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TLC Weekly Update June 19, 2020

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This week is the quarterly option expiration week. So much emotions from both bulls and bears calling where the market will close by the end of today (Friday). Well, this is just another typical op-ex week. In case you are wondering what I mean, just pay attention to the range established over these past few weeks. Where would the option market makers want the price to settle at?

Of course it is somewhere in the middle of that range! Option market makers are just like bookies on football games. They make money from both bulls and bears. They do not make money by being right. They make money by being not that wrong.

I found this interesting channel on YouTube about watch collection. I found this video particularly disturbing because the fake watch looks really close to the real one. For amateur collectors, it spells trouble because you have no way in verifying the watch you are going to buy is a real one. How can you trust the dealer? And if you are buying a second hand one online, the risk is even higher. This definitely makes me think twice before buying another watch.

An article on the hidden cost of these tech disruptors that changed our way of life. It is a good reminder about all these latest tech companies of their destructive forces. And it is nothing new either. Paypal before it cleans up its acts, it has all kinds of problems including money being stolen. How do we justify allowing a particular type of tech disrupting the society with no check and balance?

For aspiring trader, here is a good video on decision-making by Liv Boeree, a poker champion.

I have so much things going on lately I don’t know how to sum it up here. One of the most interesting ideas I am playing with is to start a proprietary algorithmic trading firm with several like-minded friends. I know we can make it happen but there are many details that we have to fill in first. I like the idea very much. I will go out to see if we can get enough funding to kick start the project. Feel free to contact me for more details. Maybe you can help us out too!

Have a great weekend all!

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TLC Weekly Update June 12, 2020

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This week I finally got the chance to check out my cottage since last October. Over the past few years, it was so eventful that I can’t imagine what may have happened to the property. Several years ago, ice from the lake pushed into the shore line caused serious damages. Well, it was a really memorable moment seeing that 12 feet tall wall of ice …

This year I am happy to report that no major disaster happened to my place. Took couple of days to clean up and figure out what kind of work has to be done. The lock-down here in Ontario has not been lifted yet. Hence, no one is allowed to talk to the neighbours on the island. Everyone is just busy fixing things up. Hopefully, we will have a good summer to enjoy the place.

Another interesting read on how this world has failed itself as far as the outbreak is concerned.

For those of you who are aspired to trade for a living, understanding the human brain can help you understand why I advocate the need to minimize human decisions during trading.

Lately it seems like Youtube is showing way too many ads from questionable stock picking and trading education services. Some of these ads even feature “client testimonies” with headshots that are just clips from stock photos (just use Google image search). This is a very serious problem as two generations of young adults really do not know anything about the markets yet believing they do because they read some bullshit from the net. I don’t know if it is a sign or not but it is definitely unhealthy development.

I am supervising the wrap up of several projects that will be rolled out as part of the DaytradingBias SaaS. These trading tools are never made available to retail traders just like the other tools I have created. These tools can help retail investors to do better in all kinds of market environment. So, for those of you who are interested in market timing but do not have the time to engage the markets actively, stay tune for the announcements.

Have a great weekend all!

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TLC Weekly Update June 5, 2020

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It looks like I still cannot escape to my cottage this weekend. So instead of preparing for the trip, I try to be more productive and wrote two articles on trading technologies. First one comparing different hardware of their trading strategy optimization speed. And the other one about Windows 10, whether it is time to trust it for trading.

I was talking to several fund manager friends this week. They are all sitting ducks at the moment because of the uncertainty going forward. Yet they do not have a way to explain to their clients why the stock market is behaving the way it does. The part that Nasdaq 100 printing new all time high is especially funny because they are questioned by their clients why they failed to take advantage of the crash.

Lucky that I don’t need to handle calls and emails like this.

One thing I know for sure is that this is a unique event that we have experienced like nothing else in human history. After the fact everyone is a genius. However, the indices are not telling the truth of what is happening in the real economy. I know from my contacts that many companies that are not well capitalized enough or that they do not operate defensively before the outbreak lock-down are gone already.

People are in distress. Yet the stock market is back to near all time high can really poke the nerve of many. If we see revolutions in many western countries within next 12 months, it will go down in history that the central banks are at fault in causing the world real chaos.

Mark Manson has an old article on Why You Can’t Trust Yourself, it is a good reminder why we need routines and process to improve our performance in almost anything. The central bankers obviously lack both as they have been making bad decisions all the time.

On the lighter side, check out this old video clip from The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. I am not a political person. I hate politics and hate to talk about politics even more as people gets too emotional on these things. I think if Stephen Colbert is more neutral with his stance, he can create same routine for every single politicians in US.

Have a great weekend all!

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TLC Weekly Update May 29, 2020

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My team has been working all week troubleshooting a very odd glitch affecting our real-time trading tools. We still could not identify why it happens occasionally. Very annoying but we have to get to the bottom of it.

After a long hiatus from posting new technical stuff at DaytradingBias, I finally get the chance to post a new article on a fully mechanical swing trading strategy on Emini S&P using VIX as the only input. It is designed to illustrate several useful concepts in utilizing VIX as part of the trading decision process. For those of you who want to see how it works just read the article. It is part of the Market Breadth Primer series that I intended to add more articles regularly from now on.

Read a very disturbing article where a region of US having an alarming rate of amputations among the black populations. This is one of many reasons why many other countries no longer respect US. It will take a lot of political willpower to change this.

Video of Howard Marks discuss Fed Support and the impact on everything. As a pioneer in the hedge fund industry, Howard Marks is well respected and well known for his long term insights. His newsletter, Memo from Howard Marks, is considered a must read by famous investors like Warren Buffett. Obviously, I read it regularly.

The island where my cottage is located, was under lock-down. I could not get it ready for the summer season so far. One thing good about this is that the fish population in the lake will get a better chance to grow bigger. Hopefully, I will be able to go there for a break soon!

Have a great weekend all!

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TLC Weekly Update May 22, 2020

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I just reviewed my online ordering pattern and I found a very disturbing trend that Amazon slowly but surely taken over almost all of my online orders. I used to order items of specific categories from specialty shops. Amazon is my default option to order computer related items only, like a replacement hard drive or a special cable. Now I order almost everything from them including my coffee supply. This tells you how much I depend on Amazon. Damn, should have bought more Amazon stocks several years ago …

Here is a great advice video from Tim Ferriss for the younger readers seeking a direction in developing their careers.

Now that daytradingbias server upgrade project is completed, and after some post upgrade fine-tuning it is working perfectly all week, I can move onto other projects that were held up.

First, there are a number of interesting experiments I have done on various trading platforms to compare their performances, specifically on trading strategy development, backtesting and optimization. I will summarize the results and post them up soon.

And the long awaited video lessons that I have planned for Trading Success Blueprint and Emini S&P Day Trading Course, will be released. I am working on the voice recording now. I find that I am still not very comfortable hearing my own voice. There is definitely a learning curve I need to overcome.

And the webinars on trading can finally resume. I have a number of ideas written down. It is just a matter of picking which one to proceed first. For those of you who want to ask me specific questions about trading, just drop me a line.

Have a great long weekend!

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TLC Weekly Update May 15, 2020

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Another roller-coaster ride with the stock market when the world is trying to re-open from lockdown. It is very interesting from an observer point of view. For many traders, however, it is a difficult week to deal with.

I will be busy this weekend upgrading daytradingbias.com to support SSL connection. Significant changes to everything within the site must be done to make it fully support SSL. I am keeping my fingers crossed hoping that everything will work out smoothly.

Interesting read on the way how the antique books were made. I never thought of the implications.

Tom Bilyeu conducted an interesting talk with Ray Dalio. It is long and packed with information. If you are concerned about the near term future what’s in store like the economy and outlook of job openings, check this video out.

One important theme Ray Dalio explained in the video is that coming 3 to 5 years will be very difficult time for many. It is important to figure things out and upgrade yourself with more knowledge so that you are flexible enough to take on the future challenges.

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TLC Weekly Update May 8, 2020

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A busy week of catching up with emails, closing deals and writing scripts for my video lessons. Been a productive week except that I can’t exercise much due to shoulder pain. The pain had finally subsided so I guess I can get back to training slowly.

We are looking at potential re-opening soon in US and Canada. However, I doubt that after weeks of programming, the old normal may not return for a long time. One factor that affects people much is being cash strapped due to being layoff. Many businesses are not coming back. How to address this issue should be of highest priority for the governments worldwide.

A very disturbing article on an innocent man who spent most of his live in jail for a crime he never committed. Read it and you will be in awe too. How can all these people with the proper authority, knowing this man is innocent, yet did nothing to get him out?

The complete disconnect of the US stock market from reality drives many readers email me with questions like did they missed the bottom already or that should they short this rally, etc. Well, I suggest watching this video with Sam Zell talking about the post-virus economy. You will gain some insight about the new world we are going to face post COVID-19.

For all of you mothers out there, Happy Mother’s Day!

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TLC Weekly Update May 1, 2020

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After weeks of struggle fending off hackers and crazy crawler robots on daytradingbias website, my team finally got the necessary hardware upgrades needed to deal with them for good. A week of smooth running without server overloading. I still don’t know why the f$#k that people want to hack daytradingbias. Seriously it is just a site for day traders …

So my schedule is finally back to normal as I don’t need to coordinate works among hardware vendors, anti-hacking experts and my team. Although the among of work piled up is still going to be overwhelming, at least my premium members can access the trading tools without problems.

Next in line will be upgrading daytradingbias to use secured connections. That should not cause major interruption to our site. Just a lot of tedious manual editing work.

Now that the main annoyance is over, I can concentrate on completing the other projects. My plan is to finish the voiceover on several video lessons next week and start uploading them asap. Several training tools for traders under development will be added soon too.

This article on Lee Holloway, the architect of Cloudflare, is a sad story that we should all be aware of. Sometimes illness happening right in front of us yet everyone take it as something else …

For those of you interested in investing and trading, here is a video with Ray Dalio discussing the current market situation on Apr 15. His take on the current situation and what he things will happen down the road can be useful as a theme for anyone wanting to profit from not just the current situation but also a very different future after the outbreak.

Back to work. And still letting my shoulder to rest as it has not fully recover yet.

Have a great weekend all!

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TLC Weekly Update April 24, 2020

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Another week of life under lock-down here in Toronto. Yet everything are getting done as more people adapted to using the technologies they avoided in the past ten years. I now have meetings with lawyers who insisted to meet face to face in the past with zoom. e-Signing documents with people who have the misunderstanding that e-signature are not legally binding. Things changed a lot as people are forced to adapt to the tech world that has been there all along.

For those of you traders and investors, here is an article on CalPERS failure to protect its assets as explained by Nassim Taleb. Idiots who have no understanding of tail risk nor proper trading experience in derivatives are often put in positions to manage risk. And this is a prime example of people who think he knows what he is doing. Unluckily, this is the norm for 99% of the financial industry. Here is another one coming from Canada.

I am still waiting for the hosting company to upgrade daytradingbias web server. It has been a struggle with them for weeks now. I understand that the lock-down is affecting their ability to handle non-emergency work. I guess I just have to wait for this to get done while working on the video lessons …

I hurt my shoulder one morning and now can’t do much until it recovers. It will be interesting to see how fast I will recover from the injury given that I have all these toys that are supposed to improve the recovery speed. I will explain what they are when I get the chance. Next week I should know if they helps.

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TLC Weekly Update April 17, 2020

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An article on how these ancient computer systems are still in use today by the governments that leads to the mess we are seeing during this crisis. I know about this all along as I have friends who are expert in these old programming languages that are very well paid to maintain these systems. The sad thing is that transition to more modern computer technology is not likely because it implies automatically obsolete the existing management teams …

On YouTube Bloomberg channel there is a good video talking with Ray Dalio on his take on the current situation. I find his objective reasoning still as sharp, that the Fed has no choice but to choose who to save, and as an investor you have the choice to choose to invest based on that information. In other words, don’t mess with the Fed until they blow up.

DaytradingBias is undergoing major server upgrade these few weeks. After that we will also update the site itself again, this time to comply with the Google transition to so-called secure internet connection. All these will be done with the hope that users access will not be affected significantly.

After the hardware upgrade I will release my video lessons on the site. It should be good enough to handle the load by then.

Many people email me asking how the stock market keeps going higher as they see more and more people are out of work. Well, remember that the stock market by design is not a tool to reflect the true value of anything. During time of high uncertainty, the expectations of the future by the investors will not be as united as in stable time. And that creates extreme swings as people of opposite opinions duel it out.

It is really not the time to think about investing. All the major players I know of have stopped all their near term investment projects. Deals that are in the middle of negotiation are all dropped. All savvy investors are sitting this out until we have clarity. That’s common sense.

While I am waiting for the server upgrade this weekend, I will work on more video lessons.

Have a great weekend everyone!