Category: DaytradingBias

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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 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 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 10, 2020

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Easter Friday is a US market holiday. So, here I am taking my time to write this while drinking my morning coffee.

Another week of extreme market actions with US Federal Reserve going all-in with yet one more $2.3 Trillion bailout program on Thursday. We all know the claim that it is done to support the small and mid-sized businesses is just a lie. I don’t even want to guess which pockets those money will go into.

This is the fun part in watching all these news over the years on all these b.s. government aids claiming to do whatever for the economy. The money almost always ended up in the hands of those not targeted by these programs. It happens every single time. People choose to not vote for a reason – after years of disappointment in the actions of the politicians.

Can you blame them?

But US Federal Reserve governors and chairman are not even elected by the people …

I am asked about my view of the stock market. I have been bearish all along as I know the outbreak is something we cannot foretell if it is over. In addition, the end of the outbreak solves nothing. However, given the way Fed did what they did this week, I am guessing they are using the same 2019 playbook they did to print the market higher with the hope that people will turn into buyers again buying on all weaknesses.

It may not work this time, because all the stock market did was just 20% correction from year 2019 close. It is not even remotely corrected enough. That tells you how freak out the Fed really is. Remember baby boomers are not going to buy stocks from here. They are net sellers since year 2018. And the younger generations have no money in general, let alone investing in the stock market. The year 2019 run was hot-air created by the Fed and now that illusion is all gone.

The one nightmare the Fed trying to avoid is the redemption of index ETFs, once that started, it will not end well because it will exaggerate the declines that not even the Fed can put a brake on. Well, maybe they can if they start buying the stocks off the retirees now.

Switching to a happier topic here. No point grinding on doom and gloom.

Here is an article about college students constructing their colleges in the virtual world of Minecraft. Everything in scale and they even add special mods to Minecraft so that everything looks like the real things!

I am getting close to release my video lessons for TSB and ESDTC. The illustrations are taking more time to do as I am doing it myself. I used to sketch them by hand and then my staff will turn them into nice graphics magically. Well, good use of time though as we are all stuck at home until the lock-down is over.

Happy Easter!

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TLC Weekly Update April 3, 2020

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Another week of roller coaster ride with the stock markets worldwide. When I told the premium members that I expected after end of March S&P would collapse back down to around 2400, many were in disbelieve. Well, S&P tanked hard down to near 2400 on Wednesday. The timing sounds amazing but in fact it is just a simple observation.

What I noticed is that everyone suddenly turned into experts on COVID-19. That, of course, includes all these financial analysts coming out with their fancy projections and forecasts. However, from the medical papers published by the scientists, I’ve learned that we actually know almost nothing about the virus so far. Even the specialists who are studying the virus do not know enough about it to make any sensible projections on when and how the outbreak will be contained.

When we do not even know what we are dealing with, how can we produce meaningful projections?

So all these firms are selling a fast bottom to drum up business, nothing more.

The consequence is more downside once they run out of suckers. Of course, sometimes people get lucky and if this outbreak suddenly disappear for good, I am all for that. It is a nightmare that this world is not ready for.

I am wrapping up several videos this week. The first one is out on youtube already. It is a quick reminder on what to pay attention to when day trading Emini S&P during crisis. Check it out!

I am still working on the full length lessons for Trading Success Blueprint and Emini S&P Day Trading Course. Due to the self isolation rule here, I am working with minimal help from others at the moment. It feels nostalgic in a way that it reminds me of doing research on trading models alone decades ago. I hope that I can put out something within a week or so.

I came across this video with Sadhguru’s explanation on why meditation does not work for many. He summarizes this so well. If you find meditation is not doing anything for you, you probably need to watch this. It also reminded me to produce a lesson on meditation for traders since it is an integral part of TSB.

Will take a break this afternoon and resume working over the weekend.

Have a great weekend all!

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TLC Weekly Update March 20, 2020

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Another week of extreme market conditions with the world under siege by the pandemic, when will things getting back to normal?

I was out doing some banking. Yes, there are still things that has to be done at a branch. The bank staff are all wearing masks with signs telling us to stay at least a meter away given the government’s instruction of social distancing.

Majority of the restaurants are closed. Some small shops are open doing take-out and delivery orders. McDonalds and other fast food chains are open doing the same without dine-in. Life still goes on. People are adapting to the situation.

For chess lovers, I watched this video of Josh Waitzkin playing chess at 11-year old. It is an incredible game where the sacrifice looks like a mistake which led to Josh’s opponent did not think deeply what the move implies. It is a great lesson to anyone whose line of work has a strategic component that the ultimate purpose of your project, business or trading matters more than the perceived notion of material need.

Since many of us are staying home, may I suggest reading books instead of binge watching movies and TV shows online? If you are a trader, you can check out The Obstacle Is The Way by Ryan Holiday. For atheists and those who feel uncomfortable reading books about religion, I think you should checkout Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality by Anthony De Mello.

I am getting close to produce several video lessons for DaytradingBias. Originally my intention was to do it in a lecture hall or presentation room setting. Well, I guess those options are now no longer available. So, I will do it at home instead. Whatever it takes to bring these useful learning materials online.

Have a great weekend all and stay safe!

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TLC Weekly Update February 28, 2020

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I saw so many articles and news media quoting brokers that “they have never seen anything like that”, referring to the 500 points drop in Dow over last 45 minutes trading on Thursday. That is just absurd. I remember that it was no big deal back in 2008-2009. It was also nothing comparing to year 2000 dotcom bubble burst. People really have a short memory of these things …

Here is an interesting read about Magnus Carlsen, the best chess player alive, who groove around internet chess websites for fun and excitement.

A good video summing up the COVID-19 situation, watch it so that you are properly informed.

The CORVID-19 is spreading all over the globe. If your community is a high risk area, make sure you keep up with your personal hygiene routines so that you can minimize your chance of contracting the diseases. I was asked by some friends wondering if there is any Chinese herbal medicine can help in terms of prevention. There is really no magic solution so don’t fall for any scam out there.

I am experimenting with making videos myself instead of having someone else handle that. Sometimes the idea is so simple, like I am just trying to show a clip of my trading strategies working in real-time, it is much easier to assemble the video quickly and have it uploaded.

Stay safe and have a great weekend everyone!

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TLC Weekly Update February 21, 2020

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Took me long enough to gather the daily trading records on the reference account to produce the updated monthly performance on Big-Game Hunter ES. Some people messaged me that I must be afraid of disclosing the losses. Some even think that the model must have lost everything. Well, BGH has been doing fine.

I do not pay much attention to the daily activities of BGH and downloading the daily statements is something I don’t like to do. Hence I batch process it once in a while. Until I find a way to automate the process, I will limit the updates to the monthly performance only.

I came across this video made by Nassim Taleb on some major misunderstanding of risk by the economist Richard Thaler. It is a must watch for all traders and investors. I have been advocating defensive money management for decades now. Nothing changed. People everywhere still not able to grasp the risk they are taking can actually put them out of any speculative game.

This week I finally get back on track with my exercise regime. My goal is to up my game this year from normal pull ups to single arm pull ups. It is a big challenge – I recall I was able to do that when I was a teenage. Wonder if I can train myself to do that at this age.

Given the virus outbreak, people are getting more cautious everywhere. Restaurants used to have long line up now have empty tables at peak hours. Fewer people going out to the malls. Personally, I am thankful to the technology we have now that I can video conference with people pretty much everywhere.

I guess it will be a long fight against the outbreak so stay safe and keep up with the hygiene routine!