Category: Blog

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TLC Weekly Update Aug 7, 2020

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Another hectic week passed with me not knowing what time it was until the alarm clock fired off for the next meeting. It was not pure business meetings though. My friends who need my help called more often during this outbreak. Glad that I can give them a hand in this crazy time. Things are getting difficult everywhere in the world while the stock markets and precious metals are flying to the moon.

One thing I learned from friends with connections is that many Canadian banks are no longer willing to renew mortgages for clients who are self-employed. Or that they would tighten up the requirements so much that these self-employed individuals are forced to take on second mortgages. I never get the logic behind this line of thoughts by the Canadian banks.

Maybe, it has nothing to do with the banks because they are forced to follow a stiff guideline from Bank of Canada on all mortgages. Any irregular income makes it very difficult to satisfy the one-size-fits-all metric. At the end, Canada and other countries taking a similar approach to banking regulations are destroying their economies from within.

Latest discussion about the zero bond yield situation from Bridgewater should be useful to those who are wondering what to do with their retirement funds.

Lately, I have to help quite a number of friends with their life crisis due to COVID-19. Be that losing their jobs, businesses and lockdown depression, I found I keep referring them to this old video from Tim Ferriss on defining your fears instead of your goals. And for those who manage to find meaning from the video, I ask them to go read either The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday or a easier read, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson.

If you know of anyone who may benefit from the video or the books above, spread the words.

Life is tough. But there is always hope.

Have a great weekend all!

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TLC Weekly Update July 31, 2020

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An interesting week of wild market actions that left many traders puzzling what to expect next. Well, take it one day at a time is probably the best advice I can give. There is no point to engage in trading when you do not have an understanding of the context. Take a break could be a good idea too so that you can clear your mind from fixation of specific narratives of the market.

Rarely do I find CNBC makes meaningful videos. This video is an exception – watch it to understand why Amazon has no competition in the cloud storage arena. The fight is ongoing to be the leader in this field but the second place player Microsoft has a long way to get near Amazon’s market shares.

Good read about Ida Wood, one of the most interesting persons of her time. I like the fact that she was able to handle her husband’s gambling addiction in such subtle way that otherwise the wealth would never have been preserved. As a trader, it is in fact important to learn from this lesson and save our winnings systematically so that we do not lose all our money back to the markets.

Robert Greene has been interviewed by many people but he did not have a Youtube channel until now. His first video, The Crisis Generation, is a good one. It is about 30 minutes though so enjoy it over a long break when you get the chance.

I have re-written a script for my video lesson the third round already. Still not satisfied with the result. So members of DaytradingBias may have to wait a little longer.

The week was so hectic that I did not even know that it is Friday already. Having all these phone calls from Asia to Europe scheduled at odd hours is really messing up my sense of time. My goal to build this trading power house is taking shape though. Exciting time!

Have a great weekend everyone!

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TLC Weekly Update Jul 24, 2020

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Birthday week for me so perfect excuse to meet up with people. However, on trading front, it has been an upsetting week due to more problems with Tradestation. I am deciding if I will move all the automated trading away from Tradestation onto other platform.

An article from Maria Konnikova on What She’s Learned from Poker. It is a good read for anyone just started out with playing poker, and, of course, trading. The concepts mentioned are equally applicable in life.

Just in case you are wondering, yes, she also won a poker tournament after learning from Erik Seidel.

A very interesting discussion on shadow banking by Marin Katusa and Robert Kiyosaki. Most people, who know what a swap line is, assumed that they are used the way they are described. Well, they are not.

I am thankful to all my friends celebrating this birthday with me. I rarely celebrated my birthday for years. It is nice to do something different for a change.

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TLC Weekly Update July 17, 2020

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Ontario is going for stage 3 reopening in many areas of the province today. However, the area I live in is still stuck in stage 2 so it is still difficult to organize face to face meetings. And it seems like majority of the people have accepted the new reality after months of restricted access to, well, everything. Restaurants are still not allowed to open the dine-in area. But then many of them are getting creative and use the parking lot as a patio so that they can at least take on some businesses. From what I see, these patios are all packed in the evening.

Vaccine news have been gathering all the buzz lately. Anytime some hype about a COVID-19 vaccine is announced, the stock market indices just jump higher. I am no expert in medical science but I do know that we have no vaccine for common cold. Here is a good read why there is no such vaccine.

My take is that all these efforts wasted on making vaccines for COVID-19 should be better spent on mass scale sanitization equipment. For example, Korea and Japan are working on mass scale UV light based air filtering for indoor places like malls and office buildings that can work against not only COVID-19 but all kind of viruses. Isn’t that more practical and meaningful for the long term?

Here is a video clip with Peter Thiel commented about global investment landscape. His view is always interesting and unique. This is good video for all those who care about the future.

I will spend this weekend fixing things up and reflect on the progress of various projects. Sometime it is important to take a break from intensive mental work. The brain needs to recover too.

Have a great weekend all!

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TLC Weekly Update July 10, 2020

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Another extremely busy week has passed. For some mysterious reasons, all kinds of equipment failure has happened. From power outage to internet outage and Tradestation going crazy in last hour of trading … I can really use a break.

One good news though is that the deployment of my trading models on MultiCharts has been a success. It is working better than I anticipated. No complications at all and the automated trading works as expected. I will write about it once I gather more data.

Due to the hectic schedule I could not really sit down to do the recording for the video lessons I planned to do. Have to squeeze some time out to get that done.

I am often attracted to read all about lefty since I was young. Here is an interest read about lefty. In traditional Chinese culture, it is a bad omen to be a lefty. So, when I was young, I was persuaded (by violence, of course) to not use my left hand to hold chopsticks or to write. Well, it worked, sort of. I ended up using right hand to write and eat most of the time but then when my right hand is busy, like using the mouse on a computer, I would switch to left hand to write things down or eat.

While I am going through many meetings to raise funding for my new prop trading venture, I often came across this belief that generating north of 50% a year is too good to be true. And when I try to explain how it is possible, it often leads to rejection at once. People don’t like being lectured on what is possible because to some, it implies that you are challenging their ignorance and no one likes that. However, after I include an introduction about Renaissance Tech, it makes the meetings much more pleasant.

Here is an article about Renaissance Tech for those of you never heard of James Simons or his legendary Medallion Fund.

The stock market indices, mainly the Nasdaq 100, continue to push higher has caused quite a lot of debate in the media and on the internet. Expert opinions are all over the place. Personally, I think the broader stock market will be range bounded in the near future as Fed and other central banks reduce their presence in the markets. Without more stimulus, there will be limited upside. And the game is to wait for the US election result. I have no idea what to expect from there so no comment on that.

For those of you interested in applying AI to trading, check out this video of NVidia’s team using AI to create the PacMan game from just watching the game. Look at how far AI has improved over the past 20 years. The current iteration of AI platforms that auto create trading strategies are still very primitive in comparison. And none of that has the correct framework of price discovery built-in hence the trading strategies created are mostly useless at best.

My bet is that we will never see such a platform becoming available to the retail traders because, for a functional tool like this, the creators will work with big money instead. Serving retail traders does not make sense because retail traders are not equipped with the knowledge to appreciate the power of such tools. The theme is an echo of what I experienced with my fund raising effort.

Got to go.

Have a great weekend all!

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TLC Weekly Update July 3, 2020

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Today is a US market holiday making this a long weekend for me. Many of my friends in Toronto find it odd that I rarely take a break on Canada Day (July 1st) while enjoying my time the weekend after. Well, they are not aware of my trading mainly deal with US markets so my holiday schedule is really the American one.

Just heard the latest podcast Tim Ferriss Show with Hugh Jackman this time. A very interesting podcast packed with a lot of details that is never disclosed before. Tim Ferriss did an amazing job getting his guest to spill his guts. Enjoy the show if you have 2 hours to kill. And in case you prefer to listen to it on Youtube, here is the link for that.

A short clip with Ray Dalio summing up perfectly the kind of financial markets we are dealing with. It is difficult environment to navigate if you do not have a big picture understanding of what is going on. Mr. Dalio summary can help you pay attention to what matters most at this point in the economic cycle.

Long weekend is often a good time to reflect and contemplate what to do next. Many people tend to imagine too much and try too hard to develop a plan that they can never follow. I am a true believer in the accumulation of results. Or as Steve Jobs’ famous speech put it, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”

Dive deep into one subject or topic at a time and do your best to learn as much as you can is a very empowering experience. Don’t tell yourself you are “trying to learn as much as you can”. That framing of “to try on something” already put you in a state of not learning, or, in a state of rejecting whatever coming out of the experience. Words have power and programming yourself with the wrong words have consequence.

For those of you struggling with trading over the past few months, maybe it is time to dig deep and refine your skills related to trading. 10% better in one area within a month may not do much. But after getting better by 10% (or more) in several areas of your trading can be a game changer to your overall performance. There is always room for more improvement in our line of business, and in life too.

Have a great long weekend all!

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TLC Weekly Update June 26, 2020

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Time flies when you are having fun, or, when you keep working and lost track of time. I literally forgotten it is Friday already until this morning. Thanks to a member who pointed out an issue with daytradingbias.com, my team realized that the server upgrade indeed has broken something important. It took several days to get it fixed … hopefully this is the last glitch from the upgrade.

Many people email me wondering the status of my automation project. It is going great. Many more of my algos are converted and tested on Tradestation. If they all function as expected, I will deploy more of them.

Interesting read of someone’s attempt to create an insurance product protecting the world from the economic devastations resulted from global pandemics more than 10 years ago.

For those of you too young to know much about the financial crisis back in year 2008, and those of you who have only heard the story from mainstream media, here is an article telling us another side of the story. It has a lot of inconvenient truth there.

On the lighter side of things, watch this video on drawing Homer by an algorithm.

Another busy weekend ahead … will see how much I can get done.

Have a great weekend all!

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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!