newbies run a hedgefund after just 2 weeks training
03-26-2014, 04:55 PM
Quote: (03-26-2014 01:23 PM)cardguy Wrote:
So - you are saying the stock market is bullshit? In terms of paying somebody to try and beat it? It is just random?
I have big suspicions as well (I did a thread on it once). But just wondering what your take is?
No, there is a distinct difference between random and unpredictable, but for all intents and purposes it is the same thing. If the stock market takes a dive because 2 planes fly into the WTC that is unpredictable but not random. Either way, you can't profit from it unless you know the planes are going to hit or if you take some risk and sell/go short immediately (say 10 seconds at the latest) after the fact (you would've made good money doing that btw).
Outperforming the market with a longer term portfolio with selected stock picks, like on the show, is very hard if not impossible to do consistently. The people who got ahead on the show did two things: refrain from doing absolutely retarded trades and overtrading, as well as have luck on their side. If there are many funds all of which hire smart, well-paid people and none of them can do it with far better information than your average retail investor, then it's not logical to think anyone can do better in this arena (and nobody really does).
I'm convinced there are a few ways that are accessible to relatively small fish to make money in the stock market, but all require a lot of skill, patience and experience.
What you have to be careful of is explaining a variable by looking at that same variable (explaining price by looking at price; i.e. the trend is upward so it will continue to rise and other technical analysis fallacies).
Just one example: a way for the little guy (not throwing around more than a million or so) to make money is in low-liquidity events where the big fish are all swimming the same way, but it is too crowded for them to execute their transactions. In this situation you have very rapid price moves which you can take advantage of easily as even relatively small transactions will move the price a lot. It happens frequently enough both on the market as a whole but more frequently in single stocks. If you can make worthwhile money off of a 1k-5k transaction then you have a huge advantage in this sort of environment. Even for this you already need a lot more information about the market than what most retail traders have available.
Imagine you are a big fund manager and you are convinced a stock that is dropping fast (say >4% intraday) is going to tank further, but you own so much of the stock that your total holding equal more than the total daily volume... what can you do? At best you can expect to reduce your holdings by some marginal amount. A retail trader could just dump his entire portfolio or go short for all he is worth and it would have no or very little effect.
Trading peanuts requires iron discipline and a Jaguar-like approach, waiting for those few no-brainer trades instead of constantly trading and always having some opinion of the market (which most do, including the people on that show).
(Note that trading is not the same thing as investing/managing your money long-term)