Wednesday 5 May 2010

More developments in market trading

More progress on trading - more time spent on this that could have been spent on revising for my exams! I have now just about completed the selection of systems for each market. A small number of questions remain outstanding, e.g. precise position sizing, what type of orders to use, whether to use stops or not

Today was an example of virtually perfect trading day - an exemplary day. The market moves 200 points, I make 330. The Dow Jones makes a net move of down 20, I make 110 pts. All this is very promising. If it stays so good till, let's say, the end of 2011, then things will be very rosy

But I am left wishing I'd developed all this at RA. This is the way we should have gone - long term trend following seems so naive now (or at least unsophisticated). We did spend some time on the question of very short term trading, but I could never give it the attention I have done over the past few months - too many distractions

My current market-related reading is Satyajit Das's Traders, Guns and Money I read his book on swap financing many years ago. This book is a collection of stories from his time in derivatives and certainly bears a very close resemblance to what I remember of that same period (basically mid-1980s to the present). It has got me reminiscencing of my early days in corporate treasury in the late 1980s. All the marketing girls who used to take me for lunch in fancy restaurants in Covent Garden- especially the blonde and brunette from Chase (was one called Kim?) and the lovely Julia Westcott from UBS (the quinessential 80s sloan ranger)

All through the current process, I am trying to avoid market news colouring my views - even the wednesday stocks report in energies. But I am tempted by either Bloomberg or CNBC in the evening. In the states, I rather enjoyed watching Jim Cramer rant each evening

The key question was always - are you a Dierdre Bolton Bloomberger or a Maria Bartiroma CNBC-er. I was always the former - but I haven't actually seen her on Bloomberg lately. Maybe she isn't enployed there any more?
The lovely Dierdre from Bloomberg

The equally lovely, but probably rather scarrier, Maria from CNBC

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