Finance Trends Letter

"The one thing that Michael [Jordan] has, that really stands out, is that he doesn't compete with anyone else. He competes with himself." - Tim Grover . Air Jordan free throw line slam dunk How appropriate that this interview with Michael Jordan's personal trainer and Relentless author, Tim Grover should appear in issue #23 of the Finance Trends Newsletter . Although I had planned to highlight Tim Grover's excellent discussion on mindset and champion-level performance in our very next newsletter, I did not anticipate this fortuitous numbering sequence. Actually, I hadn't noticed it until I typed up today's email subject heading while counting back through our prior issues. I'm excited by the coincidence, but it's only because I'm even more excited to share Tim's message with you. You might say that his interview struck a chord with me. But first, let me briefly tell you why I find this interview to be so crucial. ...

Head on over to Abnormal Returns for this week's Finance Blogger Wisdom interview series.  You'll find a daily Q&A session on investing with some of the top financial bloggers, and a new topic of discussion is offered up each day. Topics this week include: the future of pension fund returns, lessons of the post-financial crisis decade, investing in new ETFs, the IPO market for new companies, and some shout outs to our favorite under-the-radar bloggers and investing writers (look for that on Friday). Once again, AR has been kind enough to include Finance Trends in their ongoing interview series. Thanks to Tadas Viskantas at Abnormal Returns for hosting us and giving us all a platform to speak on the financial topics of the day. Subscribe to the Finance Trends N e wsletter - you'll get actionable trading ideas and valuable market insights sent to your inbox. You can follow our real-time updates on Twitter .  

Trading wisdom recap: Steve Clark , founder of Omni Partners, was featured in Jack Schwager's 2012 book, Hedge Fund Market Wizards .  Clark's interview with Schwager provided us with some valuable trading insights; "Lessons from Hedge Fund Market Wizards: Steve Clark" was one of our most popular posts ever. If I had to pick my favorite sections from Clark's chapter, it would be boiled down to these two concepts: "Do more of what works (and less of what doesn't work)" and "Manage your equity curve". Here's his full quote on the supreme importance of growing your equity curve :  "Your job as a trader is to make the line of your equity curve go from bottom left to top right. That's it. Don't get hung up on other supposed "mandates". Protect your capital and the direction of that equity line. "   I will leave you with one last series of quotes from Steve Clark's interview with Jack Schwager. ...

Welcome, new readers! Signup for our free email updates at the Finance Trends Newsletter . The Globe and Mail interviewed me about my trading process and recent trades for their weekend investing column, "Me and My Money". It was a pleasure to be highlighted (thanks again to columnist Larry MacDonald) .  You'll find some background on my trading philosophy and a n update on some of my personal investments and recent trades. Plus, a few words of advice to investors and new traders on controlling your risk, informe d by my own experiences and setbacks in trading. Since newspaper columns must be edited for space, some crucial details regarding my recent trades ( along with ticker symbols) and investing history were left out.   Next week, I'll publish a n interview transcript that will offer a fuller, more detailed view of my written responses. Email subscribers will get a first look at th is exclusive content. Thank you for read in g ...

Investor's B usiness Daily founder and veteran stock trader, William O'Neil share d his trading methods and insights on buying winning stocks in an in-depth IBD radio interview. Here are some highlights from William O'Neil's interview with IBD: William O'Neil's interest in the stock market began when he started working as a young adult.  "I say many times that I didn't get that much out of college. I didn't have much interest in the stock market until I graduated from college. When I got married, I had to look out into the future and get more serious. The investment world had some appeal and that's when I started studying it. I became a stock broker after I got out of the Air Force."    He moved to Los Angeles and started work in a stock broker's office with twenty other guys. When their phone leads from ads didn't pan out, O'Neil would take the leads and drive down to visit the prospective customers in person....

Mark Cuban ( Broadcast.com co-founder, Shark Tank investor, Dallas Mavericks owner and Blog Maverick ) opens up about being a famous billionaire entrepreneur, why people succeed or fail in business, and how to stay one step ahead of your competition in this uncensored, 1-hour video interview (Watch it here).   Want the interview highlights? Here are 12 key les sons and quotes from M ark Cuban in this excellent discussi on. Future entrepreneurs, take notes! 1. On the difference between being a millionaire and being a billionaire . Mark replies that it is "like having a dollar vs. having a thousand dollars. It's a huge difference. In terms of what you can do [as a billionaire], and the opportunities it can buy, there's no comparison."  2. Staying accessible . Cuban stays close with his network and is open to meeting new people and hearing new startup pitches and ideas on Cyber Dust (his messaging platform) and via email. These are his preferred co...

Michael Lewis talks his (then new) book, The Big Short on C-Span back in 2010: "If I explain this to people, they're going to be outraged.". Watch it here. Having recently seen the film version of The Big Short in the theater, I've been going back to some of the interviews and source materials from Lewis' book. For those who don't remember (or are too young to recall), Lewis' book examines the real estate bubble and subprime mortgage debacle, which kick-started the 2007-2008 financial crisis and pushed our economy to the brink of collapse.  The book zeroes in on some of the investors and hedge funds that profited greatly from buying credit default swaps (CDS) on subprime bonds, and the banks who took the other side of that bet and crashed. A few years and a few trillion dollars in bailout money later, we're into a major motion picture starring Christian Bale and Steve Carell as said hedge fund managers, but that's a story for next time. T...

Next on my to-read list is Jim Paul and Brendan Moynihan's book, What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars . It is the story of one trader's (Jim Paul) disastrous losing streak and how he (barely) survived it, learning a few key lessons on ego and risk in the process. As you'll note from the book's rather unusual title, What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars is not your typical "trading system-in-a-book", promising a golden pathway to riches. It deals squarely with losses and how overconfidence and success can lead us to complacency and ruin. So what lessons can we take from another trader's experience losing large sums of money?  Tim Ferris recently interviewed the book's co-author, Brendan Moynihan . Here are some highlights from their discussion: • While introducing Brendan Moynihan, Tim mentions that he was won over by Nassim Taleb's recommendation of the book, which he praised for its "non-charlatanic" real-life wisdom. Moynih...