rogue trader

crypto and equities research

[thiccy @thiccyth0t]

https://t.co/bZ5HUsT36y

[Dr. Pump @Saint_Pump]

I'm putting down a few tips from 5 years of very successful trading to get you through the rest of this bear market:
Will update the thread along the way.

[Evanss6 @Evan_ss6]

https://t.co/ufCh81Sg7e

[rogue trader @roguetrader420]

@0x_Kun Hi Kun, could you please reupload the 'Art and Science of investing' document? (Google drive link has expired)

[Kris Sidial🇺🇸 @Ksidiii]

In trading, you’ll go through periods where you strikeout on everything. Drawdowns are part of the game. But you never, ever let any one position put your career as a trader at risk.

The move in metals right now is getting to the point where some traders are stomaching large losses and are now at the point of serious career risk.

It’s never worth it, and there’s always another trade around the block.

The beautiful thing about trading is that if you don’t have luck at one slot machine, you can always take your chips and go to another one at any point and time.

[jez (equity perps era) @izebel_eth]

thoughts on retail trading - play at the tables that dont exist yet

(this is going to be a longer post as i have a lot of things i want to say)

i have been a dumb retail trader, i have been a sharp retail trader, i have worked at the peak of tardfi/kwant

at a high level you absolutely can be successful as a retail trader, but it comes down to find your edge + the discipline to stick to it

what is your edge as a retail trader?
time + curiosity + breadth + flexibility + reactiveness

you dont have more information than the mms/flow desks/algo shops. you will not be able to predict price on basically any timeframe better than them. that is dumb retail trading. you can argue for trading cycle tops/bottoms, but its harder to time than it looks. predicting price at any ltf is literally called "uninformed retail flow"

but you can spend all your time obsessing over one phenomenon/project/company, unlike the tardfi analyst who covers a sector. the more retail the product the better - the institutions have better supply chain data, they can call up the CEO and ask how hes feeling, but they are not using it, their friends aren't using it, etc

even finding it takes time/curiosity/flexible mandate, which someone who can't afford to waste time may not pursue

that is real edge you can wield as retail. in 2021/2022 i understood nft trading better than any institution. i would argue i understand perp dexes now as good/better than any institution. and there are people that understand memecoins much better than me.

but critically these are specific niches. my point is you cannot have edge on eth as retail - you can think tom lee is retarded, or everyone else is retarded, but you dont have more information than the aggregate market and at the end of the day you're just coinflipping

we are so lucky to live in an era where companies are bootstrapping by giving early adopters "equity". even just a few years ago, before airdrops became quite so big, my edge - "play with good new things" meant finding emerging markets with high onboarding friction and positioning early. now you can simply use platforms organically and be rewarded, you just have to pick the right ones.

that is your edge as retail, being your own best user, through personal experience understanding which platforms are good and which platforms are not (and it wont always look like perp dexes), and investing your time and energy early to position yourself for upside, whether thats earning points, buying the token, buying stock, etc.

play with the good new things

including an old thread i wrote about game selection

[rogue trader @roguetrader420]

@mert same :( this needs to be fixed asap

[rogue trader @roguetrader420]

@cz_binance @Rager hi CZ, many users are having issues with the SOL USDT deposit on Aster not going through

[Route 2 FI @Route2FI]

-Leverage (usually) destroys you long-term. Use it as a way to reduce capital on CEX/DEX, not to gamble.

-If you feel the need to brag about your PnL, take profit immediately.

-Strong coins bounce first after dips. Buy them instead of the laggards.

-The tops and bottoms are only clear weeks/months later.

-Most people won’t make it this cycle.

-Price reaction matters, not the news.

-Don't let CT cloud your thinking. Make your own decisions before entering a trade.

-Know when the game is easy, avoid trading when it’s not.

[Res @resdegen]

Every time you make a quick big win, and especially if mainly due to luck, send most of it to a cold wallet or the bank and do not count on it for some time.

Your brain discounts the value of the money when it comes quick and/or easy.

$100k earned in a 1-day pump in a memecoin feels less (much less) than $100k after a couple of years of going to the office.

You can lie to yourself thinking you value money always the same but it’s not true.

When you make those sort of wins, you will not be able to gauge risk objectively and will take a trade for the sake of it like a gambler would do.

That’s hard to do because your brain releases a lot of dopamine. And a strong dopamine. Because it was not simply making money — but you were also right! The combination of both has a big power on your brain.

What you can do instead:

1. Force yourself to send that money away and wait for a cool-off period. Show some fkn discipline.
2. In the meantime, journal your urge and impatience. This will help you cool off.
3. Buy a small amount of that "super easy next trade you were going to compound" with a different stack of money and check whether it feels different.

Most people immediately look for the next win after a big one. But practice tells us that those don’t come often. Therefore, you should be more focused on protecting your recent win than throwing it to the next gamble.

Pretty sure after only 1 day, you’ll see things differently.

[Jason Choi @mrjasonchoi]

On Hero Trades

I've been investing full time in crypto since 2018, and am very fortunate to be in the right place at the right time a few times to get to a point that many investors aim for: trading/investing my own stack full time.

Blessed to work with people smarter than me, we've ended up anywhere from top quartile to #1 by returns globally for 4 out of 7 of the years on global Blackrock HF or insto FoF rankings (the 3 exceptions being my first 2 years, and 2022 where I took a break to travel + non-compete + angel invest.

Every year without exception, I will hear about a Hero trade.

This takes the form of some fund going full stack into a coin at the lows, sometimes with hair-raising leverage, calling for a reversion that few dared to even dream of.

Or going max short at the top of the cycle, calling for a reckoning for all the profligacies of the crypto bull market, being lambasted publicly for being bearish before ultimately being right.

All hero trades share one thing in common: someone having a contrarian view, being quite public about it, and sizing aggressively before being right in a big way.

And people love that shit.

They lap it up every single time.

People love underdog stories where someone proved everyone wrong. Who doesn't want to believe in "all it takes is one good hit"?

This is why, 10 years since Christian Bale portrayed everyone's favorite hedge fund turbo-autist, mainstream media still makes headlines out of Michael Burry's investments religiously despite most of them being sorta...nothingburgers.

So what's the issue with Hero trades?

Strangely enough, with 1 exception (Paradigm's legendary $BTC full stack at fund launch), every single Hero trade story ended one way: the fund blows up down the road.

I often wonder if it's because the investors get complacent off a big win and start getting sloppy. But that would only explain underperformance, not kamikazes.

The more likely explanation?

Probably something like this:

You start as a humble gunslinger, perhaps even chastised publicly by swarms of anon pikers for holding an unpopular view.

That builds resentment and a chip on your shoulder, so when you finally do end up being right in a big way, you feel vindicated.

You've learnt to tune out people's criticism, but their unexpected adoration after your victory is hard to resist.

You start to buy in your own hype. You have what @morganhousel called in The Psychology of Money "the swell head".

"Maybe I am HIM,” you say to yourself. “Maybe I am that guy."

You built your first big win by learning to tune out dissent and by betting aggressively; naturally your framework adapts to this.

To win big, you must bet big.

To bet big, you must have conviction.

To have conviction, you must ignore the naysayers.

Soon, you see rebuttals to your theses as little more than opinions from pikers who haven't earned their stripes, or worse - as criticisms of YOU, not your idea.

You tune out things you should have listened to. Your confidence metastasize into arrogance. Some around you notice but most don’t feel qualified to intervene.

You start slipping on entry and exit discipline.

Your bet selection becomes sloppy.

Your diligence sub par.

Most importantly, your sizing adapted to your ego, not your risk tolerance.

You no longer leaves space for variance. Why should you when you're a fucking genius and everybody's dumb?

It’s like driving only by flooring the pedal to the metal, all the time, just because you won a round of go-kart last weekend.

It's only a matter of time before you find your Volvo sedan wrapped around a street lamp like a taco shell.

People want to hear about big ideas and idolize those who come up with them, and had the confidence to bet big on them. Everyone wants to hear about the giga-chad who 10x'd levered long $BTC at the Covid lows.

No one wants to hear about how an investor ekes out a 51% win rate on thousands of trades, every year, without fail.

“Investor practices prudent risk management and achieves steady compounding" is not going to get you a Netflix biopic.

"Investor bets the farm on one risky bet" - that's the stuff that wins you a book deal.

While I've had a handful of bets on the venture and liquid markets in my very lucky career that I'm very happy about, my foundation is the culmination of hundreds of small wins and losses.

Above all, my biggest Hero trade is the people I’ve assembled around me.

Every year, I was fortunate to surround myself with people who prioritize truth-seeking above ego, and see mistakes as a path to improvement and wins not as a validation of the self, but a data point about a process.

People who don’t confuse dissent for disloyalty.

I’ve also realized that, respectfully, none of your opinions are worth shit to me. The only people’s whose views matter are those in my team @tangent_xyz - especially when they dissent.

This is perhaps the most valuable advice I can give anyone attempting to trade/invest full time: playing stupid popularity contest games on X is not just useless, but ACTIVELY harmful to your thinking.

Unless you’re trying to win an election, courting the castigation or adulation of the mob amount to nothing.

And I’m fairly certain most of you reading this aren’t running for any office any time soon.

There is something poetic about Hero trades often planting the seeds for eventual demise.

If you are lucky enough to hit a Hero trade, congratulations.

Just don’t start thinking you’re the Hero of the story.

[rogue trader @roguetrader420]

@pure_patience godspeed

[jez (equity perps era) @izebel_eth]

long degeneracy
noun | /lôŋ də-ˈje-nə-rə-sē/

1. "a belief that the world will only get more degenerate, financialized, speculative, lonely, tribal and weird"

2. as real returns compress, risk increases to compensate

https://t.co/SXrZmVGHTB

[rogue trader @roguetrader420]

@izebel_eth this is 100% gonna happen

[Leo @0x_Leo_]

https://t.co/80rprUwbWN

[jack @jacknuked]

https://t.co/movrNZBN5i

[rogue trader @roguetrader420]

@MetamateDaz Yeah ciniz is absolute scum

[rogue trader @roguetrader420]

@0x_antifragile delete

[Zeneca🔮 @Zeneca]

i'm a big believer that the most dangerous thing a person can do is try and spend a medium amount of time in the trenches

either be locked in and spend a lot of time, or avoid

cause you're competing with ppl locked in 16+hrs a day