The New Market Wizards: Conversations with America's Top Traders
Rate it:
6%
Flag icon
What is important is to assess what the market is focusing on at the given moment.
13%
Flag icon
Since I usually tend not to put on a straight long or short position, I have to give a lot of thought as to what particular option combination will provide the most attractive return/risk profile, given my market expectations.
19%
Flag icon
list of stocks broken down by market sector, ranking the stocks in each sector by how close they are to their all-time highs.
20%
Flag icon
major trends are now frequently preceded by a sharp price change in the opposite direction.
21%
Flag icon
McKay doesn’t try to gauge whether the fundamentals are bullish or bearish, nor does he place any direct weight on whether the fundamental news is bullish or bearish. Rather, he focuses on the market’s response to fundamental news.
22%
Flag icon
I would buy when weak hands were selling and sell when they were buying.
22%
Flag icon
However, if your distribution assumptions are even a little bit off, the error is enough to derail the delicate statistical estimators, and cruder, robust estimators will yield more accurate results.
22%
Flag icon
Any meaningful approach must be invariant to the choice of units.
23%
Flag icon
Your comments basically seem to imply that chart reading is just laden with pitfalls and unfounded assumptions.   Yes, it is.
24%
Flag icon
You should try to express your enthusiasm and ingenuity by doing research at night, not by overriding your system during the day.
26%
Flag icon
Ironically, even though money management is more important than the price model, mathematically, it’s the more tractable problem.
26%
Flag icon
If you bring normal human habits and tendencies to trading, you’ll gravitate toward the majority and inevitably lose.
27%
Flag icon
When all the criteria are in balance, do the thing you least want to do.
27%
Flag icon
“Don’t think about what the market’s going to do; you have absolutely no control over that. Think about what you’re going to do if it gets there.”
27%
Flag icon
In particular, you should spend no time at all thinking about those roseate scenarios in which the market goes your way, since in those situations, there’s nothing more for you to do. Focus instead on those things you want least to happen and on what your response should be.
28%
Flag icon
The majority of people trade worse than a purely random trader would.
28%
Flag icon
The general idea is that what works most of the time is nearly the opposite of what works in the long run.
28%
Flag icon
system designers should believe their results only after they have done everything possible to disprove them.
30%
Flag icon
Don’t worry about what the markets are going to do, worry about what you are going to do in response to the markets.
31%
Flag icon
You ask a lot of questions. You stand in the pit and talk to the people around you.
31%
Flag icon
Right above the high and below the low of the previous day.
32%
Flag icon
Therefore, the best place to get in is before that number is reached and play what I call the “magnet effect.”
33%
Flag icon
Normally, the Sharpe ratio is measured using monthly data. Thus, only equity variability that occurs on a month-to-month basis would be considered.
33%
Flag icon
We do good research, so we have an edge. (B) We have a rational, practical approach to money management. (C) We pay very low commissions. (D) Our executions are among the best in the business. (E) Most of the people who work here keep a large portion of their net worth in the fund we manage. Personally, I have over 95 percent of my net worth in the fund.
34%
Flag icon
one of my risk management rules is that if we lose more than 1.5 percent of our total equity on a given trade we get out.
34%
Flag icon
At the beginning of each month, I determine the maximum position size that I’m willing to take in each market, and I don’t exceed that limit, regardless of how bullish or bearish I get. This rule keeps me in check.
36%
Flag icon
Learn a lot of statistics. Learn how to use a computer. Find some systems that work. Develop some simple risk management rules.
36%
Flag icon
The Complete Guide to the Futures Markets [Jack D. Schwager, John Wiley & Sons, 1984], The Handbook of Futures Markets, by Perry Kaufman [John Wiley & Sons, 1984], and The Commodity Futures Game: Who Wins? Who Loses? Why? by Richard J. Tewles and Frank J. Jones [McGraw-Hill, 1987].
36%
Flag icon
I firmly believe that for every good thing in life, there’s a price you have to pay.
36%
Flag icon
To make a 30 percent return each year, with no peak-to-valley drawdown greater than 10 percent.
36%
Flag icon
I knew that his trades were based largely on signals generated by computerized technical trading systems.
37%
Flag icon
a combination of having an edge and using rigid money management controls.
39%
Flag icon
Thereafter, I focused my analysis on seeking to identify the factors that were strongly correlated to a stock’s price movement as opposed to looking at all the fundamentals.
40%
Flag icon
you could be right on a market and still end up losing if you use excessive leverage.
40%
Flag icon
The dividend yield was down to 2.6 percent and the price/book value ratio was at an all-time high.
40%
Flag icon
I use liquidity considerations and technical analysis for timing.
40%
Flag icon
when you earn the right to be aggressive, you should be aggressive.
40%
Flag icon
The chart suggested that there was tremendous support near 2,200 based on a trading range that had been built up during most of 1986.
41%
Flag icon
holding a core group of stocks long and a core group of stocks short and then using leverage to trade S&P futures, bonds, and currencies.
42%
Flag icon
an attractive yield should be the last reason for buying bonds.
42%
Flag icon
The way to build long-term returns is through preservation of capital and home runs.
42%
Flag icon
Soros has taught me that when you have tremendous conviction on a trade, you have to go for the jugular. It takes courage to be a pig. It takes courage to ride a profit with huge leverage. As far as Soros is concerned, when you’re right on something, you can’t own enough.
43%
Flag icon
If a trade doesn’t work, he’s confident enough about his ability to win on other trades that he can easily walk away from the position.
43%
Flag icon
if you make a mistake, respond immediately!
43%
Flag icon
The key tools Druckenmiller applies to timing the broad market are liquidity analysis and technical analysis.
43%
Flag icon
the initial step in any analysis is determining the factors that make a particular stock go up or down.
45%
Flag icon
Ultimately, you have to balance your underlying faith in the company with the price action.
45%
Flag icon
I have to see some stability in the price action before I buy the stock.
45%
Flag icon
However, often the trigger for buying a stock is fundamental news.
45%
Flag icon
If there’s a large move on significant news, either favorable or unfavorable, the stock will usually continue to move in that direction.
« Prev 1