Trader Ivar

Hitler bought some banking stocks and he ain’t happy

noreply@blogger.com (Ivar Sala) — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 17:21:00 +0000

It’s a funny video if you don’t understand German (hint: the English translation is completely wrong).

Don’t Stop Believing

noreply@blogger.com (Ivar Sala) — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 16:25:00 +0000

I like to think that it’s possible to achieve anything if I believe in myself, work hard and don’t lose sight of my goals – no matter what they are.

"Whether you think you can, or you think you can't--you're right." — Henry Ford. I think I can be a very good trader and I believe that. And so can anybody else.

This is a bit random, but this line in this song caught my attention: “Some will win, some will lose. Some are born to sing the blues” (@ 2.12 in the video).

Don’t stop believing…

Baby Loses EVERYTHING

noreply@blogger.com (Ivar Sala) — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 19:04:00 +0000

Pump and Dump

noreply@blogger.com (Ivar Sala) — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 16:14:00 +0000

Today I received an email:

Symbol: HRTE
Current Price: .01
Target Price: .35+
Rating: 10 of 10

Attention Traders,
An unprecedented economic crisis is coming - and $10 TRILLION is going to change hands. It's NOT what you think - but it will create one of the most lucrative investment opportunities since the Industrial Revolution. The best part is ground floor opportunities are still available. So listen careful because I only have a few minutes to tell a few select savvy traders how one company HRTE, is positioned to take advantage of this incredible shift in wealth. "GE, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, British Petroleum, and even Bill Gates are positioning themselves to cash in on wind energy. And YOU can join them -by gaining exposure to this exciting market with HRTE. The company's shares are currently dirt cheap at less than $0.01 cent per share and appears to about to be make an EXPLOSIVE BREAKOUT move!
Here Enterprises (HTRE) is a developer of wind power, our nation's fastest growing renewable energy resource. HRTE strategically invests its capital with the same forward-thinking, shareholder-friendly way that turned Berkshire Hathaway into a legendary company and Warren Buffett into the world's richest man. HRTE is developing wind energy projects which co-locate wind farms with commercial businesses in order to maximize cash flow for each project. What is going on in the wind energy industry is nothing less than an American Explosion. The wind energy industry has been booming and now you can gain exposure to this exciting market by taking a position in HRTE today!
Windfall Profits
HRTE could be the Top Green play this summer. So get ready to make HUGE GAINS, this is one undervalued green-penny play and hidden gem you want to get a piece of. HRTE looks like it's going to be on fire this upcoming week. I think this one is going to open big in Monday trading and surprise the Wall Street traders. So get in early and beat the crowd. $5000 invested in HRTE today could be worth as much as $25,000 before Labor Day!
So drop what you are doing and research HRTE now. Then hurry up and grab all the shares you can at these cheap prices. HRTE is right at the ground floor of the industry that moving from growth to hyper-growth mode!
Checkout the full report here: http://www.frontlinestocks.com/hrte
Don't miss out on this one!

Sure… I’m going all-in with this one. No way I can lose… After all Bill Gates, JPM and BP are with me on this trade….

From Wikipedia:

Pump and dump is a form of microcap stock fraud that involves artificially inflating the price of an owned stock through false and misleading positive statements, in order to sell the cheaply purchased stock at a higher price. Once the operators of the scheme "dump" their overvalued shares, the price falls and investors lose their money.

The smart thing to do is to avoid these “golden opportunities”.

A Trader Survey

noreply@blogger.com (Ivar Sala) — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 19:29:00 +0000

http://www.traderinterviews.com/free/2011-02-01_Trader-Survey-Results.php

The more stressed you are, the more money you’ll lose. A fact. So if you want to avoid big losses, just stop trading when you’re stressed.

How to Get $1,000,000?

noreply@blogger.com (Ivar Sala) — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 01:41:00 +0000

Ask.
Yep. It’s that easy.
Craig Rowin asked. He put a video on YouTube where he asked for $1,000,000 from millionaires. He asked and he received:

RandomTrail March/2011 Performance

noreply@blogger.com (Ivar Sala) — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 08:19:00 +0000

RandomTrail portfolio is at $115,369 i.e. +15.37% VS SPY at +16.53%, DIA at 16.78% and QQQQ at 19.23%. RandomTrail is behind all the indexes. For details about the trades check out my RandomTrail spreadsheet.

Khan Academy – not only for school kids

noreply@blogger.com (Ivar Sala) — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 14:08:00 +0000

Maybe you’ve heard of Khan Academy – a revolution in education. Check out the TED talk about it. The Khan Academy is basically a collection of educational videos which are available for free on YouTube. These videos (there are more than 2000 of them) cover algebra, arithmetic, biology, history, chemistry, calculus etc.

Khan Academy is very successful and kids (including me :D) love it. The person behind Khan Academy is Salman Khan – a former hedge fund analyst. Because of his background in a hedge fund you can be sure that he knows a thing or two about economics and financial statements etc. He’s got many videos on finance, banking, valuation and investing. Khan Academy is a great tool to educate yourself in those areas.

So next time you want to know what EBITDA or ROA means go check it out at the Khan Academy.

Coping with Losses

noreply@blogger.com (Ivar Sala) — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 12:33:00 +0000

RandomTrail February/2011 Performance

noreply@blogger.com (Ivar Sala) — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 14:56:00 +0000

I started this RandomTrail strategy last year on the 8th of March. And today is the 5th of March and I guess I can celebrate a little. I’ve traded this strategy for one year.

RandomTrail portfolio is at $117,540 i.e. +17.54% VS SPY at +15.94%, DIA at 14.9% and QQQQ at 24.77%. Only the QQQQ is beating my strategy with a noticeable margin.

The portfolio was fully invested in most of February.

For details about the trades check out my RandomTrail spreadsheet.

Inside Job

noreply@blogger.com (Ivar Sala) — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 23:25:00 +0000

I just watched the movie Inside Job. I highly recommend this movie to anyone who's interested in the financial world. The movie is about the 2008 crisis and how it began, unfolded and about its aftermath.

It draws a very dark picture of bankers and wall-street types. Great movie/documentary. Here's the trailer:

10,000 hours

noreply@blogger.com (Ivar Sala) — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 16:23:00 +0000

I’m reading a very interesting book – Talent is Overrated by Geoff Colvin. I've read Talent Code by Daniel Coyle and this book is pretty much the same. It talks about what makes people great achievers. In sports, chess, golf, business, investing etc. The main idea is that great success is achieved with hard work – deliberate practice.

For example Tiger Woods and W. A. Mozart began their training when they were very young. Both were trained by professionals (Tiger’s dad was a golf nut and Mozart’s dad was a composer) for many many years. It’s the practice hours these guys put into it which explains their success, not talent.

I also like one more thing from the book. It’s about a study in which the researchers found out that doctors with many years of work experience consistently score lower on medical knowledge tests than their younger peers who are fresh out of university. It also says that experienced accountants were no better at detecting accounting fraud than inexperienced ones. The book had several more examples. Therefore the value of experience is overrated just like talent is overrated.

It turns out that everything is teachable and it is only a matter of practice… lot’s of practice… 10,000 hours of practice.

All I need to do now is figure out how to practice trading&investing for 10,000 hours…

Futures Trading Trainee Assessment

noreply@blogger.com (Ivar Sala) — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 20:31:00 +0000

I applied for a futures trading trainee position in London. They invited me for an assessment test. I packed my bag and bought a plane ticket to London. I had no idea what the assessment test would be about.

I’ll tell you all about it:
It was basically an IQ test with 3 parts. We had one hour to finish the test. First they checked whether the applicants knew and understood English – questions like “re-arrange the words in the next sequence of words to make a sentence and write the second letter of the last word in that sentence. DAY IT A IS NICE” – and you’d have to answer “A”. You would also have to pick opposites or synonyms from multiple-choice questions. Things like that…

The second part was a numerical test. No calculators were allowed. We had about 30 questions. For example: calculate 15*16=, 4.4/23=, 78-216=, 89.9/11=, 22*22=, 1000/0.1=, 0.31/10000=, -9.87+6.33=

The third part was testing our general knowledge about financial markets. It had about 20 questions. For example:

What are the current interest rates of
- EUR?
- USD?
- GBP?
Name two futures trading exchanges?
If interest rates rise what do bond prices generally do?
Name two financial futures contracts?
What was the profit/loss on the transaction when a trader bought 5 futures contracts at 1100 and sold them at 1120 (with a tick value of $20 and each tick is one point)?
When is a position hedged?

Later after the assessment test I was invited for an interview. The man asked me some general interview questions and then proceeded to the questions I got wrong in the 3rd part of the assessment test. He probably thought that I had enough time during the week between the assessment test and the interview to look these answers up. It would only make sense that somebody very interested in the particular trainee position would look these things up. Sadly I didn’t. Mostly because I was CouchSurfing in London and frequently changing hosts. I didn’t have a lot of time to sit in front of the computer.

Oh well… I hope that this information here helps other traders-to-be in preparing for these kind of assessments/interviews.

RandomTrail January/2011 Performance

noreply@blogger.com (Ivar Sala) — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 02:08:00 +0000

RandomTrail portfolio at $113,472 i.e. +13.47% VS SPY at +14.42%, DIA at 13.59% and QQQQ at 22.79%. Only the QQQQ is beating my strategy with a noticeable margin.

The portfolio is fully invested.

For details about the trades check out my RandomTrail spreadsheet.

Everyone is doing it

noreply@blogger.com (Ivar Sala) — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 11:53:00 +0000

Just a pic I found on the net. It cracks me up! Buy, buy, buy…

More Buying Than Selling… Really?

noreply@blogger.com (Ivar Sala) — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 17:47:00 +0000

You’ve probably heard someone say something like this or the opposite – more selling than buying. That’s how some people explain moves in the markets. They go something like “the market went up because there was more buying than selling” or “the market went down because there was more selling than buying”.

When I think about it… those two statements don’t really make sense. A transaction can only take place when the bid and ask price match. And guess what – you need a seller and a buyer for a transaction. Therefore there’s ALWAYS the exact amount of buying and selling in the markets. It’s not possible for selling to overpower buying or vice versa.

If someone else has a different opinion about this, let me know. Just send me a note in the Give Feedback section on the right or email me at ivar.sala@traderivar.com.

RandomTrail December/2010 Performance

noreply@blogger.com (Ivar Sala) — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 07:54:00 +0000

RandomTrail portfolio at $104,333 i.e. +4.3% VS SPY at +10.06%, DIA at 9.37% and QQQQ at 17.22%. The market is clearly performing better than my RandomTrail strategy.

The portfolio is fully invested. This hasn’t happened before.

For details about the trades check out my RandomTrail spreadsheet.

On a side note: Estonia joined the Euro.

The 10 Mistakes Investors Most Commonly Make

noreply@blogger.com (Ivar Sala) — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 09:56:00 +0000

Today I found this great article about mistakes in investing. The article is called “The 10 Mistakes Investors Most Commonly Make”. Check it out!

Christmas Adage

noreply@blogger.com (Ivar Sala) — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 09:24:00 +0000

Christmas is right around the corner and I found this little market adage online:

“If Santa Claus Should Fail to Call, Bears May Come to Broad & Wall.” [Trader's myth that if we don't see a "Santa Claus rally" in December, the market will decline in the coming year.]

RandomTrail November/2010 Performance

noreply@blogger.com (Ivar Sala) — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 08:52:00 +0000

RandomTrail portfolio at $103,038 i.e. +3% VS SPY at +7.55%, DIA at 7.78% and QQQQ at 15.95%. The market is clearly performing better than my RandomTrail strategy.

For details about the trades check out my RandomTrail spreadsheet.

Excellence

noreply@blogger.com (Ivar Sala) — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 13:56:00 +0000

Bunker Hunt, the Texas oil billionaire, was asked once if he had any one piece of advice he could give people on how to succeed. He said that success is simple. First, you decide what you want specifically; and second, you decide you’re willing to pay the price to make it happen — and then pay that price. If you don’t take that second step, you’ll never have what you want in the long term. I like to call the people who know what they want and are willing to pay the price to get it “the few who do” versus “the many who talk.”

Professional Advisors Add No Investment Value

noreply@blogger.com (Ivar Sala) — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 06:34:00 +0000

A paper titled “Financial Advisors: A Case of Babysitters?” which was published April 19, 2010, found that on average the cost of financial advice exceeded the benefits that advisors can provide.

According to the study - advised clients get lower net returns and lower risk-adjusted net returns than they could have achieved on their own. Higher trading costs also contribute to return outcomes, as advised accounts feature more frequent trading and higher portfolio turnover. The study found, in two different samples, robust negative effects of financial advice and more likely use of it by experienced investors.

The study says that:

“Regression analysis of who delegates portfolio decisions presents a further twist. It suggests that advisors are matched with richer, older, more experienced, self-employed, female investors rather than with poorer, younger, inexperienced ones. In this respect, advisors are similar to babysitters: babysitters are matched with well-to-do households, they perform a service that parents themselves could do better, they charge for it, but observed child achievement is often better than what people without babysitters obtain, because other contributing factors are favorable.

Vanity Trade Gone Wrong

noreply@blogger.com (Ivar Sala) — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 21:59:00 +0000

More than 2 years ago traders at ConAgra Trade Group wanted oil prices to reach the magical $100 mark. So they bought 1000 barrels for $100 each when oil was still 40 cents below $100.

Being the first to buy oil at $100…. has it’s price. Since the trade was done 40 cents “earlier”, the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission fined the company for manipulating the market. The fine was $12m.

Read more about it in The Telegraph’s article “US oil speculators fined for $100-a-barrel "vanity trade" “.

Stocks Can Go Up Infinitely

noreply@blogger.com (Ivar Sala) — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 11:03:00 +0000

I remember a quote which went something like this:
“If stocks can go up infinitely, when why! are all stock in my portfolio in the red?”

I don’t remember who said those words but it’s an interesting thought to ponder on, when you find yourself holding losing stocks. Why, why, why…

96% of Active Fund Managers Underperform the Market

noreply@blogger.com (Ivar Sala) — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 10:44:00 +0000

96% of active fund managers don't beat the market after a 15 year period.

Active management fees kill your returns. Those little 1% or 1.5% fees eat it all up.

A simple index fund (for example SPY) is a much better bet.