3 thoughts about behavior

Quote from TradeWrecker:

When the research was done and the model was ready I launched myself with all of $3k...

I got myself set-up and started trading nothing but "the CTA model"... I screen shot the account every day and posted it up on the company website.

After about a month or so I had my first customer show up with all of $1200 dollars... and then I had a $30k account come in on its heels, followed by a $100k account... in the first 6 months of trading nearly $1 million was in the pipeline with a quarter of that actually in the market.

I think one of the take-aways from this was the $3000 account and the decisions I made to use that amount. Nobody typically would publish that size portfolio ... but my thinking was different.

I told my clients we were going to have bad months and bad years and the difference between being a trader who can walk away and get a job versus a money manager who is responsible for peoples money is huge.
Thanks for sharing the story!

How did propsective clients take it that there are gonna be "bad months and bad years"? Did anyone walk away at early signs of volatility?
 
Quote from TradeWrecker:

I have... I've done it for years. My track-record as a professional trader is littered all over the internet. Barclays, Autumn-Gold etc. That is the whole point... if you're going to make claims about your abilities you should be able to back it up. You're making my point but it's mis-directed. You should be asking your good buddy Jack and your BFF Ammo for proof.

This thread was about a general observation, something that I hoped would spark some serious debate about how to research and implement the real issues surrounding behavioral finance, not the make believe stuff that Jack thinks he's figured out.

Interestingly right out of the gate it turned into "this is" a "bullshit" thread. Instead of embracing the idea that maybe we should all do some work, people like Ammo immediately discounted the value of doing a little digging into it... And yet (but not surprisingly) he is the first to defend Jack's junk science. Do you see the irony?

Let's research something of substance... No, no it's all bullshit. Danger, danger, what will we do if we have to face the truth?

vs....

Hey Jack, do you have any basis for all this supposed behavioral finance strategy you're espousing but doesn't seem to exist elsewhere... Fawk you how dare you question the guru, he has knowledge beyond us all... he is beyond reproach his word is 'truth'.

Ammo is an amazing representation of what is wrong with the retail trader. Reject common sense because 1. It requires work and 2. The answers rarely are what we "hope" for... But on the flip he will immediately embrace any hocus poscus that helps him hang on to a "hope" no matter how unlikely it is.

That of course is Cammol toes right... what makes me mad is when a pack of cammol toe become a collective herd, a voice, and people buy into it because they don't understand the basics. They sit hear and watch the humps speak with authority and confidence and they are swayed, in no small part because the humps are also feeding their "hopes".

Here is the awful truth... for the majority of traders "hoping" for success will never produce it. More often than not it will wipe you out.

If you the reader (not the humps - they are lost) are serious about really learning how to trade I recommend these in this order....

1. The Little Book of Behavioral Investing - Montier
2. Advances in Behavioral Finance II - Thaler
These will help you see yourself and others which will also help you identify what "might" be happening in the market.

3 Evidence-Based Technical Analysis - Aronson
This will lay the ground work for how to properly test.

4. Optimal Trading Strategies - Kissel & Glantz
Will get you thinking about risks and impacts

and finally... if you must be a technical trader...

5. Trading Systems and Methods - Kaufman

Once you have the first four books floating in your head you can take Perry's book and begin to test methods properly. This will be the basis for significant knowledge in your testing and your beliefs going forward. Good testing leads to realistic beliefs which can save you a lot of money down the road.

On with Cammol & Friends...


I attached a replay of my prior BF comments in this thread. There are references and quotes. This reference only began in 1990.

My primary trading reference was the 4th Ed of Edwards and Magee which I began using in 1957.

For those who wish, check out my association with the Jung Institute in 1967 and my active affiliation with ISAGA years 1973 through 1979. Especially check out my year long faculty lecture series @ DOP @ Mich. Faculty lecture series means faculty attends lectures.

To put myself in my place, I have traded as an amateur under NFA regs as I previously stated in this thread. The period of time is about 53 years.

The thread owner views me as unpoven to his satisfaction. My view of him is that he is espousing a CW orientation from the usual financial industry employee point of view.

Any potential trader can become successful by capitalizing on personal growth in a short and orderly process.

Cycle 1 demonstrates that dominant segmentts of trends are profitable and having an event orientation allows a person to build upon success after success. Cycle 1 also proves that using targets is NOt the potential trader's perogative. Both of these items are Behavioral Finance key issues.

Cycle 2 shows how all events are significant and all segments of trends may be traded whether they be dominant or non dominant. A potential trader also learns how to more finely associate sentiment with dominance and non dominance. emotiionally he get very straight on what it takes to trend and countertrend trade.

Cycles 3, 4, and 5, deal with trading through the "overlap of trends" after having traded the three moves of a trend. these cycles also deal with the scaling up of positions and becoming accustomed to making money as the emotions of support, comfort and conficence come into view.

Cycles 6, 7, 8, and 9 are all at 50 contracts and they deal with the emotional aspects of building effectiveness and efficiency.

As each day of each cycle passes for a person "doing the work" They get two things:

1. Emotions come up and the emotional context is journalled.

2. In parallel, the trading context of the emotional context is journalled. From this BF's C key issue is addressed. Namely, the person makes reasoned changes in his approach. And he note this stuff in the journal and on his plan, strategy and routine.

I have always enjoyed backing up my performance. If I had to cite one favorite example, it would be straightening out the SEC. Straightening out the IRS is not a close second, however.

Professionals cannot meet the peformance standards of amateurs; profesionals are simply too restrained to be able to perform.

My amateur standard was to have 15 people contributing 20% of their professional time per week to those in need who could not afford them. I did that and the SEC cited me over and over for "insider trading". I was flagged because I was trading a significant aggregation of capital in many accounts under POA's at large brokerage houses. I was also coattail traded nationally by brokers handling accounts in those brokerage firms. One of those firms was fined by the SEC when its "professionals" lied to major clients. The basis of the SEC fines was, determined in part, by my depositions.

Professionals are not usually as swift as their more nimble clients; professionals sometimes take advantage of this. It was not uncommon for me to pay double commissions to my brokers (my style). The reasons are obvious; they work for me and pay attention to my needs to get the job done.

The OP of this thread would never have passed the test to be working for me. He has explained clearly why he thinks the way he does and what he reads. Amateurs have the choice of who they have working for them. Professionals in the financial industry do not get paid for making decisions for clients; professionals offer services, primarily.

If you read” Bogle On Bogle”, you see an exception. as cited in his book, his holdings in Vanguard averaged about 69% a year in increase year to year in stock value over a 10 year period. At that time the S&P, etc was only averaging 10 to 12% a year.

Cycle 1's performance, is only about 40% of margin per day. The 5 cycles cover 60 days. There is NO expectation that a person will take every trade possible. My expectation is that people who wish will "do the work" of learning to annotate, log and trade.
 
Quote from TradeWrecker:

I have... I've done it for years. My track-record as a professional trader is littered all over the internet. Barclays, Autumn-Gold etc. That is the whole point... if you're going to make claims about your abilities you should be able to back it up. You're making my point but it's mis-directed. You should be asking your good buddy Jack and your BFF Ammo for proof.

This thread was about a general observation, something that I hoped would spark some serious debate about how to research and implement the real issues surrounding behavioral finance, not the make believe stuff that Jack thinks he's figured out.

Interestingly right out of the gate it turned into "this is" a "bullshit" thread. Instead of embracing the idea that maybe we should all do some work, people like Ammo immediately discounted the value of doing a little digging into it... And yet (but not surprisingly) he is the first to defend Jack's junk science. Do you see the irony?

Let's research something of substance... No, no it's all bullshit. Danger, danger, what will we do if we have to face the truth?

vs....

Hey Jack, do you have any basis for all this supposed behavioral finance strategy you're espousing but doesn't seem to exist elsewhere... Fawk you how dare you question the guru, he has knowledge beyond us all... he is beyond reproach his word is 'truth'.

Ammo is an amazing representation of what is wrong with the retail trader. Reject common sense because 1. It requires work and 2. The answers rarely are what we "hope" for... But on the flip he will immediately embrace any hocus poscus that helps him hang on to a "hope" no matter how unlikely it is.

That of course is Cammol toes right... what makes me mad is when a pack of cammol toe become a collective herd, a voice, and people buy into it because they don't understand the basics. They sit hear and watch the humps speak with authority and confidence and they are swayed, in no small part because the humps are also feeding their "hopes".

Here is the awful truth... for the majority of traders "hoping" for success will never produce it. More often than not it will wipe you out.

If you the reader (not the humps - they are lost) are serious about really learning how to trade I recommend these in this order....

1. The Little Book of Behavioral Investing - Montier
2. Advances in Behavioral Finance II - Thaler
These will help you see yourself and others which will also help you identify what "might" be happening in the market.

3 Evidence-Based Technical Analysis - Aronson
This will lay the ground work for how to properly test.

4. Optimal Trading Strategies - Kissel & Glantz
Will get you thinking about risks and impacts

and finally... if you must be a technical trader...

5. Trading Systems and Methods - Kaufman

Once you have the first four books floating in your head you can take Perry's book and begin to test methods properly. This will be the basis for significant knowledge in your testing and your beliefs going forward. Good testing leads to realistic beliefs which can save you a lot of money down the road.

On with Cammol & Friends...

Always wondered what is it that people like you guided by...
..monthly sickness it`s all that i can suppose..
 
Quote from LeeD:

Thanks for sharing the story!

How did propsective clients take it that there are gonna be "bad months and bad years"? Did anyone walk away at early signs of volatility?

It was a mixed bag of tricks. Some of the clients that came on board first weren't sophisticated investors and they had been lured in by my early returns which were the result of extreme model efficiency. I tried to detail as honestly as I could in the disclosures what the potential volatilities were... You just know not everyone get's it. Investors "hope" too.

Contrast that with the larger accounts, where the funding levels were almost always a smaller percentage of their overall holdings, they never really broke a sweat during the volatility.

Through most of the trading the model stayed pretty efficient, right up to the point where Refco tanked... There was one month in there where the trading was affected by the operational bottle neck created by the broker BK and a bad leverage decision by myself - I peeled off about 4% of pretty good gains. I was trying to maintain my trading duties, hoping for a positive outcome and handling about 100 calls a week and news swirled around. It got hectic.

When things finally settled down, I spent a lot of time blaming refco for my lost accounts and money. There obviously is some truth to that but I also know that Industry Risk along with a plethora of other impacts simply "exist". I had seen in 87, 89, 2000... Shit happens and there is always something in the market or in the industry that can change on a moments notice and send you to the sidelines.

I read something somewhere recently that said, "all the preparation and training in the world means nothing if the bridge your on gives way..." And it's true. If I had been bigger I would have been organized as a CPO and had the pool spread out among other brokers. It was in the business plan. Unfortunately I got bit while my exposure to that risk was still high.
 
Quote from Spydertrader:

Nicely done.

Also, thanks for your efforts in attempting to provide information helpful to those interested in learning over at the TL thread.

Good trading to you.

- Spydertrader

Thanks. Nothing to be thankful for. By the way the post about jumping the fractals was really meant to be helpful. But it somehow didn't sink in...

You've been spending much more time being helpful.

Good trading to you as well.
 
Quote from jack hershey:

...

Any potential trader can become successful by capitalizing on personal growth in a short and orderly process.



I see no record of you at all in the NFA database... can you point us to the link so we can verify (I may have the name wrong).

Additionally if you were still a member of the NFA I'd have you dragged through compliance for the above claim. If you have ANY experience with the NFA you know saying something like this without significant basis will get you an NFA and CFTC review with the quickness.

Just for arguments sake... By stating the above you certainly have kept track of the all the people you've taught and each of their individual success so by all means could you post the data. Otherwise how could you possibly claim any trader can become successful...[]...in a short period of time.
 
Quote from TradeWrecker:

Here's an idea... go ahead and run that report from the first of July to RIGHT NOW... That will take care of any question as to whether it's a demo or not and if your 100 trades a day strategy is still holding up.

If you really want to be a superstar and prove the validity run it from back in 2006 when you joined...


I'm not a superstar. Sorry for hijacking your thread. I apologize.
 

Attachments

Quote from TradeWrecker:

I have... I've done it for years. My track-record as a professional trader is littered all over the internet. Barclays, Autumn-Gold etc. That is the whole point... if you're going to make claims about your abilities you should be able to back it up. You're making my point but it's mis-directed. You should be asking your good buddy Jack and your BFF Ammo for proof.

This thread was about a general observation, something that I hoped would spark some serious debate about how to research and implement the real issues surrounding behavioral finance, not the make believe stuff that Jack thinks he's figured out.

Interestingly right out of the gate it turned into "this is" a "bullshit" thread. Instead of embracing the idea that maybe we should all do some work, people like Ammo immediately discounted the value of doing a little digging into it... And yet (but not surprisingly) he is the first to defend Jack's junk science. Do you see the irony?

Let's research something of substance... No, no it's all bullshit. Danger, danger, what will we do if we have to face the truth?

vs....

Hey Jack, do you have any basis for all this supposed behavioral finance strategy you're espousing but doesn't seem to exist elsewhere... Fawk you how dare you question the guru, he has knowledge beyond us all... he is beyond reproach his word is 'truth'.

Ammo is an amazing representation of what is wrong with the retail trader. Reject common sense because 1. It requires work and 2. The answers rarely are what we "hope" for... But on the flip he will immediately embrace any hocus poscus that helps him hang on to a "hope" no matter how unlikely it is.

That of course is Cammol toes right... what makes me mad is when a pack of cammol toe become a collective herd, a voice, and people buy into it because they don't understand the basics. They sit hear and watch the humps speak with authority and confidence and they are swayed, in no small part because the humps are also feeding their "hopes".

Here is the awful truth... for the majority of traders "hoping" for success will never produce it. More often than not it will wipe you out.

If you the reader (not the humps - they are lost) are serious about really learning how to trade I recommend these in this order....

1. The Little Book of Behavioral Investing - Montier
2. Advances in Behavioral Finance II - Thaler
These will help you see yourself and others which will also help you identify what "might" be happening in the market.

3 Evidence-Based Technical Analysis - Aronson
This will lay the ground work for how to properly test.

4. Optimal Trading Strategies - Kissel & Glantz
Will get you thinking about risks and impacts

and finally... if you must be a technical trader...

5. Trading Systems and Methods - Kaufman

Once you have the first four books floating in your head you can take Perry's book and begin to test methods properly. This will be the basis for significant knowledge in your testing and your beliefs going forward. Good testing leads to realistic beliefs which can save you a lot of money down the road.

On with Cammol & Friends...
lot of references in here ,i guess the ego thing got to you, if it bruises that easy, you should take a step back and adjust it,title of this thread is thoughts about behavior, i addressed you yesterday because ,1 you deserved it with your smug assumptions about most of the repliers and 2, you attacked jack who on one hand is very verbose, he's also got about 60 years of mrkt under his belt,things dont always come in the desired flavor but food is food,,about half your posts are defensive, show a little respect for people and it will likely come back to you,you have a lot of things to fix personally before you will ever succeed in the finance world, its a very humbling business,your posts tell of your losses,you can't get that cash back, but you could walk a way with a little humility in the bank,i have no doubt your testing and math background are useful,but to assume thats the only way to make money is naive...any one trading on this site will tell you that you have to get your ego in check, when you do , it won't bruise so easily...tried to tell you about ego on the 11th page of this journal, it wasn't a slight,just musings about trading behavior and its achilles heel.....market doesnt care if you're an ex jockstrap or ivy league....this site is probably half and half so you are insulting half your audience....try to curb the insults ...be humble
 
My 3 thoughts about behavior:

1. All the markets are frequently moving against my positions!

2. All the market makers are constantly targeting my money!

3. All players are happily joining forces to distroy my system!
 
Back
Top