Secrets of Market Wizards

Quote from Ituglobal:

Joe Ross: Trading Is a Calling

LEARN FROM MARKET WIZARDS - PART 4

Joe Ross has been described as one of the most eclectic and one of the most experienced traders in the world. He’s a BSc in Business Administration (University of California, Los Angeles) and an MSc in Computer Science (George Washington University, Virginia). As far as trading and investing is concerned, he got his feet wet when he was as young as 14 years old. He uses trading approaches that generate constant gains from the financial markets.

Most experienced traders in the world ? LOL :D

The guy can not trade his way out of a paper bag, ask him for any results and he will kindly refuse ..
 
Quote from ssss:

http://minervini.com/bio.php

Mark Minervini is one of America's most successful stock traders; a veteran of Wall Street for nearly 30 years. To demonstrate the capabilities of his SEPA® methodology, in 1997, Minervini put up $250,000 of his own money and entered the U.S. Investing Championship. Trading against stock, futures and options traders, he traded a long only stock portfolio to win the real-money investment derby with a 155% annual return, a performance that was nearly double the next nearest competing money manager.

Minervini is featured in Jack Schwager's Stock Market Wizards; Conversations with America's Top Stock Traders. Schwager wrote: "Minervini's performance has been nothing short of astounding. Most traders and money managers would be delighted to have Minervini's worst year – a 128 percent gain – as their best."

Using his SEPA® trading strategy, in a five-and-a-half-year period Minervini generated a 220 percent average annual return with only one losing quarter. To put that in perspective, a $100,000 account would explode to over $30 million with those returns.

http://minervini.com/

http://markminerviniblog.blogspot.de/

If he is so great why does he need to sell subscriptions to retail?
 
the secrets of trading is talk is cheap.

profit will not take care of itself. if the guy who bought NFLX at 100, it ran up to 300+, he did not take profit, and let it slide to 50.

loss will not take care of itself too. if another guy bought NFLX at new low at 45 (NFLX to the above guy a loser), and ignore it, it printed 67.

trading is an intelligent game, you must actively take action to let you become a winner or loser.

if you do not take care of your profit, your profit "puff" in blink of eye

if you do not take care of your loss, your loss may magically become a piles of cash.

either way, it is your own choice.

the right way is: take care of both profit and loss.

the efficeint way to take care of profit is: trail

the efficient way to take care of loss is: prepare the worst scienio before hand, so you know when you are wrong and cut loss short, move on. most people use cheating method:wait, it is ok. if you are just an investor, not a trader using margin, you do not need care about the up/down. to investors, TIME is his friend. to traders, margin/leverage is his enemy.
 
the fact is:

whether you take care of profit or not, there is three possibles:
1. the market will not give you profit any more, stuck there
2. the market will keep giving you more profit
3.the market will rudely reverse and take away your profit, and if you do not take action, take away more even wipe your out

my wife always asked me about trades. she wanted to buy some stuff in her IRA. often I gave her the right time to buy, she will buy , most time immediately green, she is happy, then I realzied she bought something, I noticed the sell signals, and ordered her to liqidate the holding, she suddenly changed her mind, "no, it is going up, why sell, I want my money doubled". then the funny thing happened, she did not sell. after weeks, she noticed her holdings become red, she started to panic and ask for my suggestion. I said " you are not trading, just investment, you do not need pay attention to the daily ups/downs, just hold on, be patient". she started to frequently check the quotes, login her account and bother me about her holding, worried about the drop. I keep telling her " it is ok to ignore the drop and hold". after months of this struggle, the market comes back, and just I want to tell her to add, she could not wait and dump at the exact entry, see the market shoots like a rocket. then she may try to chase or the bad past horrible experience hold her and concluded :" investment is hard". In reality trading is not hard, just mouse click.

my wife's mistake is she does not know the market, she has no understanding of "TIME is her friend to an investor", the critical mistakes is: do not prepare beforehand, she wants to be a trader to timing or an investor to divendend and captical apprication, how long to hold, when up, what she do, when down, what she do, what indicators/clues/patterns to judge direction/reversal, before she bought her holding, she had no plan at all.

there are no secrets in the market. some market trends, always, just like MDVN, very nicely. FB too

some market cluelessly bizaare,.

to me, I know the trending market the most, so I just trade trending market. that is my secret.
 
Quote from Hoofhearted:

Nice thread! It is interesting to me that most (if not all) of the above Market Wizards all seem to put alot of focus on stop losses. That is cutting your losses very short.

I won't try to argue this, as it really does seem elementary- the theory being that if you cut your losses short and let your your profits run long, then by mathematics alone, your account should continually go up over time.

I would however like to point out that another very successful trader/money manager/teacher, Jim Cramer, from CNBC's Mad Money, hates the idea of using stop losses.
He doesn't think you should abandon your position just because the stock drops a few percent from your initial entry- as long as you buy larger quantities as it goes down, in 3-5% increments.
He points out that nobody can ever know exactly when a stock has bottomed, so be mentally prepared for it to drop a bit further(maybe even up to 20%).
He would rather you just capitalize on more opportunity when a company's stock goes down, so long as the fundamentals haven't changed, and there isn't any news that an asteroid is about to strike the company.

Of course this theory would probably be more suited for stock traders rather than paper traders. And it is probably more suited for someone who has deep pockets, and can stomach the pain of throwing more and more money into a losing position. If you think about it though, it is a great way to get heavily invested in a product that you believe will eventually go higher.

Let the Cramer haters squawk- he's helped me a bunch.

Thanks for the articles!


Cramer advises people on long-term portfolio management. He is there to help investors, not traders.
 
Quote from blkcrk103:

Cramer advises people on long-term portfolio management. He is there to help investors, not traders.

He often talks about the concept of trading around a core. He explains very well the strategy of selling some off every time your stock goes up 3-5%, then just buying more every time it goes down 3-5%.
Basically swing trading, only your are constantly holding on to a core position, while buying and selling on the swings.

You are right, though that Cramer mainly focuses on portfolio investment, but he does throw bones to the traders if you listen enough. He use to do it a lot at his hedge fund. He claims the most money he ever made was buying option calls. Deep in the money, and the next month or two out.
 
Earned 3X greater gains than Warren Buffett – even during a market meltdown. (Paul Tudor Jones earned a 62% return vs. 19.5% for Berkshire Hathaway in 1987.)
Made trading profits in just one year that exceeded the Gross Domestic Product of some small countries.
Raked in a 781% return in a single year of trading.
Turned a $400 grubstake into a $200 million profit windfall. Generated trading profits of over $100,000 a month for 70 consecutive months.
Traded up to $2 billion in face value T-bonds a day.
 
Hetty Green: The Witch of the Wall Street

LEARN FROM MARKET WIZARDS - PART 7

Hetty Green was considered one of the earliest American value investors and the wealthiest female speculator of her own time. She lived from November 21, 1834 until July 3, 1916 (aged 81). She was the first American woman to make a significant effect on the stock market. Her greatest quality is prudent speculation, especially considering the standards of her times. She invested and reaped rewards in unique ways. On the other hand, she was remarkable for being mean and stingy. At the time of her death, she was worth up to $3.8 billion (inflation-adjusted to 2006). Her 2 children inherited her wealth, and after their death, over 50% of the wealth was taken as taxes and the rest went to charity.

Lesson
There are certain lessons you can learn from Hetty Green.

1. Women can become great traders and investors. Successful trading isn’t the birthright of men only. In fact, there are many women all over the world who trade successfully and who’re smarter than some men in the markets.

2. If women are properly educated about the financial markets, they’ll develop very great ability to trade permanently victoriously. Women have certain qualities that can be used to their advantage in the markets; something that’s very rare in men (unless they’re discipline). They tend to be cautious and conservative, while they take risk control very serious.

3. Hetty’s trading methodology - just like that of the Oracle of Omaha (Warren) – is to be greedy when people are fearful and to be fearful when people are greedy. No wonder Hetty is known as the Witch of the Wall Street. When people are extremely and irrationally confident about the stock market, then it’s time to sell. When people dread the markets too much, thus becoming apathetic towards it, it’s time to buy. This has become a timeless market principle.


Conclusion: Are there any changes in your personal life that prompt you to consider your tomorrow? Are you ready to start making fortune in the markets, though it doesn’t come overnight? Or would you prefer to limit yourself to your monthly salary, including the whims and caprices of your boss? The choice to be a trader may seem daunting, but the future reward makes it worthwhile. If you’re a woman, getting properly educated and making an attempt in trading would really change your perception of the financial markets.

This article is ended by a quote from Hetty:

“There is no great secret in fortune making. All you do is buy cheap and sell dear, act with thrift and shrewdness and be persistent… I buy when things are low and no one wants them. I keep them until they go up, and people are crazy to get them… When I see a thing, going cheap because nobody wants it, I buy a lot of it and tuck it away. Then, when the time comes, they have to hunt me up and pay me a good price for my holdings.”
 
Michael Covel: A Smart Turtle Trader

LEARN FROM GENERALS OF THE MARKETS - PART 9

"Frankly, I don't see markets; I see risks, rewards, and money." - Larry Hite

Michael Covel is the head of Trend Following, which is an institution that boasts students in more than 70 countries. He’s written very popular books, including The Little Book of trading, Trend Commandments, The Complete Turtle Trader, etc. Those books were translated into many tongues. His also made a film whose title is, Broke: The American Dream. He’s known in most parts of the world, where he’s done live presentations.

For Michael, trading isn’t the only calling; teaching also is a calling. His institution has been teaching trend followers since 1996. Michael Covel has vigorously espoused trend following; a great trading and investment strategy. This strategy allows speculators to make money from bear and bull markets. It’s been proven that the art of following the trend is a permanently successful trading method. For more information on how you can benefit from Michael’s trading ideas, you can visit his websites at: Michaelcovel.com, Trendfollowing.com and Turtletrader.com.

Lesson
There are many useful trading hints and techniques we can learn from Michael. Below are some points.

A. It’s possible to imitate top traders, provided we’re disciplined enough to do so. This isn’t hypothetical. Top traders have common attributes that are timeless. If you can study their trading styles and apply them, you’ll soon become a real trading expert.

B. There are losers and winners in the markets. There are losers who refuse to go out of the market that’s moving against them. There are winners who know when to buy and when to sell. They also know how to deal with negative positions. Herd mentality isn’t always a good thing. Trading alongside the trend remains one of the smartest thing you can do in the market. For example, going long when the markets are predominantly bearish can be suicidal. With that kind of market situation, one will just need to go short. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been made by following the flow of the markets.

C. Personally, I don’t believe in the Efficient Markets Hypothesis. Merlin Rohtfield doesn’t believe that the theory is correct. Numerous permanently victorious market wizards across the globe have proven that theory wrong. Ultimately, Michael Covel also thinks that theory is against any beneficial trading knowledge. Efficient market dogma has been proven wrong by impressive track records.

D. Great traders are made, not born. You need no unique gene, or heavenly miracle or inborn ability or special secret or PhD to become a consistently winning trader. Your wishes and opinions aren’t known or respected by the financial markets. These markets can’t be wrong, but you can be wrong. You don’t need to wait for a position that’s moving against you to come back to your entry price. You can manage your risk and minimize your losses in the markets. That’s the only thing you can control.

E. The buy-and-hold strategy is no longer useful. It’s useful only if you’re immortal or you’re a magician who can turn back the hands of the clock.

Review
Going against the trend is very dangerous, no matter what those who think otherwise may say. Many traders feel that an overextended bearish market could be ready to rally and do so protractedly. But the reality is that it might still fall by 600, 800, 1000, 1300 points before it even goes up. One of the major reason traders buy renowned and world-famous stocks is that analysts talk about them and investors are often aware of them. If the overextended market continues in the direction that people don’t expect, then investors get whacked. As a result of this, everybody would be looking forward to strangling the prime economic forecaster, as investors holding other instruments are apprehensive. Invariably, you’d see some suave ape who’s shown on the screen or other type of media, often a forecaster whose studies were published in the previous year and adjusted some days prior to the occurrence, safeguarding his studies by reducing the likelihood while announcing that he still prefers the scenario since it remains overextended. Or it might be that the stock displays a temporary halt in its journey and some speculators feel it’s now great to enter contrary to the established trend and realize gains in counter-trend or mean reversion trading. They may not realized, yet they’ve fallen in love with a wrong direction and would go on opening positions against the trend, usually with heavy losses, till they receive a margin call or forfeit their portfolio.

This article is ended by a few quotes from Michael:

1. “Speculation isn’t evil. Think about what drives a market: millions of investors speculating to make money. That’s evil? That’s life! Recent college graduates speculate that a high-paying job will come after graduation. That’s evil.”

2. “Zero sum battles are life. Someone has to lose for you to win. Forget trying to be loved. Need a friend? Get a dog. If you’re going to win, someone else will lose. Does survival of the fittest make you uneasy? Stay out of the zero sum game.”
 
Quote from Hoofhearted:

Nice thread! It is interesting to me that most (if not all) of the above Market Wizards all seem to put alot of focus on stop losses. That is cutting your losses very !

Something to be said for that!

And yes, good thread.
 
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