Skip to main content

Market Shrinkology - Greatest Trade Ever



"Dr. Phil" Pearlman examines some of the important psychological trading themes at work in Greg Zuckerman's book, The Greatest Trade Ever, in this latest episode of Market Shrinkology on Stocktwits TV.

This particular episode happened to come at an interesting time, given the recent uproar over Goldman Sach's alleged impropriety in structuring and selling certain CDO deals to institutional clients, which Paulson & Co. (John Paulson is the central figure of Zuckerman's book) helped structure as a subprime vehicle they could sell short.

I think Phil does a great job of addressing not only some of the ethical questions that have cropped up around Paulson's trade in recent days, but the psychological factors (namely, "disposition effect") that were at work for investors like Paulson, Michael Burry, Andrew Lahde, and others who made their foray into this subprime short trade.

What does it take to enter and hold on to a big longer-term winning trade when almost everyone (including some of your investors) tells you you're wrong? Have a look as "(the real) Dr. Phil" deconstructs the psychology behind the Greatest Trade Ever.

Related articles and posts:

1. Interview: Greg Zuckerman (Greatest Trade Ever) - Fin. Trends.

2. Michael Burry: Betting the Blind Side - Vanity Fair.

3. FSN interview: Richard Eckert (Lahde Capital) - Finance Trends.

Popular posts from this blog

Finance Trends 2019 Mid-Year Markets Review

Email subscribers of the Finance Trends Newsletter receive the first look at new articles and market updates, such as the following piece, sent out to our email list on Sunday (6/14).   Hello and welcome, everyone! If you received our last email notice over the July 4th holiday, you'll know that this weekend's newsletter will serve as a mid-year market update and a follow-up to issue #29, " How to Reinvest in a Rising Market ".   Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, let's start the show...  Finance Trends Newsletter: Our Mid-Year Market Review When we last spoke, back in February, the U.S. stock market was rallying off its December-January lows. As the S&P 500 and Nasdaq reclaimed their 200 day moving averages in February and March, it became increasingly apparent that a lot of retail investors (and perhaps some institutional investors) were left under-invested while watching this recovery move from the sidelines.  The U.S. stock ...

Round trip stocks: momentum booms and busts

" No tree grows to Heaven ." - Old proverb adopted by Wall Street. What happens to hot momentum stocks when their rocket fuel runs out? How long can they continue to fly before they come crashing back down to earth? Why is the stock that you paid $100 a share for now trading at $39? These are questions that many novice traders and investors may be struggling with in the wake of the most recent market correction. Momentum stocks have been hit hard as the Nasdaq 100 and Russell 2000 indices have moved lower in recent weeks. Caught unaware by the recent slide, some traders may be wondering when their beaten-down stocks will snap back and allow them to exit with smaller losses (or even reach the mythical "break even" point).  While growth stocks still firmly within their uptrends may form constructive technical bases and move higher after this correction, others may experience sharper pullbacks or break down into full "stage 4" declines (see chart below...

How to "Pull the Trigger" on Your Trading Ideas

In our last post, I quoted hedge fund manager, Jim Leitner on the importance of following up on your investment ideas.  Today I'd like to follow up and share some thoughts on how you can learn to consistently "pull the trigger" on your best trading setups and investing ideas. In order to help you do that, we'll take from the best and offer up key insights from interviews with top traders and trading psychologists like Alan Farley, Brett Steenbarger, and Doug Hirschhorn .  Now before we get to their key insights on overcoming trading anxiety and pulling the trigger on your trading ideas, let's remember what Jim Leitner said in his interview: "Learn to love to listen to people and when you hear something interesting, follow up on it. Don't just think, "Well that's an interesting idea" only to find out a year later that the company you could've bought shares in is now up 500-fold. You never want to say woulda, coulda, shoulda...