BC TRADING
Saved by @CodyyyGardner

Are you planning on handing over your money to an algo trading platform?

Maybe you want to subscribe to a strategy or two and make insane returns.

Here's why you shouldn't do it, and save your money instead.

 1/ Maybe you want to have a strategy development company deploy such algorithms on your account with respective brokers.

Or the service itself has strategies that you just subscribe to and authorize your trading account with, and it will automatically trade your money.
2/ When it comes to @Tradetron1 there are a slew of issues.

Let's keep aside the lack of transparency and the total regulatory non-compliance for a moment.

First off, with most of the strategies, the backtests are BOGUS.
3/ Any systematic trader with even a little bit of experience will look at the strategies and tell you which ones are baloney.

Most of them are.

Don't take my word for it. Do your own due diligence.

And, those backtests aren't even for 10+ yrs. Some were done only for months.
4/ Secondly, SEBI has put rules in place on parameters like

- minimum net worth of the company
- qualifications of the fund manager
- minimum number of clients
- minimum amount to start with

and so on, for qualifying people who want to manage other people's money.
5/ There are only 3 structures offered by SEBI where people can manage other people's money.

- Mutual Funds
- Portfolio Management Service (PMS)
- Alternative Investment Funds (AIF)
6/ If the company/person you hand over money to don't have one of these licenses, you're essentially stepping into the grey area.

There's no LEGAL way to manage other people's money outside of these three structures offered by SEBI.
7/ There are few other ways in which you can manage other people's money.

Most popular one:

- Become a sub broker to a large broker
- Get terminal access
- Add clients
- Place trades for all your clients together
8/ In this method, you can open/close/modify orders in clients' accounts. You can't touch their funds.

To do this, you should

- Enter into an agreement with the client that you will be investing/trading their account
- Have an Associated Persons SEBI license
9/ You should also take client's approval for EVERY SINGLE TRADE YOU PUT ON and for EVERY SINGLE TRADE YOU CLOSE.

Even if you don't take permission for one trade also, that's considered fraud.

But that's how most people operate.
10/ Some get clients to automate email approval for each trade.

This is not entirely legal and won't be valid if push comes to stove.

Phone call recording + non-automated emails should be legal.

But nobody does that.
11/ Essentially, since nobody follows the letter of the law/SEBI, they are all taking unauthorized trades as every trade requires authorization.

This again, is the most popular way with which people who have capital of < 25c operate.
12/ Also, when you're a MF, PMS, AIF, there are so many things you CAN and CAN'T do.

There are things you should do regularly in terms of reporting.

You will definitely need a well-qualified compliance officer also.

Small guys aren't ready to invest in all this overhead.
13/ What can small guys do LEGALLY then?

RIA - Registered Investment Advisor.

It's usually a fixed fee format (although there are some who get a % profit based on agreement).

You take the trades on your own.

Usually does well for long term investing & positional trading.
14/ But, even RIA has a lot of regulations, you need to get the certification and proper licensing done.

There are certain limitations as to what an RIA can and can not do.

So many RIAs breach those rules too and act in a grey area.
15/ Now, coming to Tradetron and similar services, ask these questions:

i) Are their strategy creators SEBI registered?
ii) Is the company's entire modus operandi legal?
iii) How are their backtests vetted?
iv) Are the backtests vetted and verified or anyone can post anything?
16/ Ask these additional questions too.

i) What are the underlying technical issues people face? (Lots of people have faced execution issues, slippages, etc.)

ii) How are the backtests conducted? (full test, out of sample, walk forward, and then monte-carlo, etc., is required)
17/ You'll most likely draw a blank from all of them.

For some reason (valid one) I can't see a SEBI registration number on the websites of TradeTron or similar services.

One step further, Tradetron buries this information in their "terms of use" page.
18/ The screenshot above says you have to do your own due diligence on whether the person creating the strategy is SEBI registered or not.

For ex: Is @__paperstreet__ SEBI registered? Nobody knows. Nobody even knows who he is. But so many people are subscribed to his strategy.
19/ Also, if you don't do your due diligence and your money is blown up by someone who isn't SEBI registered, you can't seek any relief from TradeTron.

Refer to the screenshot below.
20/ They wash their hands of any and all responsibility to

i) Screening strategy creators
ii) Screening backtest legitimacy
iii) Screening strategy legitimacy
iv) Making sure creators are SEBI registered and licensed, and that their license/regn hasn't expired.
21/ Now, let's come to the problems with many of those strategies.

Most of the strategies are half baked. Looks like people testing something on stockmock for a year or two and creating that as strategy on tradetron to make money.
22/ Check this thread for a discussion on the most basic thing.

https://t.co/Z7XJDKF0ep

100% ROI in a year with 10-20% drawdown is possible. But not over a period of 10 years.

Cherry picking a good year and posting that as entire backtest result is dangerous.
23/ Tradetron does indulge in favoritism towards few creators, some shady practices, which if you talk to all the strategy subscribers, you'd begin to understand.

https://t.co/nzxW0buQB8

You can see that they have deleted the -ve comments in some strategies.
24/ But, they withhold the right to do that. This again, is buried in "terms of use".

Also, if you face huge slippages and execution issues at their end, they can always wash their hands off any responsibility by saying it's an internet/server issue, and show you these terms.
25/ Now, several users have quoted the following in their reviews/comments.

- Grossly misleading backtests
- Backtest / live trades huge discrepancies
- Some accounts blown out
- Backtests done only for few months
- Huge slippage and execution delays
- Loss due to outages
26/ This is not just particular to tradetron.

You pick any similar service. You check for the following things.

- SEBI/legal registration/compliance of the company
- SEBI registration of strategy creators
- Backtest methodology
- No of years tested for
27/ Also check for the following:

- Backtest / Actual live trades differentiation
- How many years backtest was conducted for
- How long the strategy has been active, and what its actual live returns are (after costs)
- Whether backtests are pre/post comms/spread/slippages
28/ This applies to any and all companies offering to manage your money in some way without your intervention or active effort.

Use this as a checklist and protect your downside first by doing your due diligence.
29/ Secondly, don't be naive enough to believe that you can double your money in a year or two, or that these strategy creators with backtests showing CAGR of 40-50% will get you such returns.

More often these claims are only a bag of farts. You'll be left holding just those.
30/ Third, most often, you'll put money in the hands of such people whose greed knows no bounds, blow up your capital, and realize you'd have done way better had you invested in a regular conservative mutual fund also.

So, save yourself all the trouble and go SIP in MFs.
31/ Two or maximum three mutual fund schemes, with an index fund, invested regularly with discipline using SIP, will create more wealth than any of these fake strategy creators can, for you.
32/ If you must definitely go for such high returns, it's not impossible.

Spend a year or two, learn python, backtest different ideas/systems yourself, and automate them.

Amazon EC2 or Azure + Broker's API, code in python and automate your strategies.
33/ Books, Links, Courses, Data - recommended for doing exactly the above is all in this link -

https://t.co/OoHznZbfTI
34/ I have summarized whatever I know about systematic trading in the following webinar.

Ignore the first and last 20-25 mins (about me in the intro, and about my course and the QNA in the outro) and watch the remaining 3 hours, for a head start.

https://t.co/NjMM50AOE4
35/ To conclude, don't chase quick returns.

You're better off putting money in an index fund and compounding/getting rich slowly.

Don't fall prey to someone else's greed, and lose your money due to your own greed.
36/ Also, remember one thing finally.

With these untested, half-baked platforms, you're being treated like beta testers when their service itself is not proper or reliable.

They should pay you, and not the other way around.

Skip them altogether, save your hard earned money.

More from Shravan Venkataraman 🔥🚀💰

Shravan Venkataraman \U0001f525\U0001f680\U0001f4b0
Shravan Venkataraman 🔥...
@theBuoyantMan
Breakout-retest-breakout

this pattern is among the high probability setups one can trade.

60-70% of breakouts fail.

If the breakout sustains the reversal pressure and manages to break above the breakout candle high,

there will be travel.

You can then take the trade in either of the two places.

1) When price is pulling back to the point of breakout - take trade at the breakout point.

If it closes inside the pre-breakout zone, get out.

2) When price pulls back, then breaks out of breakout candle high.

(1) is lower probability than (2) but higher probability than just taking the trade when price breaks out first.

It also comes with lower risk.

(2) is the highest probability trade (probably with relatively higher risk).

That said

If the breakout is from a multi-week or multi-month compression zone

do not expect pullbacks to happen immediately.

If they do happen, more often than not, it's a breakout failure.
SCREENERS
Shravan Venkataraman \U0001f525\U0001f680\U0001f4b0
Shravan Venkataraman 🔥...
@theBuoyantMan
In today's round up, I have some amazing threads, resources, and plenty of solid advice for business, finance, career from twitter.

Here's the roundup of 17 of the best and the most useful threads, tweets, and resources I found last week. 🧵

1/ How to find spreadsheets on any topic in the


2/ A thread by @wes_kao on making your customers hungry and excited to buy from


3/ Life brings you a lot of afflictions. But if you look around, there's a lot of beauty around you. Most often, drowning in the afflictions, we can't recognise or appreciate the beauty.

@wdmorrisjr wrote a damn good thread on finding beauty around us.


4/ This one is for all the job goers and job seekers.

@SahilBloom who recently hit 500k followers and has several accomplishments to his belt (career wise) wrote this thread on standing out in a hiring
MISCELLANEOUS
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Shravan Venkataraman \U0001f525\U0001f680\U0001f4b0
Shravan Venkataraman 🔥...
@theBuoyantMan
Have you ever had 4-5 profitable trades in a row, and you bet all your profits on your next trade feeling "in the zone" only to lose it all?

That's called as "hot-hand fallacy" bias.

I ran a poll recently to outline two classic biases we have as humans.

Thread below 👇👇


1/ *Hot-Hand Fallacy* first had its origin in the game of basketball.

If a player shoots few baskets in a row, people generally predict that the next shot will also be a basket.

This is ignoring the fact that each shot is independent of the ones that came prior.

2/ In this poll, 41.1% people voted that the batsman who hit 4 sixes in a row, will hit a sixer in the 5th ball also.

This is classic hot-hand fallacy.

Each ball's outcome is independent.

The probability is not 50% FYI (number of outcomes is not 2).

These 148 people who voted that the next ball will also be a sixer, did so because they believe that the batsman is on a hot streak, and that his streak would continue.

This is an emotional bias and is usually attached to human performance related events only.

3/ 45.3% (162) people voted that the 5th ball would be a dot ball, meaning the batsman wouldn't score anything.

These people displayed the classic "negative-recency" bias, which is also called the "Gambler's Fallacy".
TRADING
Shravan Venkataraman \U0001f525\U0001f680\U0001f4b0
Shravan Venkataraman 🔥...
@theBuoyantMan
When you break down the lives of extremely successful people, you find that their success didn't come from an earth shattering break-through.

Rather, it came from obsessing about a simple idea, fanatically.

Time for a thread about one such idea. 👇👇👇

1/ During world war II, a eleven year old kid checks out a book from the nearest library. The book's title was "1000 ways to make 1000 dollars".

After he reads that book, he makes a statement that by the time he was 35 years old, he'd be a millionaire.


2/ By the age of 35, his net worth was roughly 7-8 million dollars. The library was Omaha public library. That kid was Warren Buffett.

How he got there is an interesting story.

As soon as he reads that book, he decides he should have 1000 dollars before he finishes school.


3/ While looking for business ideas, he goes to his friend Dan's house one day.

He watches Dan fix an old pinball machine (that he bought for $15) in two hours.

Warren asks him if he can fix more.

Dan says yes.

4/ Warren and Dan set up a company (of course no incorporation and all that legal jazz).

They call the firm "Wilson Coin Operated Company".

They go to local barbers and pitch the barbers an ingenious business plan.
CULTURE
Shravan Venkataraman \U0001f525\U0001f680\U0001f4b0
Shravan Venkataraman 🔥...
@theBuoyantMan
A market wizard named Michael Marcus converted a $30,000 initial stake to $80 Million dollars over a period of 10 years.

Here are 28 lessons he considers very important for anyone venturing into trading, from his experience.


1/ The importance of not giving up:

In Fiddler on the Roof, there is a scene where the lead looks up and talks to God.

I'd look up and say, "Am I really that stupid?"

And I seemed to hear a clear answer saying, "No, you're not stupid. You just have to keep at it."

So I did.

2/ On key price levels:

There are key price levels like

- previous day/week/month highs or lows
- round number levels

where you can have 1:5 or more worth RR of trades if you place yourself right.

The key is to hit the crest of the wave, just at the right moment.

If it doesn't work out, you have to get out.

Doing this, you can make several hundred points, risking 1/3rd to 1/5th of what you make.

3/ The secret to getting efficient at trading:

Cut down the number of trades you make.

The best trades are those in which all 3 things check out:

- Fundamentals
- Technicals
- Market Tone
TRADING GUIDES

More from Trading

Trader knight
Trader knight
@Traderknight007
A thread on SCALING IN - OUT METHOD -


What is scaling in - out?

1. Scaling in is adding on to the positions when they move in our favor (Pyramiding).

2. Scaling - out is exiting the portion of the position when the trade moves in our favor.

I have explained about pyramiding in previous tweets.

// Why use scaling out instead of exiting all position at once ?

When you are using ALL - out method where you exit positions at once, mostly you use wider Trail SL as you want to capture big moves and exit all when trail sl hits.

The problem with this method is that either you make too big or many times your medium size winners turns out to become Scratch trades.

So, when we use the scaling out method, we are trying to capture most of our medium size trades , so that they do not turn into scratch trades.

// How to use scaling out method -

Say we have to got a signal to enter in a trade, and we have to buy 1200 qty according to our Position sizing.

So, we have to divide this 1200 qty into parts, how much? It depends on you.

We can divide into 3 parts, each part 400 qty.
TRADING
Trader knight
Trader knight
@Traderknight007
“In search of the holy grail”

A thread-


Holy grail- A strategy Which can make money all the time.

After going through two phases of a traders journey, the initial success phase, and Only why do i get loss phase, Traders enter the third phase -

THE SEARCH FOR THE HOLY GRAIL PHASE.

This phase has no limits, It can end in 1 month and it may not end till lifetime.

What exactly is this phase?

When a trader covers all the basics, they know how to lower their losses, they know the power of risk management.

And few of them may even develop their edges and systems over time.

But after some time, they feel that they are doing something wrong and there is more to trading than what they know.


THEN COMES THE HOLY GRAIL PART-

Few of them start to Read more books about trading,finding articles about “How to win 100% of the time” and listening to Youtube videos of few big traders who make big in trading.
ALL , TRADING
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Yogeeswar Pal
Yogeeswar Pal
@yogeeswarpal
A thread.

Earnings Trades Simplified.

Earnings announcements are public announcements that display a company’s earnings, or lack thereof. As the earnings announcement gets closer, implied volatility tends to increase. After earnings are announced,...

1/n

the uncertainty of what will happen diminishes, and usually we see a rapid decrease in implied volatility because of it. Because of this phenomena, we tend to stick to premium selling strategies when it comes to earnings plays. We can take advantage...

2/n

of the implied volatility crush by selling premium prior to the announcement, and buying it back after the announcement.

Earnings trades are not for everyone, as they involve high amounts of uncertainty and random movements.

3/n


Why Trade Earnings -

-Increase number of occurrences, many trades available so increases of our probability of profit.

-High IV opportunities

-Short term Binary event leading to drastic volatility crush.

4/n

Factors to consider when placing earnings trade -

1. Expected Move
2. When to place trade
3. Historical Moves
4. Strategies based on market conditions

5/n
TRADING , ALL
Aditya Todmal
Aditya Todmal
@AdityaTodmal
Technical Analysis and 3 Strategies to deploy for Aggressive, Moderate, and Conservative Traders.

🧵 Weekly Bank Nifty Analysis for 8th December Expiry:


To form a view, let's have a look at:

1. Multi-timeframe Technical Analysis
2. Option Chain Data

Also, 3 strategies to deploy for:

1. Aggressive Traders (2.6%)
2. Moderate Risk Traders (1.3%)
3. Low-Risk Traders (0.8%)


1. Technicals

Let's start by doing some basic technical analysis.

We'll look at:

• Weekly charts.
• Daily charts.
• Hourly / 60 min charts.
• 15 min charts.

1. Weekly-

• The market has given 4 continuous green closes, so not expecting a big momentum on upside.

• This week my view is that it can take a pause.

• Longer term trend is super bullish.

• Any dip will towards 41800 will be a retest, and should be used to go long.


2. Daily:

• Candlestick pattern—Hanging Man

• Chart Pattern—Breakout Failure

• A pin bar candle is very powerful but only after a downmove.

• Here it forms near the top of upmove.

• Means some sellers are present. Below 43000 can sell calls above 43600 for the week.
TRADING
Nikita Poojary
Nikita Poojary
@niki_poojary
#NIFTY

Bearish engulfing on monthly or bullish harami on Weekly , which one will play out?

Outlook for the week Jan 2 - 6, 2022.

THREAD: Deconstructing NIFTY on 5 different TF's.

#NIFTY

1. Monthly TF:

• Although the structure in monthly TF is of HH-HL, December monthly candle is a more of a bearish engulfing.

• However it is exactly at the support

• 17800-18000 looks like a strong support.


#NIFTY

2. Weekly TF:

• 17800- 1800 used to be a resistance in April & August 2022.

• However post BO of those levels, they might act as an immediate support.

• Current weekly candle is closer to the support (erstwhile resistance)


#NIFTY

3. Daily TF:

• After a sharp vertical fall, we expected a buying momentum

• Also Nifty filled the Gap.

• Strong support at 17800


#NIFTY

4. Hourly TF:

Moving within the rising channel, albiet the channel is quite steep.
TRADING

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Invest Like the Best
Invest Like the Best
@InvestLikeBest
In 1937, a trucker got frustrated waiting for his cargo to be unloaded. He later sold his company for $1.1 billion.

Here’s the story of how Malcom McLean made a billion dollars and which startup could be following in his footsteps. (Inspired by our episode with @laurabehrenswu)


In the early 1950s, the shipping industry was a dying business.

New York’s docks were handling half as much domestic cargo in the early 1950s as they had been in the depressed 1930s.

In thirty years, no one had invested significant money in coastal shipping.

Why?

As McLean found out, loading ships was difficult and slow.

A truck or train would deliver items to the port. Each item was unloaded separately, recorded, and carried to storage.

When a ship was ready, each item was taken from storage, counted again, and hauled on-board.


The cost of this labor was significant. As one expert at the time explained:

“A four-thousand-mile voyage for a shipment might consume 50 percent of its costs in covering just the two ten-mile movements through two ports.”


Yet, despite the industry’s issues, it felt little pressure to change.

Foreigners were barred from operating domestically. Cartels ran international routes. And gov. subsidies eased the pain of labor costs.

Reshaping the industry needed an outsider.

Enter Malcolm McLean.
HISTORY
foone
foone
@Foone
So there's a class of puzzles called "river crossing puzzles" which involve having to cross a river on a boat/bridge containing some set of individuals/items with restrictions on which ones can be on the boat/left on each shore, right?

and the most common subclass of these problems is the one where you have 3 items/animals to cross with.
This is alternatively called the "fox, goose, and bag of beans" or "wolf, goat, and cabbage" puzzle.

the idea is that your boat can only carry one item at a time, but if you leave the wolf/fox unattended with the goat/goose, the wolf/fox will eat the goat/goose.
and similarly, the goose/goat will eat the beans/cabbage if left alone

so you have to set up a set of actions that never leaves either side of the river in one of the lose-states.

the solution to this variant being:
1. take the goat/goose over
2. return empty
3. take the wolf/fox over
4. return with the goat/goose
5. take the cabbage/beans over
6. return empty
7. take the goat/goose over
GAMES
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ArmaniTalks \U0001f399\U0001f525
ArmaniTalks 🎙🔥...
@ArmaniTalks
Manipulation Sign:

If you are compromising too much, there is a chance that you are getting manipulated.

Why are you the one that's always compromising?

How come the other person always gets their way?

Be more curious.

If something seems off, stick up for yourself.

'Wait, you sure I am being manipulated?'

I have no clue, that is only something that you can decide for yourself.

'Dang is there anything I need to look out for?'

Plenty..

But let me give you a few things to look out for.

👇

I see manipulation as skillfully controlling someone's behavior for egotistical or unethical purposes.

'How come people don't leave when it's happening to them?'

Because most people have 0 clue that they are being manipulated.

1. Guilt Trip

You ever made a mistake around someone, only for them to hold it over your head?

The will always bring up the mistake when you 2 are not seeing eye to eye.

These people will use that mistake as leverage to get what they want from you in the future.

Look out.

2. The Rationalizer

This person will commit the worst acts & find a way to rationalize it.

Example: cheaters when they get caught.

They have every excuse in the book for why they did it.

Heck, they are so good at rationalizing, they will make it seem like your fault.
LIFE
Roger Grosse
Roger Grosse
@RogerGrosse
Important paper from Google on large batch optimization. They do impressively careful experiments measuring # iterations needed to achieve target validation error at various batch sizes. The main "surprise" is the lack of surprises. [thread]

https://t.co/7QIx5CFdfJ


The paper is a good example of lots of elements of good experimental design. They validate their metric by showing lots of variants give consistent results. They tune hyperparamters separately for each condition, check that optimum isn't at the endpoints, and measure sensitivity.

They have separate experiments where the hold fixed # iterations and # epochs, which (as they explain) measure very different things. They avoid confounds, such as batch norm's artificial dependence between batch size and regularization strength.

When the experiments are done carefully enough, the results are remarkably consistent between different datasets and architectures. Qualitatively, MNIST behaves just like ImageNet.

Importantly, they don't find any evidence for a "sharp/flat optima" effect whereby better optimization leads to worse final results. They have a good discussion of experimental artifacts/confounds in past papers where such effects were reported.
MACHINE LEARNING
Jaya_Upadhyaya
Jaya_Upadhyaya
@Jayalko1
SRI KANTESH HANUMANTHA, KADARAMANDALAGI (KAR)
#bharatmandir

KANTESHA means Prabhu full of brightness.
Here, Sri Hanuman appears with a front face and sparkling eyes. Earlier, the village was also called KANTESHPURI on the name of Kantesha Hanuman.


Several thousands of years ago, Hanuman lived in this village. He once saw the Sun and mistaking it to be a fruit, began flying towards it. Since then, this village came to be known as Kadara Man Dalagi. (Kadar means rays, mandala is cluster of rays).


It is believed that King Janmejaya had set up the shrine to get rid of his difficulties.
There is a small pond on the right side of the kshetram where Teppotsava (Float festival) is celebrated.

Kanaka Dasa has praised Sri Kantesha in his various poetic compositions.


Kanaka Dasa was the first devotee to popularize the power of Kantesha. It is said that once Kanaka Dasa was deeply wounded in a battle. To seek blessings, he visited Tirupati but Sri Venkatesha appeared in his dream and advised him to see Kantesha first before seeing him.
ALL


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