BarroMetrics Views: A Year in Review
CALLS
2009 was a good year from this Blog. We made quite a few timely calls; the most noticeable were:
- The S&P bottom in March.
- The US$ Index (DX) low in November.
- The Gold high on December 3.
The least successful calls were the ones on the S&P - although by luck and skill (G), we avoided taking large losses. We have a call on the S&P at present. It will be interesting to see how that turns out.
IMPORTANT EVENT
The most important event for me was discovering the research surrounding the brain and how that research impacts on our knowledge of how we learn. Looking at the research, I have no doubt that the way we are taught to trade is a contributing factor to the failure rate. This rate, at least for FX and Futures trading, is now shown to be above 90% for new accounts. That is a staggering figure. It’s my goal to do something about improving it in 2010.
TRAUMATIC EVENT
The most traumatic event was the March trading result: a massive 24% loss when 6 open positions all went South. There was a drawdown of another 4% before I was able to put the slide on hold. That took me to -28% on capital - the largest end of month loss in 20 years of managing funds.
It took the rest of 2009 to claw back the losses. Did someone say all you need to win in this game is a ‘robot’ or super duper trading system? Despite my thirty years in markets (and twenty as a fund manager), I have yet to come across this ‘holy grail’.
Refer this blog post to a friend or colleague…
