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Jack Schwager is author of the Market Wizards series and just completed his second edition of A Complete Guide to the Futures Markets: Fundamental Analysis, Technical Analysis, Trading, Spreads, and Options. Jack has gone into great detail updating his 1984 original edition with over 600 pages of educational insights.
At the beginning of his trading career technical analysis never made much sense. However, as he worked in markets over the years, he came to see that those who used charts and technical analysis tended to make more money. He also saw that fundamental analysis almost goes against the idea of money management. He found that the same went for risk management: How does risk management work with a truly fundamental perspective? It doesn’t for most.
The basics of futures trading for most is fuzzy. Jack gives a short summation of the basics: 1. Futures are very liquid. 2. They trade for every type of instrument you could think of. 3. You can go short or long just as easy. 4. Futures are truly a zero sum game. 5. They are real markets and have real fundamentals pushing trends. 6. Basic trends do have some sort of rational behind them in futures markets and the skilled fundamental players will beat the unskilled players if they are good at assessing probabilities. Michael and Jack finish talking about trading as an art vs. science, whipsaws, failure to exploit major trends, drawdowns and the efficient market hypothesis.
In this episode of Trend Following Radio:
- Fundamentals vs. Technical analysis
- Risk management
- Contrarian view on fundamentals
- Charting
- Science vs. art in trading
- Whipsaws
- Exploiting trends
- Sharpe ratio
- Efficient market hypothesis