99% of their desks' business is quoting institutional customers bid and ask prices and ripping them off in the process. I am surprised they had any losing days at all.

Look at it this way: the speculators now help up drive cotton which in turn will convince more farmers around the world to commit acreage to cotton, hoping to participate in the higher prices. That will (in theory) create new supply.

That's your assumption though. What makes you think all traders are forced to conform their own skillset to one certain trading approach? Why don't traders have a choice of choosing a trading approach that best matches their skill-set and personal circumstances? Some start-up traders would...

I recently went from a HDD based system to an SSD based one and apart from 30-40% faster boot times I notice the loading and saving of big files is notably faster. Loading and saving a 5 mb Excel file is 1-2 seconds now rather than waiting 3-4 seconds with my old system. Doesn't sound like...

How do you arrive at such an absolute statement? How do you know one can easily be taught and the other simply can't be easily taught? I am self-taught both in both brick and mortar and trading. My university degree was largely (or completely?) worthless in both professions. Whatever they...

100% annual returns in a near-normal distribution imply a catastrophic monthly drawdown of 100% to happen every 24 months or so. If you shoot for astronomic returns you'll blow up faster than you can count to three. This has nothing to do with account size this is simple statistics. I...

The proof is out there and not hard to find. Go through a list of well-known hedge funds. Many are as successful if not more successful in financial terms than the more successful start-ups. Seth Klarman at Baupost Group, Daniel Loeb at Third Point, David Harding at Winton, Daniel Och at...

You're comparing a self-employed entrepreneur making $15.50 an hour (which basically puts him in the group of a median worker with the additional risk of being self-employed) to a under-capitalized wanna-be trader trying to make a 100% return year in year out. The entrepreneur's business in...

I don't understand why people would say that a trader has to learn to trade a certain method or market, even if he's untalented in that particular niche. That akin to saying a person is forced to run a restaurant and learn those skills even if he's not cut out for that industry. There are other...

Most traditional business start ups fail because the wanna-be entrepreneurs are under-capitalized and go into their venture with unrealistic expectations. Just like many start-up traders. In my own experience neither brick and mortar business nor trading is area easy ways to making millions...

Four years of outperformance by the SP500 vs. HFRI certainly doesn't help attract money of private individuals that tend to look at returns more than risk. I doubt lifting the barrier for US individuals makes any different anyways. Most new money still comes from Asia, Russia and the Middle...

I have met dozens of people in my life with great "thoughts" and "dreams" of turning their ideas (business, independence etc.) into reality. Only a few have the strength to follow through and make the necessary sacrifices. Yes, I am talking about working until their eyes bleed and losing...

In many European countries (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, Germany, Austria) college and university education up to a master's degree is essentially free. In many countries (Sweden, Germany), Students of parents that earn below average house hold incomes get around 400-500 EUR a month in...

The only thing more pathetic than calling the top/end of the market(s) at any given point in time is calling the end of trend following traders/funds. Pathetic.

CAL 44.82 -2.61 (-5.50%) UAUA 44.81 -3.94 (-8.08%) LUV 15.37 -0.14 (-0.90%) Not a bad call on the airliners there.