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LEARN FROM GENERALS OF THE MARKETS – PART 11
“My philosophy is that all stocks are bad. There are no good stocks unless they go up in price. If they go down instead, you have to cut your losses fast… Letting losses run is the most serious mistake made by most investors.” – William O’Neil
Peter and Serge Milman live in New York. A few years ago, they, with other traders managed only their own money as a proprietary trading group. But now, they manage a hedge fund for their investors. The most impressive thing about Milman brothers is their track record in terms of annual returns. They’ve succeeded in beating the markets on annual basis and this has been going on for many years. The track record, which was made public on their former website may, unfortunately, not be accessed by anyone who’s not a registered member at their new website (MilmanCapital.com). The story of their trading career is quite interesting, and more about them can be found in TRADERS’ issue of June 2010 (Tradersonline-mag.com). Some of their quotes are shown below.
Lesson
There are great lessons to be learned from Peter and Serge Milman. Some of them are these:
1. Beginner traders are bound to make errors. But once you comprehend the reasons behind your poor performance in the markets, you’ll improve and move towards competence in trading. Just make sure you don’t repeat your trading errors.
2. If the markets aren’t doing great, you mayn’t trade at that time. At times, the most desirable position is to stay out of the markets. Speculation is a game of patience. You require patience, patience, patience.
3. Trading is no science, because nothing can be guaranteed. Yet if you could find a trading setup that works constantly for you, you need to take it as your edge in the markets.
4. Finding the stocks that are hot right now is the key to profitable trading. Since you can’t see everything in the market yourself, you’ll benefit yourself by belonging to a group of successful traders. Trading experts belong to great groups.
5. Peter tries never to chase and always waits for levels to show themselves. This really limits his bad trades and if a stock starts going thru a level he likes, generally he likes to play, lets it ride unless it gets back to his price. This is called a retest and they’re very dangerous. At a point of retest he generally limits his risk.
6. He also advised that if people can’t get employed at a hedge fund or prop trading firm, and are forced to trade their own money, then it’s recommended that they’ve enough savings to live two years without any stress. That’s generally how long it takes to know if you should continue trading as a career choice. For anyone can make money any given day, but to be consistent, that’s the hard part – to cut your losses quickly, to let your winners ride, to not get trapped in bad positions, to trade only if you’ve great reasons, etc.
7. When you’ve open positions, remember that you’re at the mercy of the market and you must have your stop losses set.
Conclusion: Actually, we needn’t know everything in the world of trading before we can find nice setups or profitable entry levels. We showcase perfectionism when we feel that our prediction or decision in the markets must be valid or correct. Therefore, when an observation is made in the markets, we prefer it to transpire as we think. Whenever there’s a bias, we’d want to find all evidence and information that support the bias. Believe me, we’ll always find evidence to support our views, even if the markets prove us wrong.
This article is concluded by some quotes from Milmans:
“…The upshot is that I get to recoup all my losses and still make a significant profit.” – Serge
“It was the wildest back then and I only wish I knew then what I know now. I’ve become a technical addict, a charting expert. They reveal the secrets of the stock market.” – Peter
