Author: James
Ken Griffin is the founder and CEO of the quantitative hedge fund Citadel. He also owns market maker Citadel Securities. He started trading while studying Economics at Harvard, and is now worth an estimated $35 billion. Here are 9 of Ken Griffin’s best quotes: Lessons learned from 2008: “Don’t act like a bank unless you are a bank. That was a really big lesson learned from 2008.” Ken Griffin started trading on his own, in his dorm room at Harvard, but Citadel now employs over 2,600 people. “I had to learn to trust people, and I realised that success was…
David Shaw is a computer scientist who founded the quantitative hedge fund D.E. Shaw & Co in 1988. Its successful use of sophisticated mathematical modelling and algorithms led to Shaw becoming known throughout the finance world as the ‘Quant King’. Here are 9 of David Shaw’s best quotes David Shaw often spoken of his view of the markets, that first developed in childhood. “I grew up with the idea that, if not impossible, it was certainly extremely difficult to beat the market. And even now, I find it remarkable how efficient the markets actually are.” As a computer scientist, David…
There are so many quotes doing the rounds about the markets and trading, and to be fair, most are pretty good. But what of those that are a little less known? Do they provide wisdom, entertainment and even humour? Here, I have put together 10 of my favourite quotes on the markets and trading, some more well-known than others… My 10 Favourite Quotes about the Markets and Trading We’ll start way back in the 1700s, with this quote from Voltaire, who had a very positive (and slightly amusing) view on the traders of the London Stock Exchange: “Go into the…
Denise Shull is a trader and performance coach who wrote Market Mind Games in 2012. In the book, she uses neuroeconomics and psychodynamic psychology to provide traders and investors with a variety of mindset tools to gain an edge in the markets. Here are our 12 favourite quotes from Market Mind Games: Traders demand certainty in the markets, where none exists. To be a successful trader means to embrace this uncertainty. “We greatly prefer to know what exactly our odds are. We feel more confident and less anxious when we know or think we know our exact chances. (This is)…
Larry Connors is a well-known trader and author. He has written several booked on quantitative trading and short-term trading, including Buy the Fear, Sell the Greed and Street Smarts – High Probability Short Term Trading Strategies (co-written with Linda Raschke). After Graduating from Syracuse University in 1981, Larry Connors started work at Merrill Lynch. He founded M. Gordon Publishing Group in 1995 and established TradingMarkets.com in 1998. As a trader, he uses a combination of fundamental and technical analysis, including moving averages and momentum indicators. In his books, he emphasises the importance of risk management and money management for successful…
I have to admit, I am somewhat of a minimalist trader. After one too many angst-ridden dissections after a period of poor trading performance, I deleted all my indicators in a fit of fury and they never returned. My charts are now free of all superfluous information and I trade on price action alone. But this post is not a celebration of naked (no indicator) trading, although I could rave all day about the clarity this simplified approach has given me. I’m not saying you need to delete all your indicators as I have done. There are as many styles…
In trading, the decision to use a stop loss or not is a very personal one. Some traders use one on every trade, while others believe strongly in not using one. What do you need to consider when deciding whether or not to use a stop loss? Do you plan to sit with the trade? Are you the sort of trader who sits with a trade for its whole life? i.e. Do you watch price continuously? If so, you might be happy to have a mental stop and cut the trade if price moves through a certain point, or if…
How we spend the first hour of our mornings sets us up for the day and can make a big difference to how we approach our trading and ultimately our P/L. Why is our morning routine so important to our trading success? We all want to be calm, alert traders, confident in our abilities (and confident in our trading method, but that’s for another post) and clear on what we are going to do when the markets present us with an opportunity. Our morning routine either supports us in that goal or undermines our wish for calm clarity. Even…
As traders, this is the question we all ask ourselves. Even if we have been trading our plan profitably for some time, our equity curve will at some point start flat-lining or going south, and we question whether we should stick to our plan or not. We might start second-guessing ourselves, lose a little confidence, and ask ourselves: Is my trading plan any good or do I need to change what I’m doing? Let’s assume that the plan has good logic, sound risk management, and has been sufficiently back-tested and/or forward-tested to have given you confidence when you started trading…
It’s not all about placing trades. In fact, the mechanics of when to enter and exit the markets is only a tiny piece of the trading jigsaw. Here are 7 things you can work at outside of trading to improve your trading results: #1: Choose a decent broker Do you find yourself blaming your broker for your poor results? It’s really not worth going down that rabbit hole, it’ll never lead to profitability, only bitterness and despair. Just choose a decent, reputable and regulated broker and get on with trading your plan. #2: Keep it simple The more complicated your…