External Validations
Something I have observed and one I wonder if the one thing that is unique to the stock markets is the need for external validation. If you ask a small businessman how business is, more times than not, he will have a list of complaints and how it’s getting tougher. An investor / trader on the other hand mostly cannot stop himself. He may have 9 stocks that are under water but his focus and happiness comes from the one above. Look how I was able to pick this stock up at X. This kind of validation adds little value than making oneself seem superior.
On Twitter, this is more pronounced. Fund managers who have been successful managing tens of thousands of crores barely have much followers or speak about their achievements. On the other hand, you find guys who have bought bluetick (to seem to showcase themselves better than the cattle class) whose timeline is filled with how great they have been.
External Validation has its uses. Guys posting their Profit / Loss on Twitter are seeking to show that they have been able to crack a system that is very hard to crack. This approval can then be converted to money by conducting webinars or simply managing money of others. The top financial influencers I assume earn more than what even a fund manager with a couple of hundreds crores would make.
From the time I remember, one of the first things to arrive on the doorstep of our house was the newspaper. In some ways, reading newspapers also inoculated me to reading (though unfortunately it did not help me with my actual educational reading). While much of the newspaper is written by journalists, there is this small column “Letters to Editor” which posted letters written by readers. I wished I could have my opinion published too so I could showcase I too knew something.
Arrival of the Internet and Social Media meant that we did not have to depend on a gatekeeper to get our views out. We were our own newspapers in a way. But when a billion people start writing, curation goes out of the window and noise easily overwhelms the signals.
Not all validation is wrong either. If you have thought that you have developed a strategy that seems to be interesting, sharing it with others provides feedback that helps overcome one’s own blind spots. Most traders though think themselves more in line with Jim Simons and feel that spilling out the secret would doom the prospects itself.
The other day, I was with an acquaintance who claimed he had developed a strategy that showed gains of 200%+ in a year and without any deep drawdowns. When asked for details, he said “Proprietary”. A couple of years back, a leading advisor launched a positional trading strategy that showed massive outperformance. Details again were “proprietary”. Few months down the lane, it had lost so much money for his clients that it was shut down.
In programs like Amibroker, optimization is just a one click process. This is pure data mining with very few indications that this would work in the future
Of course, if you are a believer in Jim Simons, you then would also know that many of their strategies are based on correlation that makes little sense. If I can predict with say a 60% accuracy, if Nifty will close positive or negative tomorrow based on the weather in Bangalore today, why not make use of it till it works?
Compared to technical / momentum guys, I find value guys more open. The feedback loop helps them figure out things they are missing. The Valuepickr forum has allowed access to the best ideas as well as deeper views on companies they feel is a worthwhile buy. The ability to meet greet and discuss with the best is absolutely priceless
When I started off with Momentum, I shared the details of the strategy with my friend, collaborator and guide @jace48 who helped me a great deal in refining the same. One year later, I more or less posted the strategy on the blog Momentum Investing – An Experiment with Real Money | Portfolio Yoga. Rather than harm, it has proved very beneficial.
As I write this, I am reminded of this tweet
Generating Alpha is tough for Individual investors with limited time and resources. Feedback loops hence become very useful. Having someone whom you feel has the same thought process as you can be very helpful in providing feedback. The hard thing though is sharing the idea fully as well as being able to appreciate the pro’s and con’s of the advice received.
As I wrote in my previous post, choose your companions with care.
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