You're talking about following intraday market chatter, whereas he is talking about end of day checks of your P&L - two totally different things. You have to check your statements daily anyway, to identify position errors, looming expiries, large moves in your open positions, and so on, so you are going to notice your P&L regardless. Might as well build sound records and performance monitoring while you are at it. Like he said - you can't know what you are doing right and wrong, if you aren't looking at what is helping or hindering your performance. How can you improve if you aren't sure whether it was Euros, soybeans, or some Canadian junior miner that most impacted your performance recently? I can understand not looking daily at long-only, cash-only investment positions (things you would hold for 1 year+), but surely with futures and shorter-term plays it requires frequent attention?
12% per annum and 40-50% drawdowns - not too appealing. Although better than the stock market's return to risk ratio.
Markets have a way of accelerating this sort of thing the next time around. As I recall JGBs were still yielding north of 3% in 1996, still plenty of room between that and 0. Euroyen futures markets at that time still priced in a series of rate hikes. Now we have the U.S. 10-year already camped out below 2% and the Fed telling us and the whole world knowing the FF rate will never again be raised in our lifetimes. I'm not saying Treasuries are set to enter a bear market, but a lot of that alpha has been priced out.
Again, depends on your style of trade. Other than my long-term stock holdings (whose price I rarely look at), I have very few positions open and with the slightest bit of calculation in my head, can glance at the front page of CBSMarketwatch and figure where I stand in a few seconds. I just have an issue with putting my exact account value to paper intraday or at the end of the day. Puts my energies in the wrong spot.
Where are you getting 40-50% drawdowns from? The corrections in JGB futs were 7-8% in 98, 03 and 08. Add in TIBOR financing and you're closer to 22-26% DDs.
A rare move for me, just bought shares in Zillow (Z). I've loved the site for years and it gets better every month, it seems. I've been waiting for a spot to buy ever since its IPO. This company is wildly disruptive to the horrid real estate agent business in this country. If the managers play their cards right, it could be another Amazon (the only difference is I expect Z to make money).
I'll explain why it's mistaken to do this, regardless of trading style. First, mental calculation takes longer than just looking at the P&L column in your spreadsheet. Secondly, it's less accurate. Even if you are out by only 0.1% per day, that is an error range of 5% each month (60% each year!). Third, you need to check your statements daily in case of errors (or unauthorised account withdrawals, excess/mistaken broker fees etc) anyway. Fourth, if and when you put on more complex positions like options or spreads, they are much harder to calculate mentally. Finally, even if you can calculate your P&L to perfection, it is always superior to have a way of double-checking that. Systems with backups, double (or triple) checks and failsafes are always more robust than those without. I agree with not staring at P&L during the day, if you are a longer-term investor/trader. But even for long-term holdings, you need to check the price once each day, as a signal. If one of your stocks is up or down a significant amount one day (e.g. 5%+), then there is probably some news (and at the very least, the price action has changed a lot), and you need to double check to see if it could have further price impact. What if your biggest holding just had its finance director or auditor resign? What if a stock you are monitoring just got a take-over bid? BP or Olympus holders who didn't watch the price of their stock each day certainly paid for that laziness and complacency. Checking your statements daily is an essential task of any serious market participant. Not bothering to do it is like a racer not bothering to check his engine oil, a skydiver not checking the packing of his parachute. It cannot help in any way, and can only cost you in the long run. Sure, it's always tempting to be lazy, and I bet everyone has backslided sometimes on these kind of things, but anyone who is serious about their trading needs to make it a habit and stick to it.
I agree about the potential on this one, but what about the valuation and the risks? It's at a huge multiple of sales, and has no assets or profits to speak of.
Well, I was short JGBs back around 2003/04 (can't remember exactly) and they went from 145 to around 128 on the futures, if I recall. That's a 12% drawdown, 36% if using 3:1 leverage. Anyway, 3:1 leverage on long bonds with such a low yield is suicidal. If Japan ever does serious money printing, you are toast.