Did Altucher fail as a trader?

abattia · Mar 24, 2012

Quote from d08:

I've said so for a long time. Read his books, it's complete amateurish garbage.

+1

â¦ based on âTrade Like a Hedge Fundâ, unadulterated piffle right from pg 1 IMHO â¦

[In our home the book has been demoted to the stack of crappy books used to raise the top end of one of the kidsâ beds if they have a chest cold â¦ as far as âbook statusâ goes in our home, thatâs pretty low, about equal to a piece of wood.]

My biggest misgiving about the book was:

- conclusions are based on statistically insignificant numbers of trades (somebody has already made that point above) without out-of-sample tests and without highlighting the curve fitting dangers of this approach ...

- â¦ which is probably why the systems have done so poorly since the book was published, and mostly crashed so very badly during the 2008 Dead Lehman Year.

Anyone who creates and trades systems (or follows the strategy design forum on ET) will recognize the frequently used lament that a badly backtested/curve fit system will fail almost as soon as you actually start trading it. Voila â¦

[James, you stung me for $65 - and many hours or reading and then fruitless testing - so I feel justified in giving you back some stick â¦ there, I feel better already â¦

]

Grandluxe · Mar 24, 2012

Quote from abattia:

+1

â¦ based on âTrade Like a Hedge Fundâ, unadulterated piffle right from pg 1 IMHO â¦

[In our home the book has been demoted to the stack of crappy books used to raise the top end of one of the kidsâ beds if they have a chest cold â¦ as far as âbook statusâ goes in our home, thatâs pretty low, about equal to a piece of wood.]

My biggest misgiving about the book was:

- conclusions are based on statistically insignificant numbers of trades (somebody has already made that point above) without out-of-sample tests and without highlighting the curve fitting dangers of this approach ...

- â¦ which is probably why the systems have done so poorly since the book was published, and mostly crashed so very badly during the 2008 Dead Lehman Year.

Anyone who creates and trades systems (or follows the strategy design forum on ET) will recognize the frequently used lament that a badly backtested/curve fit system will fail almost as soon as you actually start trading it. Voila â¦

[James, you stung me for $65 - and many hours or reading and then fruitless testing - so I feel justified in giving you back some stick â¦ there, I feel better already â¦ ]

the book costs $65?!?!??!?

zdreg · Mar 24, 2012

Quote from Equalizer:

was this one of the books under an alias?

+1

goes perfectly with your handle.
if you are not the real thing bluff....

badvestor · Mar 24, 2012

Quote from zdreg:

+1

goes perfectly with your handle.
if you are not the real thing bluff....

Mr. Altucher makes a valid point. Anyone who can make a profit daytrading is better off starting a business rather than having spent the time learning how to daytrade. My own experience: spent a decade learning how to daytrade, barely made 6 figures in my best year. If I had spent those 10 years in a career while learning how to swing trade or invest, I'd be ahead in my life by several magnitudes from where I am now.

However this lesson can never be taught, one needs to learn it the hard way. Daytrading success is random and it is a net losers game for the 99%. The luck quotiient plays a huge factor in the sucess of the 1 % who make it. For rest of us, we're better off putting that same effort into building a career or a business while investing on the side.

Ghost of Cutten · Mar 24, 2012

Quote from Covertibility:

Do you think Soros or Cohen sit by themselves ? Ask James what goes on in Stevie's lair. Ask about room temperature, nonringing phones, equity teams/divisions etc... Organziational skills, lmao, sounds like a piker would say.

There are many people who can play multiple sports.

That was a horrible post.

But Soros and Cohen aren't spending their timing managing that operation, they are spending their time (or were) on trading. The organisation they would hire people to do for them, and delegate. Both of them started out without any organisation at all, and only hired people once it became necessary for the business e.g. Soros was a 2-man band for his first decade, Cohen was a desk-trader at Gruntal with firm infrastructure already in place.

Running a normal business startup solo with 1 or no other employees, for 5-10 years+ as profits expand significantly, is not exactly common, whereas in trading its the norm.

The vast majority of people aren't suited to being an entrepreneur, anyone who has tried or been involved in multiple startups (as employee, investor, or management) has witnessed that first hand.

Almost no one plays multiple sports at the top level. Even the world's best decathletes are way off the top performers in each of the 10 individual sports. And sporting skills are far more transferable than trading skills vs business skills.

There's a simple test for this - how many top traders have also been top businessmen outside the financial markets. And how many top entrepreneurs have also been top traders? I can't think of many.

d08 · Mar 24, 2012

Quote from badvestor:

Mr. Altucher makes a valid point. Anyone who can make a profit daytrading is better off starting a business rather than having spent the time learning how to daytrade. My own experience: spent a decade learning how to daytrade, barely made 6 figures in my best year. If I had spent those 10 years in a career while learning how to swing trade or invest, I'd be ahead in my life by several magnitudes from where I am now.

However this lesson can never be taught, one needs to learn it the hard way. Daytrading success is random and it is a net losers game for the 99%. The luck quotiient plays a huge factor in the sucess of the 1 % who make it. For rest of us, we're better off putting that same effort into building a career or a business while investing on the side.

He wrote an X number of books on trading, pretending to know what he was talking about - that is the problem. I know tennis is played with rackets, net and a ball but I don't know the details, so I won't write a book on the subject. He's a pretty clever BS artist, that's for sure. I feel cheated out of the money by buying the book, so I'm within my rights to make that claim.

Where do you get the 99% number from, it's actually something like 80-95% from what I've read on brokers' numbers.

Vishnu · Mar 24, 2012

Just for the record to correct some assumptions made on these threads:

A) most of the systems in trade like a hedge fund had a statistically significant number of trades. When it didn't, I specifically said so.

B) most of the systems were also used by me, successfully, to trade for several hedge funds. I traded for funds until I started a successful fund of hedge funds and then stockpickr.com.

Butterball · Mar 24, 2012

Quote from Ghost of Cutten:

There's a simple test for this - how many top traders have also been top businessmen outside the financial markets. And how many top entrepreneurs have also been top traders? I can't think of many.

That's quite an absurd way of proving your argument, isn't it. How many top chefs have been world-level iron man competitors as well? How many top tennis players have been world-class pianists?

The lack of exceptional multi-talents is potentially a function of excessive time devoted to the main profession - leaving no time for other endeavors - rather than the mutual exclusivity of talents required for any pair of two professions.

d08 · Mar 24, 2012

Quote from Vishnu:

Just for the record to correct some assumptions made on these threads:

A) most of the systems in trade like a hedge fund had a statistically significant number of trades. When it didn't, I specifically said so.

B) most of the systems were also used by me, successfully, to trade for several hedge funds. I traded for funds until I started a successful fund of hedge funds and then stockpickr.com.

I just browsed it again, one of your systems had 72 (40+32) trades on one instrument, how is that significant?
Trading your strategies as a basket would've resulted in a catastrophic drawdown in 2008. So, I'd be curious to know how you survived that.

Anyway, none other than Cramer himself praises this guy on the back cover. This fact alone should tell the reader what sort of people they're dealing with.

Vishnu · Mar 24, 2012

Quote from d08:

I just browsed it again, one of your systems had 72 (40+32) trades on one instrument, how is that significant?
Trading your strategies as a basket would've resulted in a catastrophic drawdown in 2008. So, I'd be curious to know how you survived that.

Anyway, none other than Cramer himself praises this guy on the back cover. This fact alone should tell the reader what sort of people they're dealing with.

72 trades? You ask how that is statistically significant?

Depending on the model a trading system can be statistically significant with as few as 20 trades. 72 is more than enough. And, again, I traded each system in there very successfully for years.