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标题: BarCap was the Wild Wild West [打印本页]

作者: logoslogos 时间: 2013-7-30 13:34
标题: BarCap was the Wild Wild West
[size=1.4em]BarCap was the Wild Wild West – that’s what we called it, that’s how it was. That year especially. Commodities was the big thing to be in. Barclays was this old great institution, but it had turned into a bucket shop. We hired a bunch of quants [quantitative traders] to just dream up these products. Layers of complexity in each hedging product. Each layer created a new angle to take a turn.
[size=1.4em]Suddenly at BarCap we were handed all the corporate clients to sell to. We all talked about it like it was lambs to the slaughter.
[size=1.4em]The bank was extending its balance sheet to these guys, so the thesis from up on high was that we should be making much more money out of them.
[size=1.4em]Our budgets just went up and up – so without the volumes to make that money we all had to find ways to squeeze more margin out of the same clients.
[size=1.4em]Before that, we were trading with people like BHP who knew everything about the market, the prices and the basis on which we set our prices. They knew all the reference points better than we did.
[size=1.4em]Suddenly our clients are people who know nothing about the business, nothing about trading, nothing about the products they should or shouldn’t buy.
[size=1.4em]Worse, many of them pretend to know more, because there is such a macho attitude in trading that they want to come off as the 'big I am’.
[size=1.4em]Instead of an oil major or a mining company you have a smaller business who you are turning into a speculator.
[size=1.4em]The BarCap mantra was that if at all you had a competitive advantage you ran all the way with it.

作者: Panther 时间: 2013-7-30 16:48
和江恩毛关系都没有的文章

作者: pardan 时间: 2013-8-3 15:14
虽和江恩没有关系，但这是一个警醒。基本面的。

作者: logoslogos 时间: 2013-8-5 10:33
-You know what?Fuck beauty contests.Life is one fucking beauty contest after another.You know, school,then college, then work?Fuck that.And fuck the Air Force Academy.If I wanna fly, I'll find a way to fly.You do what you love, and fuck the rest.

作者: mrgjy1818 时间: 2013-8-7 10:22
I'll find a way to fly.fuck,

作者: logoslogos 时间: 2013-8-8 11:45
It has long been said that the novel "The Tunnel Thru The Air" is the most important
W.D. Gann publication for, as Gann has written it in the foreword, it contains a
valuable secret, clothed in veiled language; and which everyone hope the valuable
secret will lead them to as wealth as they would like to be.
From what I extracted from the novel "The Tunnel Thru The Air", we realized that
there are at least two layers for this novel. One layer is where words and
understandings are explicitly spoken out and explained, another level is what we
called the layer of "In silence, by silence, through silence were all things made".
There is little explanation on that layer, and the words are just written there, in the
novel, to serve the purpose of the silence layer.
W.D. Gann had a few different kinds of writing style which he kept on using it again
and again. The information he presented in his two Stock & Commodity Market
Trading Courses and in his novel "The Tunnel Thru The Air" are all scattered here and
there. Without a road-map, one can hardly join all the puzzles together.
As we have found that the 1909 Ticker and Investment Digest interview is very useful
in conjoining most of the price &

concepts presented in his two trading courses,
we realized that W.D. Gann was using the same writing style in the foreword of his
novel “The Tunnel Thru The Air”. If the public interview is the road-map for his two
trading courses, then the foreword of TTTTA has to be the road-map for his "The
Tunnel Thru The Air".
To most of the readers, the foreword says something like it is a romance story and it
serves other purposes that W.D. Gann would like this book to serve. Most of the
readers will either miss reading this page or want to start their reading as soon as they
have finished the foreword. As a matter of fact, like the public interview, W.D. Gann
has plugged numerous keywords and phrases into that paragraph to help his readers.
We often wonder how few readers would stop at that page, for a moment, and try to
read the foreword itself for three

s first.
Take, for example of the Bible quote "seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be
opened unto you" in the foreword; for most of the readers, it is just a plain Bible quote
which say something like "If you desire something, go search for it, then you will find
it", despite the fact that most of the time we have to knock the door real hard before it will be opened to us. In fact, the Bible quote there actually served another purpose.
If you would now read further to chapter VII. In page 75, you will find that the Bible
quote is quoted there again: "Ask and it shall be given to you. seek and ye shall find,
knock and it shall be opened on to you", this time quoting the whole Matthew 7:7
phrase. Since the foreword quote is mentioned again, we should pay more attention to
the chapter and should probably read the chapter three times also. And you guess what?
This chapter is the only place where Robert Gordon openly explains the basis of his
prediction. By re-quoting the Bible quote in foreword, W.D. Gann has pointed the
important chapter to his readers.
Let me now raise one more example. "a BOOK, to be worth reading must do more
than amuse and interest. It must be instructive to be of real value to the reader. This
book has a three-fold purpose..." Like the Matthew 7:7 phrase. The "BOOK", with all
the capital letter is only mentioned two times in his novel: in the foreword and in the
chapter VII. In page 83, you will find the phrase "The Bible is the BOOK of all books,
and if we only study it and understand it, we can gain a proper knowledge of all things.
I believe it the duty of any man who understands science and mathematics and the
cycle theory, and knows what is coming, to warn the people in order that they may
prepare for trouble ahead."
And if you would now look back to page 78 where Robert Gordon says "I have
always look for causes when once I determine a cause I can always be sure of the
effect or future event which I predict. IT IS NOT MY AIM TO EXPLAIN THE
CAUSE OF CYCLES. The general public is not yet ready for it and probably would
not understand and believe it if I explained it." The question now is: then it is to
whose aim to explain the cause of cycles?
.......and may the hardworking & enlightened students of W.D. Gann understand the
above passage and be blessed for the journey toward W.D. Gann wisdom guided by

作者: Panther 时间: 2013-8-9 14:12
So you want to ride the rallies and sit out the corrections, repeating again and again until your drawdown-free positive returns pile up to the rafters?

Be my guest, cowboy.

But just know that the list of all-

great market-

rs is pitifully short. Given how many professionals and amateurs attempt to sell tops and buy botttoms each year, it's actually shocking how few have ever demonstrated the documented ability to do so. And if you think the guy selling a service for a couple of bucks a month can do it, well, you're probably a great client for him. Don't let me waste any of your time here.

The simple fact is that the complexity of the modern markets is such that reading the technical or economic tea leaves is probably more helpful for risk management or volatility aversion than for anything else.

Because not only is the list of great market timers short, it is also lonely; there have been no new worthy additions to it in more than thirty years.

The end of the era of great market forecasters ended in 1982 when virtually every single technical advisory service and investment newsletter missed the start of the 1982 bull market. The guys running these letters were hardened veterans who'd become accustomed to trading the range of the bear market that had begun some sixteen excruciating years earlier in 1966. They were gold bugs and economic bears and had become, by necessity, hyper-tactical in their buy and sell calls. Most of them had remained adamantly neutral or bearish as stocks rampaged by some 35% between August and November of that year.

Many of the famed timers were even caught short stocks that summer. Or they were still long of gold at its all-time inflation-adjusted peak (which has still not been breached to this day) and being pummeled as the commodity busted out. To the timers, was inconceivable that the Dow would be able to take out the 1,000 mark it had been imprisoned below since the LBJ administration. The idea of a new secular bull market beginning with unemployment so high and monetary policy so screwed up was simply our of the question.

Stop me if any of this sounds familiar...

During the ensuing 18-year bull market between '82 and 2000, the newsletter guys all but died out and faded away - their credibility in tatters and their services no long needed. And they haven't reappeared since, in any meaningful way, despite our record these past fifteen years of two separate peak-to-trough drops of 50% for the S&P 500.

Mark Hulbert, America's foremost authority on newsletter track records and recommendations noted something even more depressing for those who still want to believe - the ability of a market-timer to nail one match-set of top and bottom calls is in no way predictive of whether or not he or she will get the next one right.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Consider the 20 market-timing strategies monitored by the Hulbert Financial Digest with the best records over the market cycle encompassing both the 2000-02 bear market and the subsequent bull market. During the 2007-09 bear market, investors following their market-timing advice lost 26%. That was no better, on average, than any of the other monitored advisers.

In fact, the 20 worst timers from the 2000-07 market cycle actually made money in the subsequent bear market. Their portfolios gained an average of 3.2%, while the average market timer lost 26%.

Let me translate that for you: Cut the bullshit.

It's astounding how capital and retirement money has been annihilated during this cycle betting with guys who've gotten one or two of the last ones right.

For the hell of it, I wanted to talk about the guys who had actually made the big calls consistently in their era. They're all dead now as are most of the people who would remember them. Very little has been written about these gentlemen except in technical analysis books from the olden days and other arcane resources you find mostly in print and not on the web.

There is one paper, however, that can shed some light on the late greats - written by an all-but forgotten superstar market analyst from the 70's and 80's named James Alphier. Richard Russell would probably remember him, as would Art Cashin and maybe some of the Barron's staff who can still recall the era. Anyway, Alphier took it upon himself to grade the market timers of the early 1980's and, to do so, he judged them

the big names from previous eras.

What James Alphier found was rather remarkable - with only a handful of exceptions, successful market-timers had only ever been able to make consistent directional calls for an average period of three to five years. Almost none could get past that three to five year threshold with an intact record, regardless of method or market environment. After five years, failure to navigate the next meaningful turn in the tape had become inevitable. Alphier points to the records of Karl Kaiser (1957-1961), John Denninger (1965-1968), Burns and Kirkpatrick (1972-1975) as exemplars of this phenomenon.

But there were some who had made the cut throughout history and were worthy of the moniker Forecasting Giant, Alphier's nickname for them. The best of these Forecasting Giants had consistently called the markets for thirty years, the least of this exalted group had accurately predicted the tape for twelve consecutive years.

From Alphier's 1981 paper, here were those Masters of the Tape from days gone by:

...there is a tendency after three to five years of near perfect forecasting for the analyst to make one or more major errors. We will not recount the many painful examples of this in our files. There have been some, however, who have been able to sustain tremendous accuracy over much longer periods.

FORECASTING GIANTS OF THE PAST

1. Major L. L. B. Angas began forecasting the New York and London stock markets after World War I. He was substantially correct in forecasting the booming markets of the 1920's, the 1929 top, the 1932 low, and other major swings in the stock market during the period ending just before World War II. He also made a series of correct economic forecasts as well during this period of time. After almost three decades of unusual foresight, his analysis became much less accurate.

2. Hamilton Bolton started the "Bank Credit Analyst" in 1949, in part using ideas which had been developed by a now-obscure analyst named Harding. In the early 1930's Harding developed a theory of tracking the flow of money and credit in the banking system. Between 1949 and Bolton's death in 1966, his service correctly predicted all of the major bull and bear swings experienced by the stock market with but two exceptions: being bearish in 1951-52 during a basically flat, trading range market, and missing the 1962 collapse. The latter, Bolton correctly maintained, was purely psychological and would be more than completely retraced. In addition, Bolton established beyond question that money and credit flows as measured by statistics provided by the banking system itself had an important effect on the general level of stock prices. Many of his ideas are now widely accepted by stock market analysts and economists. Since 1967, the basic theory has continued to "work" non-randomly, but not nearly with the precision it had before.

3. George Lindsay started in the early 1950's with an advisory letter, and began issuing detailed annual stock market forecasts in 1958. These were based on his unique theory of "repeating time intervals" which still stands at right angles to all other forms of analysis. These forecasts actually indicated probable dates of significant highs and lows in advance and their likely amplitude! During this time, any person who dared follow these forecasts would not have been caught substantially unaware by any worthwhile market swing. The year 1970 ended a long success streak when the dramatic March-May collapse was very much understated and given less than high probability of occurring. Mr. Lindsay is still practicing and while having made some errors has continued to compile a highly non-random record considering the type of forecasting he does.

4. Edson Gould began writing a market letter more than three decades ago. Up until 1976, he had correctly called all major bull and bear markets, often just a few days from their exact termination. He had no misses during this time period. Since 1976 his constant bullishness has, in fact, been borne out in the broad, unweighted price indices, but not in the Dow Industrials. Nor did he correctly anticipate the steep drops of October 1978, October 1979 or February-March 1980.

5. Paul Dysart - In our opinion, the ultimate crown for sustained accuracy and forecasting acumen must be bestowed upon the late Paul Dysart. Between 1945 and 1967, with only three minor exceptions, Dysart called all major bull and bear markets very close to their extremes. His average error in both points and time was very close to zero. In 1958, 1963 and 1964 Dysart recorded "false" sell signals which he quickly realized were incorrect and took them back. Unlike every other analyst we have labeled as a "forecasting giant", Dysart also had an ability to select issues for long-term investment. His compact list of recommended stocks over this twenty-two year span had a grossly disproportionate number of exchange-traded issues which racked up multi-hundred percent gains and which genuinely enriched a small but loyal band of subscribers.

Josh here - These five guys have done what almost no one else in market has ever been able to do - consistently call tops and bottoms over a period spanning at least a decade, without having missed any major moves and having had it all documented. As far as I know they're all dead now and so is James Alphier, the study's author (gone before his time, in 1990).

There are no market forecasters of the modern age, based on either Hulbert's research or any of the other studies I've seen, worthy of joining this group of luminaries.

As to why there is no newsletter or advisory service that has racked up prescient calls in both the bull and bear markets of post-millennial America, I chalk it up to the self-fulfilling prophecy effect, increased market complexity as well as the quantum leap and democratization of trading tools and analytics. Everyone is looking at the same data and indicators and patterns. Everyone is ready to put on the same historically "high-percentage" trades at the same "key levels." And markets react to more variables from more sources around the globe than ever before - and much more quickly than they used to. Try cranking out a newsletter at the speed of nano-trading.

It's not that the timers cannot get the market right...it's that they'll be right and right and right and right and then WRONG. And when they become wrong, they'll likely stay wrong, giving up all the advantages of missing a downturn by missing an equally large rally (or vice versa). You want examples? Got a few hours?

On the bright side - I highly

that the great market timers of the 40's, 50's or 60's would fare as well as they did in this day and age, lord knows their methods surely haven't.

So when I remind you how slim the odds are of your being able to stay on the buckin' bronco, don't feel so bad and don't take it personally.

No one else alive can do this kind of thing either.

觉得此文对于GANN fans有参考价值。贴此文不代表本人低估GANN。

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