I’m often asked how I became an investment bank trader at 19. Here’s the story

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qL5t...

Commented on: Reexamining the Performance of Passive Options Strategies
#finance #investing #trading
https://buff.ly/49SN6fD

Reexamining the Performance of Passive Options Strategies
More than 40 years ago, Merton et al. published two papers [1,2] examining the performance of…

Pros or Cons?

How to spot fake traders

Always making crash/doom predictions

Real traders are sometimes bullish, sometimes bearish and often have no directional view

There are many people who seek publicity by regularly predicting crashes. They are not even market participants let alone traders

Pros or Cons?
How to spot a fake trader

Fake traders say you only need 30mins a day. Do some simple t/a analysis, put your trade on, put your feet up and watch the $$$ roll in

Real traders know we need to grind over hours each day

If you don’t have the time, don’t try to trade for a living

Pros or Cons?

Pivoting to the latest ‘big thing’

Pro traders operate in specialised niches. They will only trade a new market or product after long and careful consideration.

Imposters are always pivoting to the latest hot thing. E.g. Crypto a couple of years ago and AI now.

2/2

Pros or Cons?

How to differentiate between real pro traders and imposters

$$$ is a meaningless way to express P&L without an understanding of account size etc

Imposters are usually trying to impress by expressing P&L in $$$

As with vernacular, pros talk about P&L differently to amateurs

1/2 Pros or Cons?

How to differentiate between real pro traders and imposters

How do they express P&L?

Pro traders typically express P&L in ticks (futures), basis points or % ( fund managers etc)

Imposters always express P&L in $$$

2/2 Pros or Cons?

Vernacular

Bids are hit, offers are lifted

Listen/read carefully the expressions the trader uses. You’ll start to see differences between pros and imposters

Pro traders are consistent and often use expressions that are different from retail traders

1/2
Pros or Cons?

How to recognise trading imposters

Vernacular

Pro traders use certain specific terms/ express trades in certain ways

Amateurs/imposters won’t speak in the same way

E.g. Pro Futures traders when buying express the trade as “Pay (price) for (amount). “Sell (amount) at (price)

Strengthening US$ and rising (US) bond yields is not a good combo for risk assets such as equities

Particularly for EM/Asia