If it IS possible, how would you do it?

Don’t consider whether it’s possible.

Consider if it IS possible.

And if it IS possible, how would you do it?

If it IS possible, what would it look like?

We are all at the mercy of news trading algos

It’s become commonplace for news stories to drastically and instantly influence the movement of stock prices. This has become more observable in the past two years, with China trade deal news dominating headlines seemingly every day.

According to Larry Harris (Trading & Exchanges) there are four kinds of informed traders, with news traders exhibiting the second most influence on the market. According to Harris:

News traders collect and act upon new information about instrument values. They try to predict out instrument values will change, given new information. News traders try very hard to discover material information before other traders to.

Unlike value traders, news traders do not estimate the value of an instrument from first principles and all available data. Instead, they implicitly assume that current prices accurately reflect all information except their news.

It’s difficult trying to day trade or swing trade around the drastic changes in stock prices that are triggered from a single headline.

Many algorithms are programmed as news traders, which read news headlines or tweets and have some pre-programmed objective-based method of interpreting the sentiment of those headlines.

Algorithmic trading has been of much chagrin of people in Wall Street such as Jim Cramer. Earlier this fall, Cramer said the following about machine trading

Cramer blamed the errant jumps in the transport stocks on machine trading, calling the buying “robotic.”

“Real human buyers wouldn’t pay up eight points for FedEx on no news, unless they think there’s going to be some sort of takeover, which there probably isn’t. Real buyers work an order. They wait for sellers to come to them,” he said. “Instead, these machine buyers they blitzed all the sellers all the way up, and you have to believe they didn’t even attempt to try to get a good price for their customers.”

The dreary truth

We have to accept the fact that algorithmic trading is a part of the market as we know it.

As a day trader you will always at the mercy of algorithms suddenly going against your positions which makes day trading harder than it already is.

If you’re a swing trader, you can ride out the waves because news headline trading tends to smooth out over time (unless it’s something dramatic like a President Trump tweet tantrum).

So we must deal with it, must learn from it, and must learn how to trade with or around it. It’s up to you what you do.

Who are the four kinds of informative traders?

This post is a work in progress and will be updated frequently. Please bookmark page to see updates.

The follow note is based off Larry Harris’s book, Trading and Exchanges.

There are four types of informed traders who operate in markets. Those traders are value traders, news traders, information-oriented technical traders, and arbitrageurs.

Informed traders help prices more informative. Uninformed traders make prices less informative.

Value traders estimate the fundamental values of a particular investment. These are the traders who attempt to estimate the fundamental value of a company, and buy or short a stock based off this.

News traders estimate changes in fundamental values. They rely on value traders properly pricing an investment, and trade based off news events they believe can materially affect the price of an investment.

Information-oriented traders estimate patterns that are inconsistent with fundamental values.

Arbitrageurs estimate the differences in fundamental values. They identify investments which generally correlate. When they notice a divergence in those investments, they short one investment and long the other until the prices converge once again.

Why do options market makers take on short volatility positions?

Adapted from Options Volatility and Pricing Textbook by Sheldon Natenberg.

Option market makers typically profit when there is more options volume being traded. The reason for this is market makers profit from the difference in the bid-ask spread, and higher volume provides and opportunity for them to take in more profits on this spread.

When options trading volume is elevated, you also tend to see higher volatility in the market. This is because demand for options increases as volatility increases due to market participants purchasing protection for their portfolios and/or speculators looking to profit from large price swings.

Market makers have an indirect long volatility position

As a result of this, option market makers have what is known as an indirect long volatility position, because they profit when volatility is high as a result of increased volume. Market makers want an increase in the volume of options but not because they have long volatility positions per se.

To hedge against this indirect long volatility position, you will see market makers take short volatility positions in volatility contracts, most commonly the VIX.

The market maker takes a short volatility position because they want to hedge themselves against the possibility of there being low trading volume which would ultimately hurt their profits.

What I’m currently reading in January 2020

As of January 2020, here are the books at the top of my reading list. I’m currently flipping back and forth from these books on various topics.

Trading and Exchanges: Market Microstructure for Practitioners by Larry Harris

I first heard of this book from squeezemetrics on Twitter. This individual said that this was one of the best books they found to gain a deeper understanding of the markets, and helped inspire the gamma exposure research that they have completed.

I got this a month ago and have to agree that this book is fantastic at helping you understand the inner workings of the stock market. If you are up for advanced knowledge on the markets, this book is for you.

From Amazon:

This book is about trading, the people who trade securities and contracts, the marketplaces where they trade, and the rules that govern it.

Readers will learn about investors, brokers, dealers, arbitrageurs, retail traders, day traders, rogue traders, and gamblers; exchanges, boards of trade, dealer networks, ECNs (electronic communications networks), crossing markets, and pink sheets.

Also covered in this text are single price auctions, open outcry auctions, and brokered markets limit orders, market orders, and stop orders.

Finally, the author covers the areas of program trades, block trades, and short trades, price priority, time precedence, public order precedence, and display precedence, insider trading, scalping, and bluffing, and investing, speculating, and gambling.

The Big Book of Dashboards: Visualizing Your Data Using Real-World Business Scenarios by Steve Wexler, Jeffrey Shaffer, and Andy Cotgreave

I got this book because I want to improve my data visualization abilities for this blog and for those charts I post on Twitter as well. I also want to improve my own record keeping process for my trades and create a more professional dashboard that will allow me to review past trades.

From Amazon:

Comprising dozens of examples that address different industries and departments (healthcare, transportation, finance, human resources, marketing, customer service, sports, etc.) and different platforms (print, desktop, tablet, smartphone, and conference room display) The Big Book of Dashboards is the only book that matches great dashboards with real-world business scenarios.

Option Volatility & Pricing: Advanced Trading Strategies and Techniques by Sheldon Natenberg

I’ve had this book for a few months, and I’m constantly coming back to it for a deeper understanding on options and the options market.

This book is great for anyone looking to dive deeper into understanding options and options theory. If you trade options or just want to understand the options market better, this one is a must read.

From Amazon:

One of the most widely read books among active option traders around the world, Option Volatility & Pricing has been completely updated to reflect the most current developments and trends in option products and trading strategies.

Featuring:

Pricing models
Volatility considerations
Basic and advanced trading strategies
Risk management techniques
And more!

Written in a clear, easy-to-understand fashion, Option Volatility & Pricing points out the key concepts essential to successful trading. Drawing on his experience as a professional trader, author Sheldon Natenberg examines both the theory and reality of option trading. He presents the foundations of option theory explaining how this theory can be used to identify and exploit trading opportunities. Option Volatility & Pricing teaches you to use a wide variety of trading strategies and shows you how to select the strategy that best fits your view of market conditions and individual risk tolerance.

Links above are affiliate links. If you purchase any of those books through the link I posted, I’ll get a tiny cut of the sales proceeds. Your support is appreciated.

What are Federal Reserve repo operations?

Repo operations (within the context of the Federal Reserve) are Repurchase agreements and are conducted only with primary dealers.

The Fed purchases Treasury, agency debt, or agency mortgage-backed securities from a counterparty, subject to an agreement to resell the securities at a later time.

It’s similar to having a loan that is collateralized with assets. These assets from the banks have a higher value than the loan to protect the Fed against market and credit risk.

Repo transaction temporarily increase the quantity of reserves in the banking system.

The New York Fed began conducting repo operations in September 2019 to ensure supply of reserves is ample and to mitigate risks of money market pressures near year-end that could affect policy implementation of interest rates.

What is a repo?

Repo is a generic name for repurchase transactions (which can include buying or selling). It is a transaction in which one party sells an asset (such as Treasury Bonds) to another party at a set price and commits to repurchase the same assets from the same party at some future date.

If the seller defaults, the buyer is free to sell that asset to a third party to offset their loss. This is what makes a repo very similar to a collateralized or secured deposit.

How is repo rate determined?

The difference between the price paid by the buyer at the start of the repo and the price received at the end is effectively the lending rate on the repo. This is known as the repo rate or repo interest.

Why are repurchase agreements (repos) used?

Repurchase agreements can serve four different functions for various market participants:

They are a safe investment
Borrowing costs on repos are very cheap
Yields can be enhanced for those holding a large amount of safer assets
They provides a means for short-selling and short-covering

It’s safe because the cash is secured by collateral, which is generally safe assets. Makes it easy for seller of repo to make money back by selling those secured assets.

Yields are enhanced because a party could lend out a high demand asset to the market, and in return they receive cash for cheap which can be used for funding or reinvesting profits.

Why do banks use repos?

Banks will use repurchase agreements (repos) for short-term borrowing. They do this to raise short-term capital and generally use agreements which are very short-term, generally overnight or 48 hours.

The implicit interest rates on these agreements is known as the repo rate, and is a proxy for the overnight risk-free rate.

Repo can be used for many purposes. One such purpose would be as an efficient source of short-term funding

It also allows institutional investors to meet liquidity requirements without having to liquidate long-term investments. The repo market has become an important source of cash for non-banks to meet Basel regulatory requirements.

How the limit order book became abstracted into options and why gamma exposure matters

Information obtained from a thread courtesy of squeezemetrics via Twitter

You know how old-school traders talk about using the limit order book to know where supply and demand are? Basically what happened is that the limit order book got abstracted into options, and the actual buying and selling is now done by option dealers, on behalf of customers.

So what happens is, I sell a call because I want to collect some premium and give up some upside. This is largely equivalent to submitting a bunch of progressively larger limit sell orders above the market, except that those orders cannot be seen.

So what happens is that the option dealer takes the other side of those would-be limit orders by shorting the underlying and committing to, in this case, a schedule of buying the underlying when it goes down, and selling more when it goes up.

This means that there are, through the agency of the option dealer, a bunch of what are effectively limit orders sitting above and below the market, all of which will push against any move in the underlying itself. The more of these there are, the more stifling it gets.

So when GEX is really high, that’s when it’s super-stifling. BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE. As these call options lose value, the dealer slowly buys back some of the underlying that they shorted before, slowly supporting the market, ceteris paribus. Low volatility, upside drift.

(Hopefully it’s obvious why knowing where supply and demand will be is useful.)

The World has Gone Mad – Ray Dalio Article Summary

Two months ago Ray Dalio wrote an article on how the world has gone mad with regards to monetary policy. Here is my short summary of Mr. Dalio’s article:

We are currently “pushing on a string”, a phase which Ray says we have never seen during our lifetimes. This is the situation where investors are flush with cash, and would rather invest it, not spend it.

The prices of financial assets have gone up as interest rates have plummeted. Low expected returns aren’t just driving up the prices bonds, but also equities, private equity, venture capital, etc.

Startups don’t have clear paths to profits, so they rely on selling dreams (Adam Neumann WeWork is a prime example) to get people to invest in their ideas. Investment managers are sitting on large hordes of cash and are looking for any place to park their funds, hence the overblown valuations of companies.

Government deficits are large and continue to grow. As a result, governments must sell more debt that nobody is interested in buying because the interest rates on these debts are so low. Central banks end up buying this debt by printing new money. (But don’t say they are monetizing the debt).

Down the road, as pension and healthcare liability payments come due, those obligated to make these payments will be unable to do so. How does this happen? Those institutions have expected returns of 7%, much greater than expected returns in the market in the coming years.

As these institutions are unable to make payments, unfunded liabilities will balloon as a result of suppressed growth. Teachers and governmental employees are those most exposed to this risk.

In sum, money is basically free (because of low to negative interest rates) for those who have money and creditworthiness. Money is unavailable for those without money or creditworthiness.

This contributes further to the wealth gaps we see today. Technological innovations are creating a way for companies to cut jobs further as well. The effects of low interest rate monetary policies are no longer “trickling down” to workers as a result. Thus explains how to we got where we are today.

Why do you trade?

For full-time income?

For extra income?

For fun?

Let me know with a comment below.

On the Agenda – December 22, 2019 Update

As you can see, I’ve posted many more articles on gamma exposure and repo operations. My goal is to continue to build out these topics and address more questions that you have on these subjects. (Let me know questions you have along the way and I will address them in future articles.)

I also plan to write more about Python for finance, and how I use it day-to-day to help facilitate my trading.

Stay tuned.