How do I get better at trading?

How do I get better at trading? by Laurent Bernut

Answer by Laurent Bernut:

Hope is a mistake”, Mad Max, post apocalyptic road poet.

3 declinations of the same principles: process

A. Trading edge is not a pretty story , trading edge is a number

Every strategy ever traded boils down to this formula:

Gain expectancy = Win% *AvgWin% – Loss%*AvgLoss%

Your survival only depends on how You can tilt the distribution. Regardless of the asset class, there are only two styles: mean reversion and trend following.

  • Open mindset: there is a nugget in everyone’s story
  1. Read the classics: Lefevre, Schwager, Covel, Van Tharp, Loeb
  2. Podcasts: Michael Covel, Andrew Swanscott, Barry Ritholtz
  3. Investment newsletters are to investment what mangas are to literature, Unsubscribe, no exception
  • Stock picking is vastly overrated
  1. Plain vanilla fundamentals is not enough: 3/4 of professional managers underperform; over 3/4 of them claim to be fundamental stock pickers
  2. 90% of market participants focus on stock picking and entry. 90% of market participants fail. Causality and correlation: unsubscribe from all newsletters
  3. never enter w/o an exit policy: Once in a position, there is 100% chance You will exit. W/o exit plan, 90% chance the market has sth nasty in store for You
  4. Money is made in the money management module. The single largest performance discriminant is bet size: process and math

B. Portfolio management process

  • Risk is not a story in China, Risk is a number

Risk is not a story. Risk is not a high Sharpe ratio or low VAR. Risk is how much You can afford to lose per trade and cumulatively. Whatever You think your risk budget is, divide it by two. By the time You have lost half your budget, You will be a different person, gripped in cortisol and CRH, paralysed by fear.

  • Write strict investment guidelines: risk, exposures, objectives

“People live up to what they write down”, Robert Cialdini. Formalise your process in writing. Execute. Simplify. Running a portfolio w/o strict guidelines is like building a house w/o a plan

C. 90% of trading is mental, the other half is solid math

Above all else, any trading system is worthless w/o the right mindset: process over outcome

Examples of outcome vs process:

  1. Stop loss override: ego over process
  2. Close a position too early clear trading plan: outcome vs process mindset
  3. Too big/small bets: euphoria/depression over process
  4. Focus on performance instead of plan execution: outcome over process
  5. Mood swings depending on performance: outcome vs process

Being right is not being profitable (outcome). Being right is following the plan (process)

Conclusion:

This is an “avant-gout” of the book to come. On the short side, the market does not cooperate. Open and process mindsets are the two keys to survival

How do I get better at trading?

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