Blog

So, it’s been nearly a year since my last blog post here. It has been a full and busy year for me and for my firm, but it has not been a busy year for my blog, for several reasons. Here’s a bit of what I’ve been up to over the past year:

• The book has sold very well and received rave reviews. It is not a book for the casual trader looking for a “get rich quick” approach to trading, but it was written for serious traders on the path to professional-level trading. It has found an audience there, and I’ve heard from many of those traders that this book has helped them avoid mistakes, think about problems in trading more deeply, and has, in some cases, helped them develop their own profitable trading system. For an author, there’s no better reward than knowing your work has helped someone.
• Waverly Advisors, my firm, has expanded our research offerings to better address the needs of two somewhat disparate audiences: we now offer a product for short-term traders and a separate report for longer-term investors and asset managers. I’ll share some more information about these reports over the coming months (and we do offer a free trial, so contact [email protected] if you would like to test drive them for a few weeks), but I’m very pleased with the evolution of our work and with the quality work that we are able to offer to our clients.
• Personally, I have become very interested in the different, but interconnected, topics of creativity and intuition in trading. These are very important, but they are hard to talk about, for several reasons. Drawing on my experience as a professional musician and composer, I’ve found many fascinating insights into how we perceive market data and price action. There are both strengths and pitfalls in human perception here, and we will explore them over the coming months.
• Conversely, I’ve gone even deeper into hardcore, statistical market analysis. This has always been a focus of mine, but I have now accumulated data that fairly conclusively (in an academic sense) contradicts random walk, and perhaps challenges some aspects of the Efficient Markets Hypothesis.

As some of you know, one of the things I have always struggled with is understanding how to incorporate social media in my trading and business. As my twitter history shows, I’ve experimented all over the map—from tweeting multiple intraday inflections to complete silence. (There were other, business-related concerns along the way.) I know there is a line of thinking in finance social media that says more information is better, so everyone is encouraged to share ideas, but I’m not sure that is always the answer. There is value in reducing the information you focus on—if you’re “listening” to 500 people, many (most?) of those may not have more information than you do. After thinking about this for quite some time, here’s what you can expect from this blog:

• 1-3 posts a week, on various topics. I will not post trade ideas or real-time trade setups, with very few exceptions, but some posts may include a backward-looking perspective on market patterns for educational purposes.
• My blog will have a more personal feel. Expect some off topic posts. Some may be tangentially related to trading (music, creativity, game theory), and some may be a bit further afield. (I did a stint as a professional chef, so you might expect to see some food posts.) I’ll try to tag carefully so you can filter the off topic things if you are reading this blog specifically for finance, but then you might miss my recipe for chili con carne that took me three years to develop. 🙂
• I will focus even more on the process of learning to trade, from relative beginner to what I would call “professional development”—the professional trader looking to hone and refine his approach even further.
• A more diverse perspective on the profitable trading. In addition to directional, technical work, we’ll explore fundamentals, modeling, spread trading, portfolio construction, options, system development, various asset classes, and many other topics. If there’s something you want to talk about, drop me an email [email protected], and I will see if I can incorporate it.

There are some other exciting things in the pipeline for the next few months, but, mostly, I’m excited to reconnect with you, find new readers, and explore new frontiers in the fascinating topics of markets and trading.