Nov
20
Puns for Educated Minds, from Gary Rogan
November 20, 2010 |
The shortest knight at King Arthur's table was Sir Cumcision. The knights didn't drink much whiskey back then but instead favored Merlin's Magic Ale which produced special magic spells known as "Aleutions". Every knight had his own private TV where he sat and thus they became known as the Knights of the Round Cable, except one couldn't watch because he was blind. He was always searching for the Holy Braille. The knights were very religious and were rewarded with a lot of Prophet who helped them hold their Masses which were frequently interrupted by Guinevere who thus became known as "the weapon of Mass destruction". Feeling betrayed, King Arthur wanted to get rid of her and the gambling knight, Sir Chancelot so he hired a lawyer Mordred. But as expected that just lead to more dread for the heartbroken king. And thus he got into his Avalon and drove off never to be heard from again.
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Can someone please explain the common advice to not average a loser?
This is only the case where the initial position that is taken is one that is so large in size that it ought to be considered a full position. However, when one acknowledges one’s fallibility in assessing very short term price movements it is more sensible to split up your full intended position and continuously negotiate the price. For example, 1/4 position at what you think is good price to buy/sell while have a target to close price in mind… and proceed to add conservatively. However, you must avoid events such as buying into the moron’s coined event “flash crash”. However, that sell off was quite avoidable had a speculator been paying attention to the daily chart with consolidation on top of a low volatility rise. I also recall 400 Dow point short squeezes during 07-08 but they followed a narrow range after a fierce sell off and I don’t know who would be selling into such a fierce squeeze. When prices reach a point where trading is essentially cut off, price must move quickly to a new level in the opposite direction to find new sellers/buyers.
Conclusion: Average a small loser in proportion to your trading capital is a wise strategy as long as you are attentive to areas of extreme price movements which I believe can be avoided and even capitalized on by paying attention to different time frames.
Aside from the illogical sense of throwing good money after bad, there are also numerous psycholgical reasons why not to average a loser. Losses are best taken quickly and minimized(one can be losing small money on a trade but not be in a losing position). Hindsight can make it seem like one should have averaged the loser, but none of us have the benefit of hindsight or clairvoyance. Plus, if the statistics worked before doesn’t mean they’ll still work as cycles do abruptly change. Also, I question the avoidability of the flash crash, the art of avoidance being a deep philosophical question and very metaphysical, way above my pay grade. Saying that the flash crash was quite avoidable to speculators is akin to saying that it is easy for the same speculator to predict the exact closing numbers of the next day’s S&P. That’s not going to happen very often. There are some things that sane people should never do, and some rules they should never break: Pay retail on big items, bet everything on a 100 to one nag, bet to show, make exotic wagers, lay long odds, bet Jai alai exotics, think your Nigerian friend is really going to send you 50 million dollars after you pay the $15K performance bond, play 5 game baseball parlays, bet on the center of the craps table, play roulette, play wheel of fortune, play slot machines, play keno, delude yourself into believing you can win all the time at Black Jack, play the lottery, bet money in bowling alleys and pool halls, think you’re better than your opponent, underestimate your opponent, play 3 card monte, take a proposition bet, believe a good system can turn a game with a negative eV into a regular profit, think you’re too smart to be a sucker, think you’ll beat the casino on a regular basis, believe in luck, play poker with a guy that is a magician, borrow money from a guy named Shylock, bet money with a guy named Shifty, believe in technical analysis, believe in Gann, pay for re-buys in poker tournaments, believe in hot tips, believe in any tip, believe that “The check is in the mail,” think the broker always has your best interests in mind, choose to be owed a larger sum rather than taking the cash, believe one can predict the market all of the time, believe that trading and games are easy to beat, believe “The fix is in,” bet on professional wrestling matches, loan money to friends, put up more margin when a position is going against you, hope your losing position will move in your favor, even have hope, trade with FX bucket shops, think that it’s easy to get 10% return a week from daytrading, think one can easily turn $5K into millions, ever average losers. The averaging of losers is one of the worse characteristics on this list and is not a healthy thing for your finances. To not average down needs no explanation, just like one need not explain the consequences of jumping out of an airplane without a parachute.
Jeff,
Great post. I miss your blog. Hope you get it back up soon.
Best,
m
Think I need to print this out and read this a couple of times.
THANK YOU SIR
However, I have a better feel for the market with a small position on than having nothing on. The probes that jesse livermoore discusses and ensuring you have enough dry powder so as to gracefully exit the loser with less of a loss than exiting at the worst price has to be better than taking a loss at some arbitrary point.
I will take your advice very seriously and think deeply about it over many long walks. Perhaps failures will lead me to what you say and unfortunately that might be the only way I will agree entirely with you.
jumping without a parachute
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDBrdl2sZWs