THE TRADER'S EDGE: THINKING IN PROBABILITIES

Casinos make consistent profits day after day and year after year, doing something random

At the same time, most traders believe that the outcome of the market's behavior is not random,yet can't produce consistent profits

Thread 🧵

What casino owners ,professional traders know is that probable outcomes can also produce consistent results if you " Have an edge" and trade on a large enough sample size.

The best traders treat trading like a numbers game.

1. To illustrate, let's look at the game of blackjack-

In blackjack, the casinos have approximately a 4.5-percent edge over the player.

This means that casinos will make profit over a large enough sample size, even after several winning streaks and big profits of many players.

At the end of the day, week, month, or year, the casino always ends up with approximately 4.5 percent of the total amount wagered.

That 4.5 percent might not sound like a lot, but let's put it in perspective.

Suppose a total of $100 million dollars is wagered collectively at all of a casino's blackjack tables over the course of a year. The casino will net $4.5 million.

What casino owners and pro traders understand about the nature of probabilities is that each individual hand played

Why 90% of the traders even after winning 90% of the times gives it back to the markets?

Has this ever happened to you, That you are up 10% on the month and you feel crazy, but the next morning you give it all back to the markets?

What Causes You to Give It All Back?

Thread-

1. Euphoria-

It is the state of mind in which we can not perceive risk, In state of euphoria nothing can go wrong.

So when you are in this state of mind, you feel invincible and there is nothing in the world which can stop you from making money.

That’s why when most of the traders after a winning streak put a Huge position and then Boom, all the luck goes for a toss.

Think about it why most of the traders loose big money when the market starts to go in bear mode from bullish mode, because

when the markets are in a bull market, even if you take trades based on your neighbor recommendation most of them will be right

"Felling too good is not good for your trading"

Winning gives you dopamine rush, And when you trading to get right often you are just feeding your ego

The evolved trader recognizes that winning simply means that you landed on the right side of probability. That’s all. There is no reason to get excited.

It’s just probability and you have an edge that gives you an advantage in the randomness of probability.

Patience , A quality needed to be successful in markets.

But when the real capital is put at risk, The patience goes for a toss.

Thread on Why Emotions overtakes patience -

1. Mindsets-

Decisions are taken by either the Higher mind (Frontal lobe) or the Fear based mind .

When decisions are informed by our higher mind, they are more likely to lead to positive outcomes. decisions driven by survival instincts from the past can hold us back.

Primitive mindsets are characterized by a feeling of urgency, high stakes, rigidity, and repetitiveness.

The moment that real capital is put at risk in trading, everything changes ,Trading goes from a logical exercise to a game of emotions.

And after you experience a loss, your brain will start anticipating potential losses instead of gains.

Ever experienced fear of entry in a trade when you had a streak of losses previously, then you have experienced the power of Emotional mind over the rational mind.

2. Emotional Hijacking -

Emotions are not psychological they are biological in nature, that’s why they take over your logical ability and you cant control them even when you want.

Your brain’s prime directive is self-preservation – keeping you alive.

The four stages of markets-

1. Accumulation
2. Markup
3. Distribution
4. Decline

Thread-

1. Accumulation phase-

This phase starts after the completion of a downtrend.

In this phase the furious selling activity of downtrend comes to a rest.

During this phase there is a gradual shift from sellers to a more neutral environment .

Institutions starts to show interest in stock, Because they can not buy the stock in one time ;they buy it slowly over a long period of time.

Sometimes it takes years for a stock to come out of this phase.

The easiest way to recognize if a stock is in this phase is that the Longer term moving averages will start go decline even when the stock bounce higher.

This shows that there is indecision and there is no powerful force present In the stock at this time.

But, Its super risky to buy in this phase because it can also be a second distribution zone , and the stock may again go lower in many cases.

The first signs of an accumulation zone is the stock will try to make higher lows and try not to break the swing lows often .

Life is crazy. Today is a good day to stop and reflect

10 simple questions that CHANGED my life

(startup life, personal life)

Here they are:

Q: Can you really control that?

Smart people know what they can and cannot control

If you're living in the past, you're nostalgic
If you're living in the future, you're anxious
If you're living in the present, you're at peace

Q: Did you start today with a victory?

Starting every day with a victory sets you up to win

I don't care what it is:

- Make your bed
- Make a wonderful coffee
- Hug your wife or children

No such thing as a small win. It's a win!

You'll win more, if you start winning early

Q: What are you optimizing for?

#MFSA
1. Money
2. Freedom
3. Stability
4. Ability

The world rewards those who are focused

Perfectly prioritize

Are you being optimistic?

Guaranteed: more luck when you're optimistic

Phenomenal compilation of summaries of🔟important Business/Finance/Investing books. h/t @EdelweissFin 👏
An excellent weekend read.👍

cc: @dmuthuk @Gautam__Baid @saxena_puru

https://t.co/Nl4eWteJKK

Snapshots of the Key Takeaways of the books discussed.

1⃣ "A Piece of the Action" is an excellent book to understand the Finance Industry evolution in the US.

2⃣ The obvious classic "The Intelligent Investor".

3⃣ Ray Dalio's "Principles"

4⃣ Howard Marks' "The Most Important Thing"

5⃣ "Thinking Fast and Slow" is a good book on Behavioral Finance.

6⃣ Another obvious classic "One Up on Wall Street"

7⃣ "The Little Book of Behavioral Investing" is another good behavioral finance book.

8⃣ "The Black Swan" by Taleb. A very important book about unpredictability and cautioning against over-relying on Models/predictions.

9⃣ "The Millionaire Next Door". I haven't read it, but hear it's a good personal Finance book.

🔟"Nudge" about improving decision making.

Like humans , stocks too have different nature and if you are trading every stock the same way then this thread may be for you.

A thread on Nature of stocks and how it can help you to improve your trading results.

First start with what is the nature of stocks ?

I broadly categorize stocks in two categories-

1. The momentum stocks-

These are the stocks where most of the moves are swift in nature, or we can say that the pullbacks in a trend are smaller.

2. The AKBC stocks-

These are the stocks where most of the trending moves comes with deep pullbacks.

Examples-

So the purpose of categorizing these stocks, is that we Trade those stocks/instruments which are more suited to our style.

Say if you are a mean reversion player and you are trading in the momentum stocks category then you are more bound to lose over large number of trades.

The Internet rewards unique people.

Find your unique combination of skills, interests, and personality traits.

I call this a Personal Monopoly.

Become the only person in the world who does what you do.

Then, tell the world by sharing your knowledge.

Thanks to @Calalouf for her beautiful drawings.

As you build your Personal Monopoly, don’t just focus on yourself.

Focus on what the world wants too.

Think like an investor.

Find a small and growing market that only a few people write about. Then, learn everything you can about it, and share the best of what you learn.

A Personal Monopoly is a unique intersection of skills, knowledge, and personality that nobody else can compete with.

Personal monopolies aren't found — they're made.

Global markets increase the upside of having a Personal Monopoly, but also make it harder to create one.

The process of building a Personal Monopoly is the process of becoming yourself.

The sweet spot is finding an idea that looks specific to others, but still diverse enough to express the many shades of who you are, where you excel, and what you want to achieve.

New piece: Why It's Usually Crazier Than You Expect

I have three friends who bought a few shares of GameStop this week “to see what happens.” They’re only doing that because the price went up. And they’re making the price go up.

Now might be a good time to read Robert Shiller's "Irrational Exuberance".🧐

cc: @Gautam__Baid @saxena_puru @dmuthuk

✔️Natural Ponzi processes
✔️This time is different
✔️Compounding biases
✔️Herds and epidemics
✔️Rationalizing Irrational

My fav parts.

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If you're out of the loop - this is the (hilarious) story of a subreddit (wall street bets) taking down a multi-billion dollar hedge fund... get your popcorn ready 🍿

the hero of our story: a user named DeepFuckingValue bought $50k of call options in Gamestop ($GME) that has turned into a $13M+ win in ~3 months.

he's a part of the subreddit r/WallStreetBets, a group of degenerate gamblers that I love.

So here's the situation.

Gamestop (GME) = a dying biz. circling the drain. Who goes to a store to buy games? It's basically a pokemon card dealership at this point. Plus with covid, malls are dead.

So some Hedge Funds are shorting the stock, betting it would go down.

One fund in particular, Melvin Capital Managment - a multi-billion dollar hedge fund...had been accruing a big short position in gamestop. Usually you don't have to disclose your shorts - but these were 'listed put options' so some clever redditors discovered the position

Melvin had a $55M+ short against GME.. If you're not familiar with shorting - read this simple explanation using apes and snakes and bananas from the subreddit.

Teachers, take note:

I really enjoyed this interview with @timevalueofbtc. Be sure to check it out and also read his incredible book! Let us know what you think.

https://t.co/JjeSherkCz

"Poor Charlie’s Almanack" about Charlie Munger is a phenomenal book that should be read by all investors at least once. Excellent summary of that book by @allenxcheng👏

cc: @dmuthuk @Gautam__Baid

Thread below with my fav

Topics in the article ⬇️

Key points ⬇️

Mental Models suggested ⬇️

On Constant learning ⬇️

The Blank Sheet Method that will 10x your reading comprehension.

Here is how it works.

Before you start reading a new book, take out a blank sheet of paper. Write down what you know about the book / subject you’re about to read — a mind map if you will.

After you finish a reading session, spend a few minutes adding to the map with a different color.

Before you start your next reading session, review the page.

When you’re done reading, put these ‘blank sheets’ into a binder that you periodically review.

A thread on Trend-lines

// What are trend-lines?

Trend-lines are support and resistance lines which are formed by connecting Important swing points.

The beauty of using them is that We can use them when stock is not Respecting the Horizontal S&R zones, they can indicate us when the trend may change.

// Things To consider while Making trendlines?

• A trendline formed by using 3 Major-Swing points is a potential trendline, But we will also use 2 points to form a trendline, will discuss how, as you read further.

• Trendline can be formed by two ways-

1. Wicks-

In this method we only connect the wicks to make a trendline, this is a precise way of making a trendline.

// Why only connect the wicks?

There are two type of levels - Precise and Less precise (Which we call zones).

So what we are doing is by only connecting the wicks we are making a precise level where we can take trades, either Mean reversion or Breakout trades.

Examples-

A thread on Pyramiding-

What is pyramiding?

In pyramiding we add on to a position when it is going in our direction. Its basically opposite of averaging down.

MOMENTUM - Success of a pyramiding trade depend on this ingredient, the more the momentum the better pyramiding.

There are many way to enter and exit in a stock-

1. ALL IN - ALL OUT
2. ALL IN - SCALE OUT
3. SCALE IN - SCALE OUT
4. SCALE IN - ALL OUT ( I use this one)

Why traders use Pyramiding ?

More than anything what pyramiding do is keep your losers small and your winners - Big.

Pyramiding in my view keeps your dd smaller as your losers are very small because you enters with only a fraction of what you would have entered Normally.

BUT, not necessarily it should be more profitable than ALL IN- ALL OUT, Where one enters all at once and sell all at once.

HOW TO DO PYRAMIDING-

There are various methods which are used by traders for pyramiding ,while keeping the basic concept of adding onto the strength.

1. PYRAMIDING AND TRAILING BASED UPON STRUCTURE-

In this method we scale in or pyramid the qty when the stock breaks above