Thursday 21 April 2016

Polemic's trading aphorisms


As there appears to be no regulatory body of trading aphorisms, who would test, affirm and endorse each with a trade body stamp and certificate (£19.99 for members), I will throw in my own, garnered from recent experience. 

Polemic's Trading Aphorisms

- Never short the Dax when you think it's blinding obvious to short the Dax.

- The best time to enter a position is just after you have been stopped out of it.

- Correlations work really well until you put the trade on.

- Buy low, stopped lower. 

- Selling new highs is like buses. You wait ages for one, but as soon as you step aboard another one comes along.

- Adding to winners gets your stops done faster. 

- If it begins with a J it will have your arm off. 

- Academics aren’t rich because they missed the trade whilst writing about the last one. 

- The FTSE responds to many things, just not the things you know. 

- There is always an algo ahead of you, get over it. 

- A forgotten order is always a losing order. 

- Dealing from a train on a tunnel ridden route makes Russian Roulette look lame.

- "China to blow up one day" will remain a meme longer than you can remain short. 

- You will never be the first to trade the news, so fade it and hope.

- If there is absolutely no chance of your stop being done on the Sunday night open, it will be. 

- It's less embarrassing to say you were up watching porn than the Chinese open.

- If someone mentions Fibonacci, there's no data out.

- "Italian banks to blow up Italy one day" will remain a meme longer than you can remain short. 

- Most short term positions end up in long term books.  

- Whatever you tell your mum, you are gambling.

- If Gundlach is talking your book, take it back to the library. 

6 comments:

  1. These are brilliant insight. These are like Zen aphorisms for financial markets.

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  2. He he he he he, this is great stuff Polemic!

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  3. I don't know if you caught Gavyn Davies' FT blog article on 'nowcast' developments last week?

    The Fulcrum nowcast is definitely quite strong.


    http://blogs.ft.com/gavyndavies/2016/04/20/important-developments-in-us-nowcasting/

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  4. did you see the horseman capital management piece on Italian banks? "market views" basically, pointing out the fear was overhyped

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  5. And another good post from Mr Davies. Always worth a read:


    http://blogs.ft.com/gavyndavies/2016/04/24/is-there-a-new-plaza-accord/

    ReplyDelete