The SEC's highest-ranking official appears to be softening his sentiment toward ICOs.
At a Princeton University event Thursday, SEC chairman Jay Clayton went so far as to reject the idea that all ICOs are fraudulent, answering "absolutely not" to a question centered on whether his agency's actions against the founders of blockchain projects amounts to such an admission.
Clayton's remark came during a talk on "Cryptocurrency and Initial Coin Offerings," one that was notable given his past statements, including his most famous issued in February, in which he said that he believes "every ICO" he's seen qualifies as a security. Indeed, Clayton opened the talk by telling the assembled students he believes that "distributed ledger technology has incredible promise for the financial industry."
The SEC chairman went on to argue that the steps taken by the agency in recent months could actually help the industry mature overall.
He told attendees:
"Is the approach taken in Washington by the SEC adversely affecting distributed ledger technology in other areas? My quick answer is that my hope is that it's actually helping - because this technology is being used for fraud and to the extent that it's being used for fraud, history shows that government comes down harshly on that technology later."
Clayton continued: "I think if we don't stop the fraudsters, there is a serious risk that the regulatory pendulum - the regulatory actions will be so severe that they will restrict the capacity of this new security."
Utility token debate
Elsewhere, Clayton discussed the evolving terminology of the industry.
One of the issues with token sales, he remarked, is the attempt to classify them as so-called "utility tokens," which would ostensibly free them from any kind of designation as a security. As such, he reiterated his view that almost all token sales purport to sell such products, despite the fact that they are actually securities.
If a startup is "offering something that depends on the efforts of others, it should be regulated as a security," he told the gathering of students on Thursday.
Clayton used an analogy to describe the difference between a utility token and a security token.
"If I have a laundry token for washing my clothes, that's not a security. But if I have a set of 10 laundry tokens and the laundromats are to be developed and those are offered to me as something I can use for the future and I'm buying them because I can sell them to next year's incoming class, that's a security," he explained.
Still, he suggested that such a definition can evolve over time.
"What we find in the regulatory world [is that] the use of a laundry token evolves over time," he continued. "The use can evolve toward or away from a security."
Further, nations may experiment with sovereign cryptocurrencies, while startups might develop different kinds applications with the underlying technology, he added.
Whether a token qualifies as a security could also change as the industry evolves, he said, adding:
"Just because it's a security today doesn't mean it'll be a security tomorrow, and vice-versa."
Jay Clayton photo by Mahishan Gnanaseharan for CoinDesk
Bitcoin in USD is down to 7,000 which is really a huge number when you think about it, but HODLrs who got in at more than 10,000 are feeling the pain, those who got in with leverage above that are freaking out, many wiped out. And the thing about Bitcoin although there are hundreds of better alternatives, Bitcoin remains 40%+ of the market cap of the entire crypto currency universe. As we explained in our groundbreaking book on this topic Splitting Bits, and on Zero Hedge in an exclusive article, we believe the only possible creator of Bitcoin is the US Government itself, specifically the NSA. Because of the size of the Bitcoin market now, and the new paradigm created, the creator of Bitcoin is relevant. People are borrowing against their 401k to invest in Bitcoin or start their own crypto, and we don't even know the identity of the creator of this phenomenon? We know, it's the NSA - but the NSA is an organization. Saying it's the NSA is a bit like saying it was the CIA that killed JFK. Well the CIA certainly couldn't possibly kill anyone because it's an entity, people use guns and guns kill people, not entities. It would be interesting indeed to unmask the real creators of Bitcoin, if they haven't been retired or disappeared on their GS-15 package. Perhaps they are living it up with the witsec family, or have changed their face and are pursuing their hobbies whatever they may be. Whoever it is, it is likely a dead a buried secret. Who knows how the market would react if the real creator came forward and ultimately liquidated the millions of bitcoin on the market. (For those of you who don't know, there are 42,000 zombie addresses of Bitcoin meaning they are not used but storing Bitcoin which can be seen publicly on the network, see here.) Wait a minute - 42 is the meaning to life, according to an AI computer that was built to answer the age old question 'What is the meaning of life?'
Could it be that what Adams really means is that 42,000 Bitcoin is the meaning of life? Now we're getting somewhere. 42 Million is the meaning of life. Where are all the numerology nutjobs when you need them? 3/30/2018 / 42 = 78,619.
Bitcoin is genius, perhaps the most intelligent creation of the digital age. It served several purposes: it's a perfect marketing engine (it allowed small investors to potentially earn a big return, the only asset to do so although many have claimed this), it created a new paradigm of digital currency, it changed the way the entire world looks at banking and trading, it has caused the entire tech sector to reshift it's business, all at a cost of likely a few million dollars. If you follow the thinking that Bitcoin was in fact a child of an NSA lab, you have to continue the thought that the US Government and more specifically the military is the first real form of Artificial Intelligence. Billions of dollars are invested every year and we all complain about waste, and there is waste - but there is also Bitcoin. And unlike many successes of the intelligence apparatus, they will never be acknowledged, there will never be a statue in DC with the creator, never a parade.. But such is the life of a spook. They signed up for it. But the monetary rewards and the real intellectual pleasure of watching this game play out are so rewarding well it cannot be bought with money. Some things in government service are priceless, this is one - thank you Mr. Mathematician! You are the real hero, and heroes (likely it was a team effort). There are some names on their 1996 paper but anything that is visible electronically in reference to the NSA can be assumed to be inaccurate, misleading, an intentional disinformation, or in any case a dead lead. But it's worth having a look - click here to read it.
Certainly no one is going to find out anything by searching Google!
So more to the point, Bitcoin going lower before it goes higher, if it ever does. Real price of BTC/USD could be $100 or $200 - maybe $500. In a market where money is chasing any higher returns than offered by the traditional markets - bubble psychology took off and fueled a historical hockey stick that will never repeat in crypto. It can only repeat in some other format - like Quantum computing or if Elon Musk finds Helium 3 on the moon for example. Something really value-shifting. Aliens admit that 90% of valley technology came from them. Bitcoin isn't going to $1 Million, at least it's not likely, but then again we have been shocked by the race to $10,000 and $20,000. Remember investors that the only thing that drives the price of any asset higher is buyers. The buyers have stalled and there have been waves of big sellers. Bitcoin isn't going to be used as a replacement of the US Dollar any time soon. It may be the dream of some Elite Globalists as a one world currency but it's not happening. Bitcoin is flawed, slow, and only secure if you use it properly which no one does of course except maybe a few hackers.
The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.
—Ernest Hemingway
Military spending is the second largest item in the US federal budget after Social Security. It has a habit of increasing significantly each year, and the proposed 2019 defense budget is $886 billion (roughly double what it was in 2003).
US military spending exceeds the total of the next ten largest countries combined. Although the US government acknowledges 682 military bases in 63 countries, that number may be over 1,000 (if all military installations are included), in 156 countries. Total military personnel is estimated at over 1.4 million.
The reader could be forgiven if he felt that a US military base was rather unnecessary in, say, Djibouti or the Bahamas, yet the US Congress will not allow the closure of any military bases. (The Bi-partisan Budget Act of 2013 blocked future military base closings under the argument that they’re all essential for “national security.”) And Congress has a vested interest in keeping all bases open and consuming as much in tax dollars as possible (more on that later).
Of course, those bases need to be kept well-stocked with small arms, tanks, missiles and aircraft. Yet, in spite of the admittedly incredible number of US military bases across the globe, the additional stockpile of weaponry is so great that the government has difficulty finding places to put it all.
One storage location is pictured in the photo above - Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona. In spite of the size of the photo, it shows only a portion of the aircraft located there. (And bear in mind, such aircraft often cost over $100 million each.)
If asked, the military states that, although these aircraft are in dead storage and many have never seen any use whatever, they might possibly be called up for service, “if needed.” Of course, if they’re needed, they’re unlikely to be of use if located in Arizona. And, in addition, they may not be useful for warfare, as war technology has moved on since the days when such aircraft designs were suitable.
It’s been said that generals are forever fighting the last war, and this is certainly true. Even a layman can observe that such conventional aircraft will never see use, as they serve no purpose in modern warfare.
And yet, these storehouses are being dramatically added to every year.
This year, production will be increased for the F-35 and F/A-18 aircraft. To get an idea of the cost of such expansion programmes, the F-35 Joint Strike aircraft alone will cost $400 billion for 2,457 planes. However, most of this cost will be for development and testing, not the planes themselves.
To save you the arithmetic, that’s about $162 million per plane. (I’m guessing that Henry Ford might have been able to produce them a bit more cheaply. It’s difficult to imagine what they could possibly be made out of to justify their extraordinary price tag.)
But, even though a staggering amount of money is spent on such aircraft, only to then send them to storage facilities at some point, why not, at the very least, sell off the surplus cheaply or scrap them and close down the costly bases that warehouse them?
Well there’s a bit of a snag there. If they were to be scrapped, it would be necessary to admit that they weren’t really necessary. And if they weren’t necessary, why were they purchased?
It may well be that the answer lies in the fact that the military industrial complex is a major political contributor, paying heavily into the campaign funds of both political parties.
It’s probably safe to say that, in doing so, they’re likely to expect something in return, and of course, that’s just what they get. As stated above, the “defense” budget is far beyond what it would cost to defend the US, and ridiculously so.
However, as far as the military industrial complex is concerned, the ideal situation might be for the US to enter into a policy of perpetual warfare with vaguely-stated military goals, and to do so on many fronts globally. If Congress were to approve a budget that would allow for that, the amount of kickback to the military industrial complex would not only be maximized, but it would be ongoing, from one year to the next.
So, is that what has occurred?
Well, if we look back at say, World War II, the most costly war in history, we see a war that was fought on three continents and cost the lives of between fifty and eighty million people, yet it was concluded a mere four years after the US joined.
By comparison, the undeclared war with Afghanistan has been a minor one, costing roughly 150,000 lives. Again, based upon arithmetic, as compared to World War II, it should theoretically have taken just over two months to conclude, yet to date, it’s been ongoing for seventeen years, and its daily cost has far exceeded that of a world war.
So, are we to conclude that the US military has become so inept that it can’t fight a war and win, no matter how much firepower they have and no matter how much time it takes?
If this is not the case, then there’s only one other conclusion to draw. (As Sherlock Holmes often said, “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”)
In this case, what remains is that winning the war is not the objective and, in fact, never was the objective. The objective would be to consciously create perpetual warfare; to extract billions in tax dollars each year from the electorate, in order to pass the revenue on to the military industrial complex in the form of armaments contracts. Whether those armaments are needed, or even useful, would be of minimal importance.
In recent years, the US military has gone far beyond its original concept of “defense.” It’s invaded more countries than ever before in its history, often with no direct provocation whatever, on the basis of “making the world safe for democracy.” (It should be borne in mind that invading a country, largely destroying it, then installing a puppet government is not exactly “democracy.”) In addition, these have not been actual “wars,” as, under US law, only Congress can declare war and has not done so since 1942.
In addition, the “enemy” in each case has been vague indeed. The US is not at war with any country specifically, but with “terrorism,” a non-specific enemy, one that’s even more vague than George Orwell described when writing 1984.
If nothing succeeds like success, it’s also true that nothing exceeds like excess. If this thought is troubling now, it will be even more troubling when the US makes good on its threat to attack North Korea, a small country next door to China, or to invade Iran, an ally of both China and Russia.
When the fur really starts to fly, it will be highly doubtful if the American taxpayer is able to pony up the further cost of a true world war, which would be far beyond what they’re shouldering at present.
And, since the loser in a war is almost always the country that runs out of money first, and the US is for all purposes broke, the outcome of such a war would not be in favour of the US.
* * *
You don’t have to sink with the US… There are practical steps you should take to prepare—before America makes a dangerous military move. Get the details straight from Jeff in our guide to Surviving and Thriving During an Economic Collapse.
The world is a wild place. Why go into a store and subject yourself to a number of risks and dangers, including but not limited to catching a cold – when you can do all your shopping from the comfort of your own home! Things like Amazon Prime now make online shopping very easy. Even without prime, you can get free shipping with a minimum cart size (usually $45). Amazingly, they’ll ship anything from toilet paper to batteries. There’s another consideration; price. It’s possible online to quickly price check, and sometimes even exploit coupons, discounts, and other offers easier.
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code,
I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, in order to take additional steps with respect to the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13692 of March 8, 2015, and relied upon for additional steps taken in Executive Order 13808 of August 24, 2017, and in light of recent actions taken by the Maduro regime to attempt to circumvent U.S. sanctions by issuing a digital currency in a process that Venezuela’s democratically elected National Assembly has denounced as unlawful, hereby order as follows:
Section 1. (a) All transactions related to, provision of financing for, and other dealings in, by a United States person or within the United States, any digital currency, digital coin, or digital token, that was issued by, for, or on behalf of the Government of Venezuela on or after January 9, 2018, are prohibited as of the effective date of this order.
(b) The prohibitions in subsection (a) of this section apply except to the extent provided by statutes, or in regulations, orders, directives, or licenses that may be issued pursuant to this order, and notwithstanding any contract entered into or any license or permit granted before the effective date of this order.
Sec. 2. (a) Any transaction that evades or avoids, has the purpose of evading or avoiding, causes a violation of, or attempts to violate any of the prohibitions set forth in this order is prohibited.
(b) Any conspiracy formed to violate any of the prohibitions set forth in this order is prohibited.
Sec. 3. For the purposes of this order:
(a) the term “person” means an individual or entity;
(b) the term “entity” means a partnership, association, trust, joint venture, corporation, group, subgroup, or other organization;
(c) the term “United States person” means any United States citizen, permanent resident alien, entity organized under the laws of the United States or any jurisdiction within the United States (including foreign branches of such entities), or any person within the United States; and
(d) the term “Government of Venezuela” means the Government of Venezuela, any political subdivision, agency, or instrumentality thereof, including the Central Bank of Venezuela and Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PdVSA), and any person owned or controlled by, or acting for or on behalf of, the Government of Venezuela.
Sec. 4. The Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State, is hereby authorized to take such actions, including promulgating rules and regulations, and to employ all powers granted to the President by IEEPA as may be necessary to implement this order. The Secretary of the Treasury may, consistent with applicable law, redelegate any of these functions to other officers and executive departments and agencies of the United States Government. All agencies of the United States Government shall take all appropriate measures within their authority to carry out the provisions of this order.
Sec. 5. For those persons whose property and interests in property are affected by this order who might have a constitutional presence in the United States, I find that because of the ability to transfer funds or other assets instantaneously, prior notice to such persons of measures taken pursuant to this order would render those measures ineffectual. I therefore determine that for these measures to be effective in addressing the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13692, there need be no prior notice given for implementation of this order.
Sec. 6. This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
Sec. 7. This order is effective at 12:15 p.m. eastern daylight time on March 19, 2018.
A bizarre political statement by Saddam Hussein has earned Iraq a windfall of hundreds of million of euros. In October 2000 Iraq insisted on dumping the US dollar - 'the currency of the enemy' - for the more multilateral euro.
The changeover was announced on almost exactly the same day that the euro reached its lowest ebb, buying just $0.82, and the G7 Finance Ministers were forced to bail out the currency. On Friday the euro had reached $1.08, up 30 per cent from that time.
Almost all of Iraq's oil exports under the United Nations oil-for-food programme have been paid in euros since 2001. Around 26 billion euros (£17.4bn) has been paid for 3.3 billion barrels of oil into an escrow account in New York.
The Iraqi account, held at BNP Paribas, has also been earning a higher rate of interest in euros than it would have in dollars.
At the time of the change the UN issued a report saying that the move could cost Iraq up to £270 million. Independent experts questioned the value of buying into a plummeting currency.
'It was seen as economically bad because the entire global oil trade is conducted in dollars,' says Fadhil Chalabi, executive director of the Centre for Global Energy Studies.
It seems that anyone who attempts to thwart US Dollar hegemony ends up getting bombed. It may be all a coincidence, we will see shortly. The big question is -
There are stories of the government confiscating computers and mining equipment from people. Tell us about this.
Yes, sometimes the police squad that visits your place decides to seize your mining equipment, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.
What do they do with the equipment?
Rumor has it they install them on government facilities.
So the Venezuelan government, in its desperate need to generate funds in a chaotic environment with a worthless domestic currency, has launched the boldest Cryptocurrency project to date, a government & commodity backed Crypto.
Operation PBFORTUNE, also known as Operation FORTUNE, was the name of a covert United States operation to overthrow the democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz in 1952. The operation was authorized by US President Harry Truman and planned by the Central Intelligence Agency. The United Fruit Company had lobbied intensively for the overthrow because landmark land reform enacted by Árbenz threatened its economic interests. The coup attempt was also motivated by US fears that the government of Árbenz was being influenced by communists. It involved providing weapons to the exiled Guatemalan military officer Carlos Castillo Armas, who was to lead an invasion from Nicaragua. The coup was planned with the knowledge and support of Anastasio Somoza García, Rafael Leonidas Trujillo and Marcos Pérez Jiménez, the US-backed right-wing dictators of Nicaragua, Dominican Republic and Venezuela respectively, as well as the United Fruit Company. However, the US State Department discovered that details of the plan had become too widely known.[1] US Secretary of State Dean Acheson was worried that the coup attempt would damage the image of the US, which had committed to a policy of non-intervention, and so terminated the operation.[2] Operation PBFORTUNE was a precursor to Operation PBSUCCESS, the covert operation that toppled Árbenz and ended the Guatemalan Revolution in 1954.[3]
For those of you who are just joining us, the US has led a global Empire since World War 2 and been the exclusive power in the world economically and militarily (although, when you dig deeper, the US is just a tool the real owners are mostly non-US).
If we are looking at things statically, today's EO fits the same pattern as a number of others pre-invasion. With Russia being completely and 100% cleared of any wrongdoing, hacking, meddling, and social media botting - US war mongers are desperate to find a new enemy. Venezuela fits the bill as South America has been the local playground for spycraft since the creation of the CIA.
IS VENEZUELA NEXT?
We shall see in the days ahead. Sunken boats, terrorism, strange things in Miami - who knows. Maybe this time it will be something digital. Venezuela will be blamed for 'hacking' into something, or a building in Miami will collapse. Lots of rich Venezuelan consultants ready to help their hosts to go down and reclaim what was taken from them by the communists.
"We have been shamelessly threatened by the most criminal empire that ever existed and we have the obligation to prepare ourselves to guarantee peace," said Maduro, who wore a green uniform and a military hat as he spoke with his army top brass during a military exercise involving tanks and missiles. "We need to have rifles, missiles and well-oiled tanks at the ready....to defend every inch of the territory if needs be," he added.
Back when I first read it, I really had no idea what the hell I was doing. I read it, thought I got it and moved on.
But I didn’t get it.
The reason was simple. I didn’t have the life experience and wisdom to understand it. That would take many, many more years.
A few months ago I picked up my old, dog eared and highlighted copy and started thumbing through it. I expected to snag a few quotes and move on but pretty soon I found myself hooked, reading it cover to cover all over again.
Two things struck me immediately.
First, I’d highlighted all the wrong things.
Second, I saw instantly how much these men were alike.
No matter where they came from or how they got started, they all remembered one devastating loss early in their career. They all started with little to no idea what they were doing. All of them transcended false beliefs and developed an amazing ability to adapt and change their minds in a flash.
Their styles, politics and temperament all varied widely but the rest of their lives followed a remarkably similar path.
That’s when I realized I was seeing something bigger, a meta-pattern, a pattern of patterns.
Call it the journey of the great trader.
So what is that path and how can you follow it?
Let’s take a close look.
Number One: Start Out Clueless
No matter how good anyone gets at something they always start out clueless. Maybe trading is some innate gift but that doesn’t matter at all at first. Everyone starts at step one.
Nobody starts off a superstar.
Maybe it’s my fault
This Wizards excerpt from Michael Marcus is typical of most traders.
“Q: Did you know anything at all about what you were doing? Had you read anything about commodities or trading?
A: No, nothing.
Q: Did you even know the contract sizes?
A: No, we didn’t.
Q: Did you know how much it was costing you per tick?
A: Yes.
Q: Apparently, that was about the only thing you knew.
A: Right. Our next trade, in wheat, didn’t work either. After that, we went back to corn and that trade worked out better; it took us three days to lose our money. We were measuring success by the number of days it took us to lose.”
You see the same story again and again. Somebody hears about how they can get rich quick in the market. Their friend tells them or they read a story about some king of Wall Street or the newly crowned crypto rich and they leap in hoping to make a quick buck, their eyes filled with stars.
Even if they do have some idea about the basic rules, like setting good stops and choosing a position size that won’t wipe them out they almost always ignore it.
Paul Tudor Jones, a super aggressive, hard charging trader, tells the tale of a horrible early trade where he made a spur of the moment “macho man” cotton buy leaving him seriously vulnerable. Immediately the other pit traders knew his mistake and he did too. The big whale of the cotton market started dumping on him almost instantly, driving the price down hard and locking him in.
He learned the hard way “Never play macho man with the market” as he wiped out 70% of his equity in a single trade.
Every single person thinks they’re smarter than the market. Even if they read the time honored rules of the best of the best they’re thinking “those don’t apply to me, I’m different.”
And that takes us to step two.
Number Two: Make the Same Mistakes as Everyone Else
Think you’re immune to making the same mistakes everyone else does?
You’re not. But don’t worry, you’re in good company.
Nobody is immune.
Inevitably new traders don’t understand why the rules are there to protect them even if they know the rules. Maybe after their clueless stage they read a few books or listen to some smart sounding traders on Twitter or take a course.
The problem is they don’t really understand what they’re reading and hearing. They can’t process it yet because they don’t have the experience to see the wisdom in it, even if they understand it partially at the intellectual level. Knowledge can’t be passed on passively. It has to be earned through personal experience.
And when you don’t understand the rules, what happens?
You screw up.
And what are some of those rules?
1) Don’t overtrade.
2) Keep your position sizes small.
3) Set stop losses.
4) Don’t make snap decisions.
5) Don’t get too high or too low emotionally.
Those are just a few of the essential pearls of wisdom that every trader eventually figures out.
Eventually.
The hard way.
In the beginning everyone just glosses over them.
Legendary currency trader Bruce Kovner tells a classic story about snap decisions. Kovner made his original money hedging spreads on contracts. He’d be long one contract and short another to reduce the risk but as soybeans rocketed to new highs in the 1970’s his broker got caught up in the euphoria and called him wild with greed:
“Soybeans are going to the moon…You are a fool to stay short the November contracts. Let me lift your November shorts for you, and when the market goes limit-up for the next few days, you will make more money.”
He agreed. Limit-up is a circuit breaker on the markets. If they went too high or too low the contracts locked and nobody could trade them. You were stuck. Limit-up meant you were making the absolute most money possible. Limit-down? You were losing the most money possible and even worse you were stuck and you couldn’t sell out.
Kovner perfectly describes the crazy euphoria every early market apprentice feels:
“It was a moment of insanity. Fifteen minutes later, my broker calls me back, and he sounds frantic.
‘I don’t know how to tell you this, but the market is limit-down! I don’t know if I can get you out.’ I went into shock. I yelled at him to get me out.”
By sheer luck he managed to get out when the markets ticked up past limit-down for a few minutes but not before eating a massive loss.
Afterwards, Kovner talks about the sickness every trader feels when they make a horrific trade and the market eats them alive.
“I was up about $45,000. By the end of the day, I had $22,000 in my account.”
And that brings us to our very next step on the journey of trader enlightenment.
Number Three: Take a Big Loss
Every single trader will eventually experience a catastrophic, heart breaking loss. Many of the best traders went completely belly up, more than once. The original great speculator, Jesse Livermore, lost multiple fortunes.
Kovner tells us the gut wrenching sickness of losing big money in the market.
“I went into emotional shock. I could not believe how stupid I had been — how badly I had failed to understand the market, in spite of having studied the markets for years. I was sick to my stomach, and I didn’t eat for days. I thought that I had blown my career as a trader.”
Michael Marcus tells a similar story of a disastrous sugar trade.
“Q: How much did you lose on the trade by the time you liquidated?
A: I lost my own $30,000, plus $12,000 of the $20,000 my mother had lent me. That was my lesson in betting my whole wad.”
Every trader has a story like that to tell. For me it was NEO. I got in late in the bull run and bet big. I just knew it was going to the moon and a few days later I was riding high and I nearly doubled my money.
China started threatening the big exchanges. It seemed every single weekend there was a brand new story attacking crypto, a big banker saying it was worthless or insane, China cracking down, or another country looking to ban trading.
It didn’t take long for the markets to panic.
And there was no worse coin to hold at the time than a Chinese coin. That’s exactly what NEO was, red Chinese through and through.
I watched my wins vaporize over the course of two days and I just froze. I panicked. I liked the coin and the project, I thought it would turn around so I just hung on as it went down and down and down.
In the end I lost 68% of what I put in.
I was sick to death. I couldn’t sleep or eat for days. Working out didn’t help. Getting a massage didn’t help. Alcohol didn’t help. Whacking it didn’t help. Nothing helped.
Only one thing could fix it. The next step.
Step Four: Reflect and Come Back Stronger
Once you finally experience that soul crushing loss it’s not long after that you realize it was the absolute best experience of your trading life.
If you’re smart and you’re focused you start looking at everything you did wrong. You go over it with a fine tooth comb. You question all your beliefs and ideas. No longer are you willing to just take things at face value. You want to know what works and what doesn’t and so you finally get serious.
Paul Tudor Jones remembers reflecting on his mega-loss and getting so depressed he wanted to quit. But then it hit him:
“It was at that point that I said, ‘Mr. Stupid, why risk everything on one trade? Why not make your life the pursuit of happiness rather than pain?’
That was when I first decided I had to learn discipline and money management. It was a cathartic experience for me, in the sense that I went to the edge, questioned my very ability as a trader, and decided that I was not going to quit. I was determined to come back and fight.”
Real loss equals real wisdom.
Without that loss none of the lessons make any sense to you whatsoever. You’ll think you’re different and that the rules don’t apply to you.
But they do. They apply to everyone. No exceptions.
Step Five: Learn the Age Old Lessons the Hard Way
What is it about the human mind that makes us learn all our lessons the hard way? We read the great wisdom of the ages and promptly ignore it.
Be like water, my friend.
Maybe that’s just the meaning of life? We all have to go through the same struggles and make our own mistakes and live the great story again and again.
After my big NEO loss I reflected on everything I’d done wrong and it hit me like a diamond bullet between the eyes. I realized I didn’t know how to make decisions when I was under fire. I just froze like a deer in headlights. I knew the market had turned and that NEO was going down and I should get out but I couldn’t pull the trigger.
Internally, I just couldn’t accept the loss. I was in denial. I was a good trader and careful or at least I thought I was but now I was faced with a new reality.
I wasn’t as good as I thought I was. And I couldn’t accept the reality in front of me. I couldn’t put it behind me and move on.
I should have sold that NEO shit stack long before it cost me a big chunk of change. Instead I road that loser all the way into Hell instead of cutting my losses.
As Tudor Jones says “losers average losers.”
People love to hang onto losers. They love the pain. Oh they won’t admit it but they do. Pain is drama. And people love drama.
Either that or they imagine the market merely lost its mind for a minute. The project is a good project. Things will turn around.
Except more often then not they don’t turn around or they turn around too late and because you held so long you can’t make up that loss.
And it doesn’t matter if gold is good or a company is good or a project is good. Sometimes that doesn’t mean a damn thing to the market and it just tanks. Saddling up that bomb and cowboy riding it to the bottom is always a disaster.
NEO taught me the most important lesson of all.
More importantly I now understood the lesson:
“Cut your losses, let your winners run.”
Step Six: Money Management
The ancient wisdom really boils down to two words: Money management.
Cutting losses is one of those key principles that everyone has to learn. It’s not enough to simply trade the market, you have to know you’re going to get things wrong a lot of the time. And that means you have to protect your money at all costs.
That’s just basic probability.
Paul Tudor Jones says “I am always thinking about losing money as opposed to making money…I have a mental stop. If it hits that number, I am out no matter what.”
Money management comes down to a few critical principles:
1) Keep your position sizes small to minimize risk
2) Ruthlessly cut your losses.
3) Always use stops.
4) Don’t use too much leverage
5) When you start losing, start trading smaller.
6) When you go on a bad streak, get out of everything and take a break.
7) If you get in a bad trade, get out immediately because you can always get back in later.
All of these principles work in tandem to protect your money.
I learned this the hard way yet again just the other day, when I went a little too heavy on a leveraged position after a strong winning streak.
The mistake was easy to see in retrospect.
What blinded me at first was that I’d gotten masterful at setting my stops. One of my tricks is to set a limit stop price far above or below the trigger so it always gets filled. I’d never had a stop not fill and I’d never gotten liquidated. I don’t get liquidated because I use just enough leverage to make a difference but not enough that the market would only have to move a few percentage points to kill me off.
I put in my trade, set my stop and went to bed.
When I woke up in the morning and checked in I saw I was down 29%. My stop never triggered. I wasn’t liquidated because I hadn’t over-leveraged but it didn’t matter.
I was sick to my stomach.
So what did I do?
Number two, ruthlessly cut loses.
After a few minutes of feeling sorry for myself and thinking I should hold on because maybe it would come back I shut that stupid voice up and sold. I cut that loss immediately. I took it and moved on.
That’s when I understood once more that all the principles work together in concert.
If the position size had been smaller the overall loss would have been smaller. But because I hadn’t used too much leverage I hadn’t gotten liquidated so I was still very much protected.
Low leverage, small positions and stops all work as one. Sometimes one of these risk management tools fail you and the others kick in to help. It’s like the seat belt and the airbag.
Sometimes the seat belt isn’t enough but the airbag is there to save you.
Step Seven: Stop Following Others
It may seem strange to say that I don’t follow other traders or the news but I don’t follow any of them anymore. I may occasionally glance at a chart of a trader who I really respect and see if it matches with my sense of the market but it’s incredibly rare. I might also check in with a trader who I know well and who’s had success over the long run.
And then I just do what I want anyway.
You can go your own way.
In the end you have to follow your own light.
You have to get so good that you trust your own analysis above all else. When you make a mistake you need to know you’re strong enough to figure out what it was and fix it the next time.
If you’re meant to be a good trader you will be. It’s as simple as that.
Ed Seykota is one of the best traders profiled in Wizards. He says is best:
“It is a happy circumstance that when nature gives us true burning desires, she also gives us the means to satisfy them.”
If you have that burning desire to trade and to win, you’ll find a way and you won’t need to follow anyone else once you get your feet wet.
I have my school of traders but my main lesson to them is simple. Learn from me and then move on. Become your own master. Don’t sit at the feet of gurus your whole life.
As for the news? Nothing but poison. Turn it off as fast as you can.
I highly, highly recommend every single human being take a news fast for a month. Disable anything related to news on your phone feed. Unfollow everyone on Facebook. Don’t read the Twitter stream. Get a site blocker for when you’re working and use it frequently.
I guarantee you, you will not miss out on anything. If something really, really big happens you’ll hear about it because people will talk about it. If it’s not big enough to be on everyone’s lips it’s not worth hearing about.
Here’s another thing I guarantee. You will be mentally, emotionally and spiritually healthier by an order of magnitude. Your anxiety will decrease as will your confusion and fear.
You’ll probably end up extending the news fast indefinitely. I know I did.
I could care less about Google News or which coin some random person on the Internet thinks is going to the moon tomorrow based on astrology and hope. Probably the last time I followed news was during the China crisis. And if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t read a word of it this time. I do occasionally read one magazine that I like with strong, consistent journalism but even that is less and less frequent, maybe once a month or every few months and mostly because there is one story I want to read in depth.
When you give up on the news you’ll be in fine company.
Ed Seykota said “eventually I became more confident of trading with the trend and more able to ignore the news. I became more comfortable with the approach.”
I have not met a single good trader who is a news junky even though the average trader is a hopeless news junky. They want a reason for the market to go up or down. They can’t face that it’s random chaos and the push/pull of a billion emotional monsters.
So writers come up with a good reason for why the market made a move. Interest rates changed. A trade war looms. A big soybean shortage struck. Some of these are probably factors but it’s really impossible to use that news in any effective way 99% of the time. The other 1% of the time it is but so what? Is it really worth watching 99% white noise to get that?
Even worse, news is about conflict and tragedy. It’s about pain and suffering. It’s about extraordinary events.
But the more you watch it the more you think those extraordinary events are normal events.
Plagues happen every day. People get shot up around the corner every few seconds. A baby is butchered every ten minutes in your town.
If you’re born in an insane asylum and everyone is screaming all the time you think it’s normal.
It ain’t normal.
You’re hearing about statistical outliers and it does nothing but warp and derange your mind.
The news is poison.
Bite your arm, suck that venom and spit it out for good.
Step Eight: Develop Your Own Style
If you make it this far, you’ve come to the final step on the journey of trading mastery.
What’s that?
Develop your own system.
I used to study Kung Fu. I noticed that most people were obsessed with lineage. Who was the great master that taught their great master in an unbroken line over five hundred years? Did the system change? Was it passed down perfectly and directly?
I soon realized this kind of thinking was total madness. Of course the system changed. Each master learned new lessons through his own life experience and added that to the system. It he didn’t, he was no master. In fact, he probably sucked horribly if he just photocopied what his teacher taught him and passed it down to you.
And I also found myself thinking about the first person in that line of legendary martial artists. If you go back far enough, eventually you get to someone who started the system. That brings up one inevitable question:
Who taught them?
The answer is obvious.
Nobody.
They taught themselves.
And that is what the absolute best of the best do in all fields. They don’t follow. They create.
The old Kung Fu masters didn’t just learn from someone else and regurgitate it. They took what they learned and modified and improved it. They studied nature and themselves. They watched the movement of snakes and birds and they tried to tease out the secrets of those animal powers. They wanted to move as fast as a snake and strike like a tiger. They had everything they needed by observing the world around them.
You must become the master. When you get there you’ll find there’s nobody handing out a belt. You’ll be the final judge in your journey.
And that means eventually you’ll need to develop a trading style that perfectly fits your own personality, your own strengths and weaknesses. If you’re just following someone else’s picks blindly you won’t have to strength to stay in a trade when the going gets really rough. That kind of confidence only comes from within.
To do that you’ll have to look deep inside and figure out what you really want from the world.
As Ed Seykota says, “Everyone gets what they want out of the markets.”
Some people like to lose. Some people like to play the Martyr. Some folks like to be popular. Others love to be contrarians and bet against the crowd. Still others like to sound smart at parties. But they don’t like to make money. They might even think it’s dirty or evil and they self sabotage.
Whatever your weakness the market will happily feed it to you. If you love the excitement of winning big and then losing it all and making it back again, you’ll get that too.
Ed went further: “I think that if people look deeply enough into their trading patterns, they find that, on balance, including all their goals, they are really getting what they want, even though they may not understand it or want to admit it.”
But the best traders do want to make money. They have a deep passion for the markets and a burning desire to win. To do it they all come to the same understanding eventually by reflecting deeply and transcending their own human limitations to become the best of the best.
And when they do they’re ready to walk their own path, a lonely path, but a joyous one too:
They no longer need to read any more books or listen to anyone else or follow anyone else’s star.
They become their own guiding light.
They live and die by their own decisions. When they win they don’t get too high. When they lose they don’t blame anyone but themselves.
And they don’t need any outside validation or praise or judgement.
That’s because after all that time and effort and suffering, they finally knowwhat they’re doing. It’s not arrogance. It’s an internal compass that is unflinchingly accurate, developed only through dedication, perseverance, persistence and passion.
It’s earned over time. A long time. Nothing else can give it to you.
It can’t be bought, bargained for, or cheated. There are no short cuts and there never will be.
And all the praise and validation the legendary trader will ever need will show up in the only place that matters.
