Trading with an Edge

In order to get positive return in the long run, we need to have positive expectancy in our trading system. In trading, the best edges come from the market behaviors caused by cognitive biases. To find an edge, you need to locate entry points where there is a greater than normal probability that the market will move in a particular direction within your desired time frame. You then pair those entries with an exit strategy designed to profit from the type of moves for which the entry is designed. Simply put, to maximize your edge, entry strategies should be paired with exit strategies.

To understand why this is important, let’s dig further into the components that make up the edge for a system. System edges come from three components:

Portfolio selection: The algorithms that select which markets are valid for trading on any specific day
Entry signals: The algorithms that determine when to buy or sell to enter a trade
Exit signals: The algorithms that determine when to buy or sell to exit a trade

It is possible for an entry signal to have an edge that is significant for the short term but not for the medium term or long term. Conversely, it is possible to have an exit signal that has an edge for longterm systems but not for the short term. Some concrete examples will help demonstrate this effect.

Support & Resistance
Beware of anchoring effect when you look at support and resistance. When support or resistance are broken, the prices may move swiftly in the direction. That is called breakout (can be up or down). So, prices near support or resistance are not stable and unclear. But for one things, prices are certain to change and opportunity emerge for trading to occur. However, one cannot wait too long to see the winning side emerge because it may be too late to enter. So, once decided, bet on one side and set a stop loss on another side.

Comments

Spanish Debt Issues

There is a lot of talk about Spanish sovereign debts recently. I came across a research paper which I think is very useful for me and wish to share it here. This is taken from www.fundsupermart.com, an online fund broker where you can purchase funds form various fund managers. This portal provides some research and comparisons and it is essentially a self service portal. From the chart provided, we can see that there is a problem for Spain to service their debts for the next 4-5 years if the debts are not re-structured. With this kind of risk, no sane investors would want to risk their money to buy Spanish bonds. They can only turn to European central bank for bail out. The blue arrow is a fictitious line I draw assuming re-structuring is going to happen. Essentially, they have to move the payment of capitals into next 5-20 years to be affordable. In addition to that, they can't make additional loans. This is just taking a very simplistic view of the situation. To have that hap...

Stock Price Trend - Continuation Pattern

Here is the truth about stock price trends: it tends to follow something called continuation pattern. Price trends once established, will tend to continue in it direction. This is similar to the law of physics. Taking at look at the current market, you will notice that indexes like the S&P 500, Dow Jone or Nasdaq Composite are in down trends. Depending on the type of investor or trader you are, you many want to remember this law by heart and constantly reminding yourself about this law. Some people don't like to use the terms bull market or bear market because they think that they are versatile traders and they can make money in either up trend or down trend. For, me, there is no harm in using any terms you want to describe the market as long as you have great discipline in your investing or trading strategies. I tend to use the words investing and trading interchangeably because in both cases, they are all about speculation. The difference is probably in the time horizon that ...

Professional Investor's advice, market hype etc.

This is an article that I read on 26th September 2012. It has been over a year now and I suddenly remembered. I'd posted this last year with some other predictions from CNBC etc. During then, I was very fascinated listening to these experts. They are so confident and so logical. I always admire their ability to "read" the market and manage hundreds of millions of dollars of other people's money. So of them managed billions of dollars. Then I thought what if they ever go wrong? Won't they lose a lot of money? So, I think it would have been interesting to remember what they said and then we verify later. On 26th September, the S&P 500 index closed at 1433.32. One year went on and it went up another 19% from there. Below is S&P 500 over last one and a half year. As we can see, the market has still been a bull. Over the one year period, the S&P 500 index did correct itself. However, it was a

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