So I saw #ShareYourForexStory is trending and Oh boy, do I have a story. 2019 was my lowest year financially and I needed to make quick wins and gains before we starved(Had 2 kids already). There was this scheme in Ibadan that claimed to pay 40% ROI for 6 months...see ehn

So..had a great conversation last night with older investment types, old friends whom I traded with/against and managed money against or for. Age diff from me is > 10+ years so the takes were interesting but the common theme was a little disturbing (depends on your view)

Was looking at the landscape of the world & quite concerned where we are (I do not share your optimism for a shinny happy future). I am a Bond guy + Cycles & my view approach is ALWAYS what is the worst that can happen (that is how I was taught to trade & manage money) As a Bond

Money manager you never every want to apologize for a negative year, most people don't understand bonds can lose lots and lots and lots of money. So my view on life is always negative & fuck you approach.

The others are similar but have more equity exposure and FX, one other is really good via commodities so the conversation was from a top down look with some bottom up approaches. So.....after looking at the notes of the great conversation this is how it looked:

basically the world changed 2007/2008 especially North America. The GFC set in motion financial engineering games and here we are. The issues pre this (2000 to 2007) set ALL this up so lots of blame to go around but to pin point certain things the real problems started with QE &

FEAR - It’s the re-experience of failure in advance.

Many traders face the issue of Not entering in trades because of fear.

A thread on How to pull the trigger when the opportunity knocks.

Lets First start from knowing the cause of this "FEAR" of pulling the trigger.

A traders goes through many phases before becoming Profitable.

The first phase is the " APUN HI BHAGWAN HAI" phase-

When we first begin Trading, we don’t know any concepts, we don’t know about the risks , the dangers.

So we start trading, and like most guys by beginners luck we start making good, we start to calculate how much money we will make in next 1yr, 5 yrs, Greed start to Hop in.

We get introduced to Various instruments, F&O, LEVERAGE.

We take big positions as we don’t have any FEAR cause we haven't seen those bad phases yet.

Now we get the Big blow, account down -50%, or in many cases wiped out.

The first phase ends here.

Now we know How the market can kick our ass, we now know the risk that comes with those big positions.

"THE LEARNING PHASE"-

Now we know that we were just lucky initially and now we have to learn why we get those losses, so we start learning concepts , fundamental, Technicals.

1/

Get a cup of coffee.

In this thread, I'll help you understand Geometric Expectations.

2/

Imagine we have an investment opportunity.

If the investment goes well, we get to double our money.

But if it goes badly, we'll end up losing three fourths of it.

There's a 50/50 chance of either outcome.

The question: is this a good bet or not?

3/

A simple way to approach this question is to calculate the bet's "expectation".

For every $1 we bet, there are 2 possibilities:

1. The lucky case, where we double our money and end up with $2, and

2. The unlucky case, where we lose (3/4)'th to end up with just $0.25.

4/

Each of these outcomes is equally likely.

So, on *average*, every $1 we put in turns into ($2 + $0.25)/2 = $1.125.

This is a *positive* 12.5% return.

Such bets are called *positive expectation* bets. On average, we expect to *make* (rather than *lose*) money on them.

5/

Suppose we could take many turns betting at these odds.

In any one turn, we could of course lose money.

But because our bet has positive expectation, *over time* we expect to make money.

A Thread on~ O V E R T R A D I N G

Sitting and observing the numbers flicker on the screen might be very exciting.

But have you ever felt like you might've done better? Or you're just too tired of waiting that you punch an order right in?

That's a Bad Idea.

So, Let's understand the reasons behind it and try to find a way out.

1. Not having a trading plan makes you clueless.
Your impulses start to take control of you.

2. Having a trading plan; But still taking impulsive/ random trades.
Because of adrenaline rush or gambling instinct.

3. Revenge trading
When you try to force a trade in order to recover from a previous loss.

30 books I wish I read before Investing my hard-earned money:

1. You can be a Stock Market Genius by Joel Greenblatt
2. Common Stocks, Uncommon Profits by Phil Fisher
3. Margin of Safety by Seth Klarman
4. The Crowd by Gustave Le Bon
5. Winning the Loser's Game by Charles Ellis

6. The Zurich Axioms by Max Gunther
7. The Most Important Thing by Howard Marks
8. Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
9. The Intelligent Investor by B. Graham
10. A Zebra in Lion country by Ralph Wanger and Everett Mattlin
11. Learn to Earn by Peter Lynch

12.Poor Charlie's Almanack - The wit and wisdom of Charles T Munger
13.Speculative Contagion by Frank Martin
14. The Long and the Short of it by John Kay
15. More than you know by Michael Maubossin
16. Influence - The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini

17. The Psychology of Judgment and Decision making by Scott Plous
18. The Real Warren Buffett by James O'Loughlin
19. Devil take the Hindmost by Edward Chancellor
20. Risk Intelligence by Dylan Evans
21. The Emotionally Intelligent Investor by Ravee Mehta

22.Accounting for Value by Stephen Penman
23. Common Stocks and Common Sense by Edgar Wachenheim III
24. Big Money Thinks Small by Joel Tillinghast
25. Memos from the Chairman by Alan C Greenberg