Takes all kinds pal. If you want to mistake confidence for arrogance that's your prerogative. I couldn't give a dead dog's dick what you think, or anyone else who plays the whiny bitch card because they couldn't actually step up. You GTFO, hope to see you on the other side of our trades.
Broken Markets Kindle Version being offered for $0 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0085AQS3A/ref=docs-os-doi_0 How ironic, maybe bots bugged amazon pricing system?Anyway, I just hit that ask
No one's complaining about confidence - people didn't bash you for your trading calls, or your opinion of your own abilities. They complained because you keep adopting this rude and patronising tone when anyone has the temerity to have a different opinion to yours. You regularly talk on ET your website about being humble, on the importance of continually testing your assumptions and beliefs, yet you have this rigid "I am right and clever, you are wrong and stupid" attitude when it comes to other people's opinions. Is your humility real or just a pose? Anyone is entitled to call out bad behaviour. And if 'unfettered debate' is the rule then why do you complain when someone criticises you back? Seems like you want one rule for yourself, another rule for everyone else - well it doesn't work that way. If you act like a hypocrite then expect to get called out on it. If you act like an asshole then expect to be complained about. Either put up with the complaints, act more reasonably, or go to your own thread (which you said you were going to do several pages ago) where you can rant and rave to your heart's content without stepping on anyone else's toes.
Sigh... I don't adopt a 'rude and patronising tone' when someone responds to a meaningful debate in kind. Go back and look at my interactions with Specterx, for example. As a general rule, his replies were thoughtful and substantive. Also, there is an element of assuming people can take the heat of repartee. It is more fun to debate when one can throw a little wit around. Until the other person gets pissy and starts crying about it. I mean seriously, the idea of calling someone out for being "rude"- in the trading community, let alone on an ET message board - is laughable. I don't have to tell you what the culture of a trading floor / trading desk is like, or what the internal culture of most successful hedge funds is like. If a junior analyst at a competitive fund gets up and delivers a shitty, ill-thought-out idea at a Monday morning meeting, he is going to get torn a new asshole. I'm not in the asshole-tearing business, but I DO think that the best debate is unfettered in terms of being effective, blunt, and to the point, as long as the exchanges focus on facts and relevant points rather than ad hominem. I'm more than ready to let this subject die. I really don't care anymore. But if you are genuinely interested and want to be objective about it, go back through the thread. Compare and contrast how many times my arguments -- which contained either logical premises, facts, or an articulated point of view, if not all three -- were responded to by some form of ad hominem / hand waving / lol. There are guys who can debate, handle give and take, and give as intelligently as they get, without minding roughness around the edges in the spirit of fun. And then there are guys who resort to whining and petty bitterness when they simply get outgunned. As for "the temerity to have a different opinion" from mine... fucking A man! You can have any opinion you want! Isn't that obvious? I find it fucking hilarious that people castigate me for strongly defending my opinions. It's sort of like castigating a trader for having strong conviction on his trades. IF I DIDN'T BELIEVE IN MY OPINION, I WOULDN'T VOICE IT IN THE FIRST PLACE. So isn't it natural I would logically want to defend it? And you can't judge how flexible or inflexible someone is, simply by small sample size of how often they concede an opinion to others. Believe it or not (and I don't care if you do), I am HAPPY to concede when I am wrong, and GRATEFUL when shown wrong, to have seen my point of view improved. But this doesn't mean I am going to go around conceding arguments as a matter of habit, when I pointedly make an effort not to get involved in an argument unless I have logical reasons for taking my stance in the first place! Heh. What you describe is the paradox of the successful trader. You have to be deeply confident and deeply humble at the same time. Most top global macro practitioners (as confirmed by Schwager, Drobny etc) have an average hit rate of around 50%. Stevie Cohen once said his best trader had a hit rate of 65%. My hit rate also falls in these ranges (probably btw 50 and 55%). In practical terms, this means I am wrong in my trades a lot. I am also wrong in my scenario anticipations a lot, because as a trader you can't really know the future -- you can only game the odds and probabilities, and then go with what's crystallizing as the inflection point develops. Earlier this year, for example, we were short the Aussie, short the yen, and short bonds at different times. I had strong conviction that any one of those could have turned into a huge, huge multi-month trade. But none of them did. The Aussie provided some nice profits but then reversed. The other two wound up scratches. So yeah. I am wrong a lot, and I am happy to admit I am wrong in a heartbeat. We see taking good losses (small losses) as a craft, an art form. And I am always ready and willing to turn on a dime if new information arises or developments demand such. In that sense I am humble. But I am also a confident motherfucker -- call it arrogance if you want -- in that I believe I have what it takes to play the most competitive game in the world, and win. Isn't that a necessary quality of being a top trader? As for "I am right and clever, you are wrong and stupid" -- that is not a fair characterization, in my view. I play rough, yes. But I do so within the terms of the game. Playing rough is not a sign of automatic disrespect for one's opponent. I got harsh with Daal and used rhetoric as a weapon on multiple occasions, it's true. But that is because he broke the rules of engagement, not me. The consistent pattern was 1) I bring out a point of view or articulate an argument, 2) He responds with some form of lol ad hominem, 3) I grow increasingly less patient with forms of response that do not amount to actual intellectual back and forth. You should understand something. I WANT good debaters. I would LOVE to have more back and forth interaction with individuals who hold a different point of view than me. That was my favorite part of this thread -- again the interaction with Specterx comes to mind, where we had divergent views on gold and gold stocks and hashed those views out with depth on both sides. Anyone is entitled to do whatever the hell they want. I don't complain about true debate, I complain about ad hominem and broad-brush characterizations which are a form of ad hominem once removed (you think you are god's gift to traders blah blah blah). Thanks for telling me how it works, I'll note that down. Wonderful idea. That's why I mentioned -- for those who care -- that I was taking my observations elsewhere. I think I've acted reasonably the whole time and a couple of y'all just started acting like whiny bitches out of the blue, but again, that's just my opinion. As for "what I said I was going to do several pages ago"... do you see me as the one keeping this alive? I'm responding to attacks on my person, not trying to continue the topic. I thought y'all would have forgotten about me by now. I'd be more than happy if this is the very last post on this tiresome subject. I'm not the one still beating a dead horse (no pun intended).
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2012/07/23/1093431/cnooc-nexen-and-a-brent-outing/ I'm really considering taking a short on Nexen here. Total loss is 7% if the deal goes through, total gain is 50% is the deal does not go through(Maybe more as the risk arb funds will be liquidating like crazy) It doesn't seem likely that Canadian and US regulators would let China scoop this big of a company at all. Opti Canada(Which CNOOC bought a few years back) was a much smaller company that was going bankrupt. Nexen is a much better asset
From what I've read US regulators have a say on this matter even though the company is Canadian. I'm just trying to figure out why the market thinks they have a high chance of letting this happen. Seems totally wrong to me
Using a 6.5% loss in the short and 40% gain as guide(to be conservative) it seems that the market implied chance of the deal working is 84%. This seems much too high to me