Skip to main content

Interview with Jack Schwager at CIO

Aiki14 points us to this excellent interview with Jack Schwager at Capital Ideas Online.

If you're a fan of The Market Wizards book series and the trader interviews Schwager has compiled over the years, you'll definitely want to check out the distilled wisdom in this piece. Here's an excerpt from the discussion:

"CIO: Thank you Mr. Schwager for taking out time and talking to us. Over your long career in the markets you have interacted with some of the greatest traders. Could you share with us what you perceive are the qualities of great traders?
Jack Schwager: There are really very many. I will give you a few key ones. First on the list would be discipline. I can't think of anybody I have interviewed or met as a trader who has been very successful but has not been disciplined. I think that's probably an absolute essential.
Secondly, money management and risk control is certainly critical in one form or another. Most of the traders that I have interviewed will be the first to acknowledge that they consider money management actually more important than the methodology.
The other thing that is definitely worth mentioning is that successful traders find an approach that fits their personality. Time and time again, I see that the method that a trader is using very much reflects that person's characteristics or natural tendency.
For example, when I interviewed Paul Tudor Jones, he set a time that was during market hours. At the same time I was interviewing him, phones were ringing, people were coming in with messages, and he was watching multiple monitors around his office and yelling out orders on open phone lines to a number of different floors. It was almost complete bedlam, but he actually thrived in that type of atmosphere. That's the way he traded..."
There are some very fine insights on risk management and trading discipline here, along with some discussion on the efficiency of markets and the role human behavior has in shaping market conditions and individual returns. Certainly a worthwhile read; check it out.
Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Lessons from Hedge Fund Market Wizards: Scott Ramsey

Today we continue our series, "Lessons from Hedge Fund Market Wizards" , with a look at Jack Schwager's interview with Scott Ramsey of Denali Asset Management.  Ramsey, a futures trader and CTA who works on the island of St. Croix, spoke to Schwager about his first foray into the markets, his evolution as a trader, and the process he stands by to protect and grow his clients' money. 1) . Ramsey started trading in college. He was roped into the OTC metals market via a broker's ad in the Wall St. Journal. The broker charged customers a flat fee to buy and sell as much as they wanted in a particular market for six month. At the time, Scott was a novice and didn't know about futures, so he traded metals in this fashion through the inflationary run-up of the late 1970s. 2) . Scott had to rethink his trading strategy after he bought silver at $50 an oz., only to watch it collapse to $26 following a long string of limit-down days. He sold as soon as the market...
Read more

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...
Read more

Moneyball: How the Red Sox Win Championships

Welcome, readers . T o get the first look at brand new posts (like the following piece) and to receive our exclusive email list updates, please subscribe to the Finance Trends Newsletter .   The Boston Red Sox won their fourth World Series title of t he 21st century this we ek. Having won their first Se ries in 86 years back in 200 4, the last decade-plus has marked a very strong return to form for one of baseball's oldest big league clubs. So how did they do it? Quick background: in late 2002, team own er and hedge fund manager, John W. Henry (with his partners ) bought the Boston Red Sox and its historic Fenway Park for a reported sum of $ 695 million. Henry and Co. quickly set out to find their ideal General Manager (GM) to help turn around their newly acquired, ailing ship. This brings us to one of my fav orite scenes from the 2011 film , Moneyball , in which John W. Henry (played by Ar liss Howard) attempts to woo Oakland A's GM Billy Beane (Brad Pi...
Read more