Author: Lawrence Chan

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TLC Weekly Update November 27, 2020

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Today is Black Friday. Many shopping malls and online stores, however, have already kickstarted their holiday sales since the beginning of the week. I don’t usually participate in this holiday sale period thanks to my lack of interest in buying the latest whatever consumer items. No exception this year. I will kick back and relax a bit more at home while finishing up several projects.

An interesting story about the origin of Manuka honey. We are so used to read horror story of introducing a specie to a foreign environment can cause disaster. This one, however, is an exception.

And here is another bizarre story I bumped into when I am doing my research about important historical moments in the past. Human history is really fascinating and it can be tasty too.

A long video from Wharton School featuring Howard Marks. Not that many people have watched this video because it does not contain catchy phrases or keywords. However, this video is filled with wisdom you can hardly find from the YouTube trading gurus.

Have a nice weekend everyone!

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TLC Weekly Update November 20, 2020

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Another week that the stock market flirting with all time high yet not quite able to stay that way. More vaccine news but not good enough to offset the other pressing issues. Traders should be happy that next week is Thanksgiving week. Traditionally, pro traders who are doing fine up to this point for the year would wind down their trading and take a break all week. Let’s see if trading volume will drop like the past this coming week.

I have been reading books and studying history to try to get a better perspective of the current global situation. It feels like we are going to see drastic changes in coming few years as the post COVID era is getting very chaotic already. It is important to figure out what to do and prepare for this “interesting time”.

I came across some amusing reads that has nothing to do with the big picture though.

For example, this one on the birth of chaos theory and this other article on Olive Oatman the pioneer girl are good read.

During this holiday week, would you be interested in trying the sport of egg boxing? I find this quite funny since we can never guess what people do with their spare time …

Lately, I have this burst of creativity that keeps me going 12-14 hours a day working on my projects. Very good progress is made and I am happy for that. Hopefully this can last long enough so that I can complete several projects before the end of this year.

Have a great weekend all!

Happy Thanksgiving Week to my US readers!

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TLC Weekly Update November 13, 2020

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Today is Friday the 13th. Famous for handing out chaos and troubles. Well, the whole week was a mess for the financial markets thanks to Pfizer’s vaccine announcement spiked the stock markets much higher. And then everyone learnt that its CEO filed to unload most of his holdings of the company. Talking about sarcasms …

With the hanging issue of US election, everyone I talked to are as confused as I am about the near term outlook of the financial markets. A weekend break is much needed to reflect on all these latest developments. Some friends of mind are talking about using psychedelics this weekend to clear their minds. For those of you interested in New Age stuff, here is a piece on DMT trip … interesting I must say.

And for astrology fans, or just astronomy enthusiasts, the last Jupiter Pluto conjunction in this year just happened on Nov 12th. It will not happen again until Feb 4, 2033. That’s 13 years away. I am not sure what this signify. I hope, though, that it implies COVID-19 is over.

Someone sent this video to me on making a simple toy. This can be a fun project for kids and adults alike. Enjoy!

I am kind of re-reading a book I have. “Kind of” because it is a different edition. The book is The Most Important Thing Illuminated by Howard Marks. This edition has additional comments from other people and the author himself. It is a great book for anyone interested in longer term investing.

So much work to get done before the year end. I guess no holiday break for me this year.

Have a nice weekend all!

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TLC Weekly Update November 6, 2020

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US election was over but the messy process of getting a US president for the next term has just started. Hopefully my prediction, that it will take years to resolve the issue, is wrong. Some people suggest that US should really be split into two countries instead of one since the votes are so distinctly divided at 50/50 level. They may have a point.

I have an extremely productive week. Multiple issues with deploying automated trading strategies are resolved. New strategy development effort has achieved great progress. Since travel around the world is still quite troublesome, looks like I will stay in Toronto doing R&D all the way into end of this year.

I grew up playing 2D fighting games. And I am pretty bad at it. Somehow I watched this video on the Tekken 7 world championship final. Amazing precision and control. How do they do that?

Just a fun video on the fastest robot solving a Rubik’s cube.

It is disappointing to see US sinking into chaos. Once upon a time, it was safe to send your children by US postal. What went so wrong that this once superpower of the world has turned into a disgrace?

I guess politics is really not my thing. Better focus on my trading.

Have a great weekend all!

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TLC Weekly Update October 30, 2020

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Yesterday the few major US technology companies reported their earnings. That rocked the overnight markets into chaos. Next thing we know a 7.0 earthquake hit Turkey and Greece. What a week …

US Election is next Tuesday. For those of you who are new to trading, may I remind you to check your account to make sure you are either flat on your index trading positions as you planned, or, having enough margin to cover the potential swings. Back in 2016, when Trump won the election, we have a 5% drop that no one can get out and then a complete reversal from that low to open 2% above the closing price before the election. It is not a game for those unprepared.

I know some of you are interested in arts, here is a video about an artist who can turn stone into water. It has English subtitle. Enjoy!

It turns out I am not the only one like watching chess videos. Here is an article about the big come back of the game itself and how real-time streaming changed the landscape. I do not really have a lot of time playing chess myself. However I do enjoy playing chess puzzles and they are available for free at several well know chess sites. Check them out and see if you like it.

This week somehow many of my tasks are either completed or that I have to wait for responses from others. That gave me time to tidy up my place. It is long overdue though. Next week my schedule will return to its hectic mode again.

I will enjoy this little breathing time a bit more now.

Have a great weekend all!

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TLC Weekly Update October 23, 2020

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Finally, the last US presidential debate is over. Now we just have to sit tight and wait for the outcome by election day. For traders everywhere, hopefully there will be a slow down of random news shock from the two camps. Giving the world a break until the results are in on election day would be nice. I am sure more chaos will follow after the election though …

Bitcoins is on the move again and the crypto traders are getting all excited about it. Although I don’t hold a lot of BTC anymore, it is nice to see more and more famous financial gurus willing to bet on the concept. The latest being Paul Tudor Jones. What he says 5 months ago and what he says yesterday. Of course, he is talking his book because he just bet $100 million (I can be wrong on the figure) on BTC in the beginning of the year.

Read a story about the old Nintendo NES Zapper. It is so interesting to see how game developers managed to overcome the hardware limitations back then. Since I have not played console games for a long long time, I wonder what kind of technology the current generation of shooting games uses for better gaming experience.

I encounter this question pretty much every week in random conversations all the time, “Why do people fail at trading?” All those “gurus” out there giving their personal accounts of determination and perseverance needed to win the game are pure bullshit. Some of them are the lucky ones belonging to the 4% I explained here, the rest are fake gurus who copy the answers from the others on the internet. Here is another take on the issue based on our physiology and that’s why I told everyone that they have to be awaken first before they stand a chance.

To be awaken is a process. High level of awareness is needed for anyone who want to accomplish real mastery in anything. It is a very easy task to do if you choose to practice awareness deliberately. The hard part is making it your second nature or making it effortless. Since majority of the population refuses to do anything that gives them a sense of defeat, thus people with high level awareness is very rare.

For those of you who really want to improve your awareness but lack the guidance, you can start with something easier to digest, like, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, so that you have some background understanding about human minds. From there you can progress to learn basic breathing techniques to control your mind. Once a slightly better foundation is built, you can then learn to observe yourself.

Just like anything that worth pursuing, you must be willing to transform yourself in order to stay the course.

Have a great weekend all!

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TLC Weekly Update October 16, 2020

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This was option expiration week but then thanks to the way Softbank and its copycats cornering the stock market like no tomorrow, the option market makers have no choice but to accept defeat. Many gurus out there keep saying the stock market is not following the reality of the real economy. I have a slightly different take on the detachment of correlation though – underneath the major indices, only a handful of stocks are driving the indices to all time high while majority of the other components have not recovered like the real economies around the world. The stock markets are reflecting the reality – that only a handful of companies benefited from the situation.

Interesting read about the energy efficiency of computing. CPU overheat is something that affect computer performance ever since they were created. It looks like we finally learn more about this issue over the past several years that can contribute to major breakthrough in computer performance.

Scary tell from Loy Machedo in this YouTube video. Young people who are fortunate enough to grow up in the better parts of the world should know about the reality out there. The world is full of dark corners and the willingness to pay attention to these issues can help you develop a proper perspective of the world we are living in.

For the programmer readers, here is a long read about Amazon’s epic failure at cracking the online game industry. Sometimes, doing everything in-house just because you can afford it may lead to massive waste of resources and failure to deliver anything of significance. The same problem persists with majority of the aspiring traders who think they can afford to lose enough money to hack their way to trading success …

I have so much work to catch up with so I will wrap up here.

Have a great weekend all!

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TLC Weekly Update October 9, 2020

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This week the markets are all about deal or no deal on the US stimulus package. It reminded me of the old saying that “all politicians are failed actors and actresses”. How long do you think they will continue with these dramas?

A good read about the loss generation in Japan. These people are in their 40s to 50s now and are still struggling. If not for the polite / mild culture of Japan, this can turn into a very serious problem. Just look at civil unrest everywhere else you probably get what I mean. Are we really heading towards Japanification? As some people put it 10 years ago, thanks to the mistakes made by governments everywhere to print money with no idea what the unintended consequences are, the outcome can be the end of our civilization.

This article is a good example how China’s business people conduct their businesses. Many westerners made the mistake believing that the current China has anything to do with the ancient heritage on the same piece of land. Well, it does not. It is a completely different civilization created from scratch. Bits and pieces of the ancient traditions and values of China are passed down but I don’t think you will easily find that anymore.

Robert Greene came out with another video – a conversation between him and Ryan Holiday. It is a long video of about an hour of conversation. It raises some questions we should all ponder upon in this environment.

Lots of things to wrap up from last quarter while setting up shop for my new venture. I am hoping my time will free up a bit more later this month so that I can sit down and write something interesting outside of trading.

Have a great weekend all!

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TLC Weekly Update October 2, 2020

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First debate of three scheduled just took place this Tuesday and we already have a taste of what is coming up. I wonder if the viewership would drop over time though as there is really nothing new or useful being discussed. Unless, of course, some super juicy conspiracy facts are exposed in coming weeks …

And now Trump declared that he tested positive with COVID, the plot thicken with even more uncertainties in coming weeks. How the stock market will react to this can be complicated because no one knows the outcome.

Someone referred me to this short video of Hugh Jackman being interviewed by an YouTuber. Either the youtuber has made a serious impression from the past, or that Hugh Jackman has a very good memory. I will let you decide.

I was asked lately by a number of people about the importance of statistics in trading. My point of view is that, before one even talk about statistics, they need to understand the difference between frequentist and Bayesian approaches. The two camps lead to distinctly different way to formulate their conjectures and inference methods. I personally do not believe that the frequentist approach works with trading and it is proven by Nassim Taleb that financial markets are all fattail animals. Here is a good short piece on the subject.

And having the correct understanding of Bayesian inference, is all more important in this post COVID world. Check out this video from Veritasium on the subject. It can help those of you who are so influenced by the reporting of daily cases to calm down and rethink about the whole situation.

Coming week I will be extremely pre-occupied by all kinds of paperwork and business chores. Better get things started now.

Have a nice weekend all!

p.s. belated Happy Mid-Autumn Festival to all of you who celebrate the occasion!

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TLC Weekly Update September 25, 2020

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Roller coaster ride in the stock market continues. Nasdaq 100 rallied 5% higher from Monday low and then fell back down to Monday low right after. Such high volatility can induce even higher volatility going into election month. Investors and speculators should be more careful in coming few weeks. Powell may have very limited power in popping up the market should some kind of panic kicks in …

Learned something new here on how ants decide when and where to build bridges. Sometimes things are far more simple then we choose to believe in. One good example is the microstructure of the stock market. People cannot help themselves to make things so complicated when they look at the price movements that ultimately leading them to make bad trading decisions.

Sometimes brand building can be very bizarre because human nature is – crashing two trains to make a train company famous. As suggested by one of my staff, that I should record my trading computer 7/24 so that they can produce ASMR videos for those trading addicts on YouTube. Been thinking about it and may give it a try.

In case you do not know what ASMR videos are, you can search for “What is ASMR” on youtube to knock yourself out.

With all these riots and emotional “heated debates” among people with different viewpoints of things happening around us, maybe it is time to remember that Socrates hates democracy. My point is, you don’t need to have an opinion on things you don’t know. You don’t need to make a call on what is happening around you as if you are an expert of the subject. Listening too much to the news, which are by design to focus on extreme events to get your attention, is bad for your health.

Lately I’ve heard a lot of talks of the inevitability of the financial system breaking down. For example, Ray Dalio publicizes the idea that eventually the Fed will hit a wall with what they are doing. And some people are already thinking about bartering if “shit hits the fan”. Bartering has been around ever since human existed. Only after cash being accepted as the default form of medium for transactions that barter became less popular over time. So pay attention to the rise of bartering will give you a clue how close we are from that “wall”.

So much to get done this weekend again, got to run.

Have a great weekend all!