Jean-Baptiste Lully – Marche pour la Ceremonie des Turcs

Surviving the markets with Rock-Paper-Scissors

I added a few comments on this post: http://www.dailyspeculations.com/wordpress/?p=6708

Beta

Enjoy this nice post on Daily Speculations about high and low beta stocks.

http://www.dailyspeculations.com/wordpress/?p=6754

Flute/Trading

Every trader’s goal should be trading like this guy plays the flute. Effortlessly.

 

Hedge Fund

16 years waiting for this!

It has been 16 years since I first heard this “Kyrie” from Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Mass, (a friend had the cd). There was no internet available at the time, and I didn’t take note of the name of this Mass.

I tried a few times to find this cd, but the cd dealers didn’t have a clue.

Today I found it’s name, plus a video (youtube).

Hear it and enjoy.

2010 in review

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 8,600 times in 2010. That’s about 21 full 747s.

 

In 2010, there were 50 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 238 posts. There were 50 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 10mb. That’s about 4 pictures per month.

The busiest day of the year was December 16th with 765 views. The most popular post that day was My Trading and Investing Library.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were twitter.com, dailyspeculations.com, en.wordpress.com, stocktwits.com, and hilotrader.blogspot.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for mark cook trader, soros, paul tudor jones, madagascar 2 baby lion, and brazilian saying.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

My Trading and Investing Library December 2010
2 comments

2

Interview – Mark Cook October 2009
11 comments

3

“Trader” – A Movie About Paul Tudor Jones July 2009
4 comments

4

About Me February 2009
2 comments

5

ORB, GSV & GST – Trading Inherent Price Levels September 2009
9 comments

My Trading and Investing Library

1. 7 Habits of a Highly Successful Trader – Mark Crisp
2. 7 Winning Strategies for Trading Forex – Grace Cheng
3. 28 Years In Wall Street – Henry Clews
4. 30 Days to Market Mastery – Jacob Bernstein
5. 101 Investment Tools for Buying Low and Selling High – Jae K. Shim & Jonathan Lansner
6. 101 Option Trading Secrets – Kenneth Trester
7. A Beginner’s Guide to Short-Term Trading – Toni Turner
8. A Bull In China – Jim Rogers
9. A Demon of our Own Design – Markets, Hedge Funds and the Perils of Financial Innovation – Richard Bookstaber
10. A Trader On Wall Street – Michael Coval
11. A Trader’s Money Management System – Bennet McDowell
12. A Mathematician Plays The Stock Market – John Allen Paulos
13. Absolute Returns – The Risk and Opportunities of Hedge Fund Investing – Alexander Ineichen
14. Active Alpha – A Portfolio Approach to Selecting and Managing Alternative Investments – Alan Dorsey
15. Active Value Investing – Making Money In Range-Bound Markets – Vitaly Katsenelson
16. Advanced Swing Trading – John Crane
17. Advanced Trading Rules – Emmanuel Acar & Stephen Satchell
18. Adventures of a Currency Trader – Rob Booker
19. Alternative Beta Strategies and Hedge Fund Replication – Lars Jaeger
20. An American Hedge Fund – Timothy Sykes
21. An Engine, Not a Camera – How Financial Models Shape Markets – Donald MacKenzie
22. An Interview With Nicholas Darvas  – Mark Crisp
23. Analysis of Financial Time Series – Ruey S. Tsay
24. Beating The Street – Peter Lynch
25. Beyond the Random Walk: A Guide to Stock Market Anomalies and Low-Risk Investing – Vijay Singal
26. Beyond Value at Risk – The New Science of Risk Management – Kevin Dowd
27. Bollinger on Bollinger Bands – John Bollinger
28. Building Automated Trading Systems – With An Introduction to Visual C++.Net – Benjaming Van Vliet
29. Building Winning Trading Systems with TradeStation – George Pruitt and John R. Hill
30. Buy The Rumor, Sell The Fact – 85 Maxims Of Wall Street & What They Really Mean – Michael Maiello
31. Campaign Trading – Tactics and Strategies to Exploit the Markets – John Sweeney
32. Capital Asset Investment – Strategy, Tactics and Tools – Anthony Herbst
33. Chaos And Order In The Capital Markets – A New View Of Cycles, Prices, And Market Volatility – Edgar Peterst
34. Computerized Trading – Maximizing Day Trading and Overnight Profits – Mark Jurik
35. Contrarian Investment Strategies – David Dreman
36. Contrarian Ripple Trading – Aidan J. McNamara & Martha Brozyna
37. Country Risk Assessment – A Guide to Global Investment Strategy – Michel Bouchet, Ephraim Clark & Bertrand Groslambert
38. Create Your Own Hedge Fund – Increase Profits And Reduce Risk With ETF’s and Options – Mark Wolfinger
39. Credit Derivatives – Risk Management, Trading & Investing – Geoff Chaplin
40. Credit Risk Modeling Using Excel and VBA – Gunter Löffler & Peter Posch
41. Cybernetic Analysis for Stocks and Futures – John Ehlers
42. Day Trade Your Way To Financial Freedom – Sammy Chua
43. Day Trading Grain Futures – David Bennett
44. Day Trading With Short Term Price Patterns And Opening Range Breakout – Toby Crabel
45. Day Trading Systems & Methods – Charles Le Beau & David Lucas
46. DeMark On Day Trading Options – Thomas R. DeMark
47. Digital Day Trading – Howard Abell
48. Dynamic Hedging – Managing Vanilla and Exotic Options – Nassim Nicholas Taleb
49. Dynamic Trading Indicators – Mark Helweg & David Stendhal
50. Enhancing Trader Performance – Brett Steenbarger
51. ETF Strategies and Tactics – Hedge Your Portfolio In A Changing Market – Laurence Rosenberg, Neal Weintraub & Andrew Hyman
52. Evidence-Based Technical Analysis – David Aronson
53. Exotic Option Pricing and Advanced Lévy Models – Adreas Kyprianou, Wim Schoutens and Paul Wilmott
54. Financial Derivatives – Robert Kolb & James Overdahl
55. Financial Markets in Continuous Time – Rose-Anne Dana & Monique Jeanblanc
56. Financial Risk Taking – An Introduction to the Psychology of Trading and Behavioural Finance – Mike Elvin
57. Five Rules For Successful Stock Investing – Pat Dorsey
58. Float Analysis – Powerful Technical Indicators Using Price and Volume – Steve Woods
59. For Crying Out Loud – From Open Outcry to the Electronic Screen – Leo Melamed
60. Forecasting Financial Markets – The Psychology of Successful Investing – Tony Plummer
61. Forecasting Volatility – Stephen Figlewski
62. Forex Patterns & Probabilities – Ed Ponsi
63. Forex Made Easy – 6 Ways to Trade the Dollar – James Dicks
64. Forex – Tell Me About It! – Easy Forex
65. Fractal Market Analysis – Applying Chaos Theory to Investment and Economics – Edgar Peters
66. Getting Started in Bonds – Sharon Wright
67. Handbook of Hedge Funds – François Lhabitant
68. Heard On The Street: Quantitative Questions From Wall Street Job Interviews – Tymothy Crack
69. Hedge Fund Alpha – John Longo
70. Hedge Fund Masters – Ari Kiev
71. Hedge Funds Quantitative Insights – François-Serge Lhabitant
72. Hedge Fund of Funds Investing – An Investor’s Guide – Joseph Nicholas
73. Hedges on Hedge Funds – James R. Hedges IV
74. High Probability Trading Setups For The Currency Market – Kathy Lien & Boris Schlossberg
75. High Probability Trading Strategies – Robert C. Miner
76. High Probability Trading – Marcel Link
77. High Frequency Financial Econometrics – Luc Bawens (ed.)
78. High Frequency Trading – A Practical Guide to Algorithmic Strategies And Trading Systems – Irene Aldridge
79. Hit and Run Trading – Jeff Cooper
80. Hot Commodities – Jim Rogers
81. How I Trade For A Living – Gary Smith
82. How I Trade And Invest in Stocks and Bonds – Richard D. Wyckoff
83. How Markets Really Work – Laurence A. Connors
84. How to Create and Manage a Hedge Fund – Stuart McCrary
85. How to Make Money in the Futures Market… And Lots of it – Charles Drummond
86. How to Trade in Stocks – Jesse Livermore
87. How I Became a Quant – Insights From 25 of Wall Street’s Elite – Richard Lindsey & Barry Schachter
88. How I made 2 Million Dollars in the Stock Market – Nicholas Darvas
89. If it’s Raining In Brazil Buy Starbucks – Peter Navard
90. Inside the House of Money – Top Hedge Fund Traders on Profiting in the Global Markets – Steven Drobny
91. Inside the Investor’s Brain – The Power of Mind Over Money – Richard L. Peterson
92. Intermarket Technical Analysis – John Murphy
93. Intermarket Trading Strategies – Markos Katsanos
94. Investing in Corporate Bonds and Credit Risk – Frank Hagenstein, Alexander Mertz & Jan Seifert
95. Investment Fables – Exposing the Myths of “Can’t Miss” Investment Strategies – Aswath Damodaran
96. Investment Gurus – Peter J. Tanous
97. Investment Philosophies – Aswath Damodaran
98. Investment Psychology Explained – Classic Strategies to Beat the Markets – Martin Pring
99. Investment Strategies of Hedge Funds – Filippo Stefanini
100. Investors and Markets – William Sharpe
101. Jesse Livermore – The World Greatest Stock Trader – Richard Smitten
102. Learn to Day Trade the E-mini S&P 500 – Simple as 123 – Marshall Jones
103. Liar’s Poker – Michael Lewis
104. Long-Term Secrets To Short Term Trading – Larry Williams
105. Margin Trading from A to Z – Michael Curley
106. Market Response Models – Dominique Hanssens et alli
107. Mastering the Trade – John Carter
108. Master the Markets – Tom Williams
109. Mechanical Trading Systems – Richard Weissman
110. MESA and Trading Market Cycles – John Ehlers
111. Millionaire Traders – How Everyday People Are Beating Wall Street at It’s Own Game – Kathy Lien & Boris Schlossberg
112. Money Management Strategies for Futures Traders – Nauzer Balsara
113. Money Management Strategies for Serious Traders – David Stendhal
114. Monte Carlo Methods In Finance – Peter Jäckel
115. Mutual Funds For Dummies – Eric Tyson
116. My Life As a Quant – Emanuel Derman
117. Nerds on Wall Street – Math, Machines and Wired Markets – David Leinweber
118. On Swing Trading – Dave Landry
119. One Good Trade – Mike Bellafiore
120. One Shot – One Kill Trading – John Netto
121. Optimal Portfolio Modeling – Philip McDonnel
122. Options Trading: The Hidden Reality – Charles Cottle
123. Option Pricing Models & Volatility Using Excel-VBA – Fabrice Douglas Rouah & Gregory Vainberg
124. Options, Futures and Other Derivative Securities – John Hull
125. Pairs Trading – Quantitative Methods and Analysis – Ganapathy Vidyamurthy
126. Pattern Recognition and Trading Decisions – Chris Satchwell
127. Paul Wilmott on Quantitative Finance – Paul Wilmott
128. Pit Bull Lessons from Wall Street’s Champion Day Trader – Martin “Buzzy” Schwartz
129. Practical Speculation – Victor Niederhoffer & Laurel Kenner
130. Pricing, Hedging and Trading Financial Instruments – Carol Alexander
131. Quantitative Trading – How To Build Your Own Algorithmic Trading Business – Ernest Chan
132. Reminiscences of a Stock Operator – Edwin Lefèvre
133. Rocket Science for Traders – John Ehlers
134. Rocking Wall Street – John Mauldin
135. Seasonal Stock Market Trends – Jay Kaeppel
136. Secrets of the Trading Pros – H.Jack Bouroudjian
137. Selective Forex Trading – Don Snellgrove
138. Short-Term Trading With Price Patterns – Michael Harris
139. Small Stocks for Big Profits – George Angell
140. Smarter Trading – Perry J. Kaufman
141. Sniper Trading Workbook – George Angell
142. Soros – The Unauthorized Biography – Robert Slater
143. Speculator King – Jesse Livermore
144. Stock Market Rules – Michael Sheimo
145. Stock Market Strategies That Work – Jake Bernstein & Elliot Bernstein
146. Stock Patterns for Day Trading and Swing Trading – Barry Rudd
147. Stock Trader’s Almanac – Yale Hirsch
148. Street Smarts – High Probability Short Term Trading Strategies – Laurence Connors & Linda Bradford Raschke
149. Street Smart Guide to Valuing a Stock – Gary Gray et alli
150. Swift Trader – Perfecting the Art of Day Trading – Charles Kim
151. Systems Trading for Spread Betting – Gary Ford
152. Techniques of Tape Reading – Vadym Graifer & Christopher Schumacher
153. The Art of The Trade – What I Learned (and Lost) Trading the Chicago Futures Markets – Jason Alan Jankovsky
154. The Art of Trading – Bennett McDowell
155. The City – A Guide to London’s Global Financial Centre – Richard Robert
156. The Complete Guide to Day Trading – Markus Heitkoetter
157. The Complete Guide to Futures Trading – Refco Private Client Group
158. The Complete Guide to Point-and-Figure Charting – Heinrich Weber & Kermit Zieg
159. The Daily Trading Coach – Brett Steenbarger
160. The Day Trader’s Bible – Richard Wyckoff
161. The Day Trader’s Course – Lewis Borsellino
162. The Day Trader’s Survival Guide – Christopher Farrell
163. The Definitive Guide of Futures Trading, Vols I e II – Larry Williams
164. The Economics of Financial Markets – R. E. Bailey
165. The Edge – Maximum Profit/Minimum Risk Glogal Trend Trading  Strategies – Mark Boucher
166. The Education of a Speculator – Victor Niederhoffer
167. The Encyclopedia of Trading Strategies – Jeffrey Katz & Donna McCormick
168. The Essentials of Trading – John Forman
169. The Evaluation and Optimization of Trading Strategies – Robert Pardo
170. The Financial Spread Betting Handbook – Makolm Pryor
171. The Forex Trading Course – Abe Cofnas
172. The Fundamental Index – Robert Arnott et alli
173. The Fundamentals of Hedge Fund Management – Daniel Strachman
174. The Future of Investing in Europe’s Markets After MiFID – Chris Skinner
175. The Haller Theory of Stock Market Trends – Gilbert Haller
176. The Handbook of Alternative Investments – Darrell Jobman
177. The Handbook of Portfolio Mathematics – Ralph Vince
178. The Handbook of Pairs Trading – Douglas Ehrman
179. The Handbook of Financial Instruments – Frank Fabozzi
180. The Index Trading Course – George Fontanills & Tom Gentile
181. The Leverage Space Trading Model – Ralph Vince
182. The Logical Trader – Applying a Method to the Madness – Mark Fisher
183. The Market Is Always Right – Thomas McCafferty
184. The Market Masters – Kirk Kazanjian
185. The Marktes Never Sleep – Thomas Busby
186. The Master Swing Trader – Alan Farley
187. The Mathematics of Money Management – Ralph Vince
188. The Nasdaq’s Trader Toolkit – M. Rogan LaBier
189. The New Market Wizards – Jack Schwager
190. The New Science of Technical Analysis – Tomas DeMark
191. The Options Course – George Fontanills
192. The Options Course Workbook – George Fontanills
193. The Partnership – The Making Of Goldman Sachs – Charles Ellis
194. The Power of Oscillator/Cycle Combinations – Walter Bressert
195. The Profit Magic of Stock Transaction Timing – J.M.Hurst
196. The Right Stock At The Right Time – Larry Williams
197. The Science of Financial Market Trading – Don K. Mak
198. The Secret of Economic Indicators – Bernard Baumohl
199. The Secrets of the COT Report – Trade Stocks & Commodities With The Insiders – Larry Williams
200. The Secret Science of Price and Volume – Timothy Ord
201. The Secrets To: Emotion Free Trading – Larry Levin
202. The Sociology of Financial Markets – Karin Knorr Cetina & Alex Preda
203. The Stock Trader – Tony Oz
204. The Subtle Trap of Trading – Brian McAboy
205. The Swing Trader’s Bible – Matthew McCall & Mark Whistler
206. The Three Skills of Top Trading – Hank Pruden
207. The Tipster – Edwin Lefèvre
208. The Trading Game – Ryan Jones
209. The Triumph of Contrarian Investing – Ned Davis
210. The Truth About Day Trading Stocks – Josh DiPietro
211. The UK Trader’s Bible – Dominic Connoly
212. The Ultimate Step-By-Step Guide to Day Trading Penny Stocks – Jason Brook
213. The Ultimate Trading Guide – John Hill, et alli
214. The Undeclared Secrets that Drive the Stock Market – Tom Williams
215. The Volatility Course Workbook – George Fontanills & Tom Gentile
216. The Way to Trade – John Piper
217. The Winner’s Circle – Wall Street’s Best Mutual Fund Managers – R.J.Shook
218. Time Compression Trading – Jason Alan Jankovsky
219. Timing the Market – Deborah Weir
220. Timing Techniques for Commodity Futures Markets
221. TNT Gorilla Trading Stuff – Joe Ross & Mark Cherlin
222. Tom Dorsey’s Trading Tips – Thomas Dorsey
223. Topic in Market Microstructure – Ilija Zovko
224. Trade Chart Patterns Like The Pros – Suri Duddella
225. Trade Like a Hedge Fund – James Altucher
226. Trade Like Jesse Livermore – Richard Smitten
227. Trade Like Warren Buffet – James Altucher
228. Trading Regime Analysis – Murray Gunn
229. Trade What You See – Larry Pesavento & Leslie Jouflas
230. Trade Your Way To Wealth – Bill Kraft
231. Trade the Trader – Quint Tatro
232. Trader Vic – Methods of a Wall Street Master – Victor Sperandeo
233. The Four Biggest Mistakes in Futures Trading – Jay Kaeppel
234. Trading Against The Crowd – John Summa
235. Trading Catalysts – Robert Webb
236. Trading for a Living – Alexander Elder
237. Trading for Dummies – Michael Griffis & Lita Epstein
238. Trading for Tigers – Walter Downs
239. Trading From Your Gut – Curtis Faith
240. Trading Futures – Thomas Schneider
241. Trading in the Zone – Mark Douglas
242. Trading on Expectations – Brendan Moynihan
243. Trading on Momentum – Ken Wolf
244. Trading Rules That Work – Jason Alan Jankovsky
245. Trading Strategies Using Computing Simulation – Larry Sanders
246. Trading Systems and Methods – Perry Kaufman
247. Trading the 10 O’clock Bulls – Geoff Bysshe
248. Trading the US Markets – Paolo Pezzutti
249. Trading to Win – Thomas Busby
250. Trading Without Gambling – Marcel Link
251. Turn Losing Forex Trades into Winners – Gerald Greene
252. Understanding the Markets – David Loader
253. Understanding Gaps – Scott Andrews
254. Understanding Hedged Scale Trading – Thomas McCafferty
255. Undue Influence – How the Wall Street Elite Puts the Financial System at Risk – Charles Geisst
256. Using Economic Indicators to Improve Investment Analysis – Evelina Tainer
257. Value-at-Risk Models – Carol Alexander
258. Value-at-Risk The New Benchmark for Managing Financial Risk – Phillipe Jorion
259. Value in Time – Better Trading Through Effective Volume – Pascal Willain
260. Volatility and Correlation – Riccardo Rebonato
261. Wall Street Stories – Edwin Lefèvre
262. Warrior Trading – Clifford Bennett
263. When Genius Failed – The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management – Roger Lowenstein
264. Winning the Loser’s Game – Timeless Strategies for Successful Investing – Charles Ellis
265. Winning the Mental Game on Wall Street – John Magee
266. Winning the Trading Game – Noble Draknoln
267. Winning With Options – Michael Thomsett
268. Winning With Futues – Michael Thomsett
269. Winning With Stocks – Michael Thomsett
270. World Event Trading – Andrew Busch
271. Yield Curve Dynamics – Ronald Ryan

Reading

I’m reading now “One Good Trade”, by Mike Bellafiore, head partner at SMB Capital (ok, you all know him!).

This is a book that every trader must have in his shelf. (Along with “Long-Term Secrets To Short Term Trading, by Larry Williams, and “The Education Of A Speculator”, by Niederhoffer).

This book was missing in the trading literature, as it gives you a very good knowledge about the Proprietary Trading world.

Also, Bella has an unique way of sharing his thoughts, even when it means to give away a trading edge…

This book will make you a better trader! No doubt about that. (I’m in the middle of it and I’m already thinking again about things I thought I had already figured out…)

By the way, take a closer look in the chapter 2 – A Good Trade, chapter 5 – Why Traders Fail, chaper 6 – Live to Play Another Day, chapter 7- Stocks In Play, chapter 8 – Reading The Tape, and chapter 9 – Maximizing Your Profits With Scoring. These are must reads. Several times.

 

Hello

Wow.

I was out of touch in the last couple of months, immersed in my own trading and reading. It took something very, very special to make me write here again.

Today I talked to a man, a very accomplished trader and businessman, (to say the least, as he is the owner of a major trading operation, truly international), and I was touched by his will to share knowledge – and to talk to an overseas guy like me.

Thank you! Our talk was very important to me, and it’s making me think differently about many things.

One of them: to share more. (I thought I shared “enough” in this blog, but I’m no match for this guy). The more you share, the more the Universe fills your hands with enormous gifts.

Thanks again!