From Zero to Stock Hero
Part III
If you made it through Parts 1 and 2, you've built the foundation. You understand what moves markets and how to express your ideas through proper execution. You know that sentiment drives short-term price action, that flows matter more than fundamentals most days, and that your edge lies somewhere between structure and discipline. But knowing what to do and consistently doing it are different games entirely.
Part 3 is about the gap between theory and practice. It's about what happens after you've learned the basics, built a process, and started making money. It's about the plateau that catches every trader, the psychological traps that destroy careers, and the advanced techniques that separate professionals from permanent amateurs.
This isn't about finding better setups or secret indicators. It's about evolution. About taking everything you've learned and making it antifragile. This manual is about building a trading approach that gets stronger during market chaos instead of falling apart.
I've watched too much talent plateau at mediocrity because they confused activity with progress. They had all the right concepts, but just couldn't scale them. They knew how to find good trades but couldn't squeeze maximum value from their best ideas. They understood risk management in theory but couldn't adapt it to changing regimes.
The difference between a trader who makes steady money and one who compounds wealth over decades isn't intelligence. It's systems. It's the ability to recognise when your edge is decaying and adapt before it kills you. It's knowing when to press your winners and when gross exposure becomes toxic.
This write-up covers the advanced concepts that most retail traders never encounter
How to break through performance plateaus that trap most traders
The conviction scoring systems professionals use to size their best ideas
Risk management techniques that adapt to regime changes
How to spot when your edge is decaying and what to do about it
Portfolio construction that thrives in chaos
The mechanics of how systematic funds move markets
What it really takes to survive and compound over decades
You don't need a Bloomberg terminal or a hundred-million-dollar portfolio to implement these concepts. But you do need the humility to admit that everything you think you know might need upgrading. The traders who survive and thrive are the ones who never stop evolving.
If you're ready to move beyond the basics and start thinking like a professional, this is where we begin.
Why Most Traders Plateau
Every trader knows the story, you grind to achieve consistent profits, then suddenly hit a wall. The equity curve flatlines or even dips despite continued effort. This glass ceiling often appears after your first stretch of success. Signs your process is stagnating include a lack of new highs in account equity, repeating the same mistakes, or generally just feeling bored by a strategy that once excited you. Often, traders plateau due to feedback blindness and habit ruts, tweaking nothing or everything without structured feedback. Emotional decision-making and sticking to the same tactics while expecting different results are common culprits. One temptation at this stage is to simply trade more, but more trades does not equal more growth. In fact, overtrading usually hurts performance. A famous study of individual investors found that the most active traders significantly underperformed the least active by 5% to 10% per year after costs. The hyperactive households earned sharpe ratios half that of low turnover peers. Why? Frequent trading incurs fees, spreads, and overconfidence errors, all of which erode returns. As Investopedia bluntly puts it, "overtrading can occur for many reasons, but they all have the same outcome: poor performance". In short, doing more of the same is not the answer when growth stalls.
Breaking through a plateau means changing something fundamental. You need honest feedback from someone who knows what they're doing. Find a mentor, join some kind of trading community, get your trades reviewed by people who've been there. More importantly, stop obsessing over daily P&L and start grading yourself on execution. Did you follow your rules? Did you size properly? Did you exit where you planned? The plateau is usually in your head anyway - you're scared to size up, scared to try something new, or you've gotten too comfortable with mediocrity. Pushing beyond it might involve deliberately trading outside your comfort zone in practice sessions, experimenting with new tactics in simulation to expand your skills, or taking time off to reset perspective. It's critical to distinguish whether stagnation is caused by you or the market. If your once profitable setup is now failing across the board, the market regime may have shifted and your edge could be decaying (more on that later). Conversely, if others trading a similar strategy still succeed, the issue might lie in your execution (e.g. hesitating on entries, exiting winners too early, etc). In practice, it's often a mix of both. The key is to diagnose honestly, review a large sample of recent trades to see if setups still have positive expectancy and if you're following them faithfully. If the edge is intact but your discipline is wavering, focus on repairing your process (simplify rules, automate exits, etc). If the edge itself seems gone, it's time to innovate. Above all, avoid the trap of plateau frustration: churning out more trades in the hope of breaking the slump. As the saying goes, "there are old traders and bold traders, but no old bold traders". Surviving and advancing in markets means adapting, not putting your foot on the gas. The next sections will dive deeper into specific ways to evolve your strategy and operations once you recognise that you've hit a glass ceiling.
Squeezing More from Your Best Ideas
When you've identified a high conviction trade idea, how you manage it often determines whether you achieve ordinary or exceptional returns. Top traders learn to press their winners at the right moments and harvest profits when the odds shift. Knowing when to press vs when to harvest is as much art as science. Most traders sell their winners way too early because they're terrified of giving back gains. You end up with a string of 10-20% wins while missing the moves that could actually change your portfolio size. But holding blindly is just as stupid and turns winners into losers. The skill is knowing when to press and when to take money off the table. Press when everything is confirming your thesis. Harvest when the signals start flashing warning signs or you've hit your target.
One approach is implementing a conviction scoring system for ideas, like I do. For example, you might score trade setups on a 0 to 5 scale based on factors like technical pattern quality, catalyst strength, and confidence in the narrative. Such scores can be tied to position sizing - higher conviction, larger stake. The key is to incorporate probabilistic thinking. A score of 5 might imply you believe the trade has, say, an 80% chance of success, whereas a 2 might be around 60%. Some professional investors do this by scoring multiple dimensions (e.g. Moat=3, Management=2, Trend=2 for a stock) to arrive at an average conviction. They then only invest if the average clears a threshold (say 2+ out of 3) and size positions proportionally to that score. Converting qualitative judgements into quantitative conviction scores helps remove bias and ensures your big bets are reserved for your best ideas. For a trader, a 5/5 setup might be one where multiple independent signals align (narrative, price action, positioning, fundamentals, etc). In those cases, you allocate more capital or take an aggressive position, whereas a mediocre setup gets a smaller size or a pass.
Crucially, scale with confirmation, not hope. This means you add to a position only after the market proves you right, not when it's going against you. The world's best money managers live by this rule. Many of you will know the saying - "Losers average losers." When a position is losing, the market is telling you that your thesis timing (or premise) is wrong. Adding more out of hope is throwing good money after bad. Instead, cut losers quickly. Save that capital for when things do go right because that's when you pyramid up. For example, say you buy a stock on an initial breakout; it then consolidates and breaks to new highs. That's an opportunity to press and increase the position since your idea is proving itself. By contrast, if it breaks down, you stop out rather than double down. Pressing winners means you increase exposure to a proven correct position without increasing risk to original capital, often by using open profits as a buffer. This strategy demands planning and discipline (e.g. adding only at specified technical levels or after certain fundamental news).
To visualise the anatomy of a 3x+ trade, consider an example. A stock at $50 is breaking out of a multi-year base on a game-changing development (say, an FDA drug approval). Your analysis indicates a potential for it to triple (to $150+) over the next year if the drug succeeds commercially. Rather than go "all in" at $50, you might take an initial position. As the stock moves to $60 on strong earnings and further institutional buying (evidence of follow-through), you add. It runs to $75, has a healthy pullback to around $65 (higher low), then breaks $75… you add again, now with even more conviction. By the time it reaches $100+, you have a sizable position largely built on house money (profits from earlier entries). Throughout, you trail stop losses to protect against a reversal. This way, if the trend indeed produces a 3x gain (as, for instance, Nvidia's stock did, rising ~240% in 2023 amid the AI boom), you fully capitalise. I see this with my subscribers, they catch a great idea at $50 and sell at $60 or $70 for a quick +20%, only to watch it go to $150 without them.
The difference in a multi-bagger trade is conviction and trade management, you let profits run and even press the trade as it works, while managing downside with stops and scaling out gradually as the price approaches your valuation estimate or shows exhaustion. To decide when to harvest profits, have clear criteria. It could be a trailing stop (eg exit if the price closes below the 50-day MA, which often can indicate a trend break). It could be valuation-based (if your thesis had a price target and it's reached, take some off). Or it could be event based (exit after a catalyst event passes, like earnings or product launch). Some traders peel off portions into strength… for example - sell one third after a 100% gain, another third at 200%, etc, to lock in gains while letting the remainder run. The goal is to avoid round tripping a big winner into a loser. The trend is your friend… until it’s not. Pay attention to late-stage signals: climactic volume spikes, parabolic price acceleration, or news euphoria can hint that a trend is peaking. That's when harvesting makes sense.
The bottom line: get more from your best trades by sizing them properly and managing them like a professional. Build a system where your position size reflects how confident you actually are in the trade. When you're in, add to winners that are proving you right and cut losers that are proving you wrong. Most traders do the opposite and wonder why they can't make money. This asymmetric approach (pushing the pedal on high probability/high reward situations and easing off when risk increases) is what turns a few good trades into career-making returns. Believe it or not, you only need one good trade to make a year (in some cases, a career).
Gross Exposure: The Double Edged Sword
Most traders think of each trade in isolation, but professionals manage portfolio risk holistically. Managing risk like you mean it entails treating risk management as a core system, not an afterthought. The first element is volatility targeting at the portfolio level. Instead of letting your overall account volatility drift up and down with the market's mood, you adjust positions to keep total risk in a steady range. For example, a trader might target around 0.5% daily volatility on their portfolio. In quiet markets, this might mean using leverage or larger positions (because each position is less volatile). In volatile regimes, it means holding more cash or smaller positions to avoid outsized swings. By dynamically scaling exposure, volatility targeting aims to stabilise returns and prevent nasty surprises. It's a common practice among funds and CTAs: if market vol spikes, they de-risk to bring portfolio vol back to target; if vol is very low, they might lever up slightly to reach the target. This discipline enforces buying low-risk environments, selling high-risk environments, which tends to reduce drawdowns. It is a well known fact that volatility managed portfolios often realise better risk-adjusted returns than static ones. The 2020 pandemic crash dramatically illustrated this, funds that cut exposure as the VIX spiked fared far better than those that rode their full exposure down.
Hand in hand with vol targeting is managing your gross vs net exposure.
Gross exposure is the sum of all your long and short positions (absolute exposure), while net exposure is longs minus shorts.
A portfolio can be 200% gross (leveraged) but market neutral (0% net), or 50% gross but fully directional (50% net long if no shorts). Adjusting these based on the market regime is key. In stable, trending periods with good liquidity, a higher gross exposure can be used to capitalise on many opportunities. Many hedge funds will run, say, 200% gross exposure in benign markets like now, meaning lots of positions (long and short) to capture idiosyncratic alpha, and perhaps a moderate net long bias to ride an uptrend. But when volatility spikes and correlations converge, high gross can become napalm. In stressed markets, every position starts moving together (longs and shorts both fall if there's a liquidity crunch), and leverage can implode a portfolio. That's why in high vol regimes, seasoned players will slash gross exposure (fewer positions, lower leverage) and often cut net exposure to reduce directional risk. For instance, if a fund was 120% long / 20% short (net 100% long) in a bull market, they might dial back to 50% long / 20% short (net 30%) when the market environment turns uncertain. Reducing gross limits the impact of violent swings, and trimming net (especially long bias) avoids large directional drawdowns.
A vivid example of gross exposure turning toxic was the Long Term Capital Management (LTCM) crisis. LTCM ran enormous gross leverage (~25x equity) by arbitraging bonds globally. In calm times, this yielded steady profits. But in 1998, volatility spiked and liquidity vanished: their highly leveraged bets all went south together. With around $5B capital, LTCM controlled over $100B in assets (and $1+ trillion in derivatives). When Russia defaulted and markets convulsed, LTCM's positions lost so much so fast that they couldn't cut them (no buyers) and faced total collapse. The fund lost $4.6B in months and had to be bailed out to prevent wider contagion. The lesson from this: liquidity fades + vol spikes = death spiral for high gross books. What worked in stable times became lethal in turmoil. Nowadays, funds try to prevent this by routine stress tests and gross reductions before a full-blown crisis.
Remember: gross is oxygen in low vol, napalm in high vol. We saw this again during Volmageddon in February 2018 when inverse volatility products imploded. Those products had massive hidden gross exposure to short volatility. It worked beautifully until VIX futures spiked around 100% in a single day. XIV collapsed 96% overnight and went bust, vaporising $2 billion in assets. What was steady income became an extinction event.
For instance, many risk managers will ask: "What happens if volatility doubles overnight? If all my positions fall 10% together?" If the answer is "I lose 50%+ of my capital," the portfolio is overleveraged for a worst-case scenario. Stress test your exposure before the market does it for you. Run scenarios of sharp moves: if S&P futures lock down 5% overnight, or if your top 5 positions all gap against you, where do you stand? If the outcome is unacceptable, cut risk proactively. Good risk managers often carry hedges or keep dry powder for such scenarios.
Another advanced tool is monitoring rolling correlations to spot hidden exposure. It's easy to think you're diversified because you have 10 different trades on, but if those positions are actually highly correlated (say, all tech/growth bets in disguise), your true risk is one big bet. Calculating rolling 30-day or 90-day correlations between your positions (or between each position and the overall market) will reveal if you're secretly concentrated. For example, you might be long semiconductors, long Nasdaq, and short VIX: on the surface, three different trades, but all three will tank if a growth/tech selloff hits (and likely at the same time). High correlation equals amplified risk. Aim for a portfolio where not everything moves together. If you find that many of your trades are in the same sector, theme, or factor, you either need to hedge that common exposure or diversify into uncorrelated strategies. Hidden correlations are a risk that undermines diversification. Tools like correlation matrices or factor exposure analysis can help. Many professionals use a risk factor view - instead of seeing 10 positions, they see, for example, "we have a big China exposure across these 4 trades, or a big long duration exposure across these 3 trades," etc. That lets them size or hedge accordingly (e.g. if you're inadvertently overweight one theme, lighten up or take an offsetting position).
In practice, institutional portfolio managers think in terms of "books" of risk, not individual trades. They might allocate risk to a book (e.g. a tech book, a macro book, an arbitrage book), each with multiple positions, and ensure no single book or factor can sink the whole ship. They constantly ask themselves - where are we concentrated? What scenarios hurt us most? Then they manage gross and net exposures of those books. They view losses and gains at the portfolio level, sometimes cutting a perfectly good individual trade because it adds correlation risk or gross exposure that the portfolio can't afford at that time. This is a big picture risk mindset. Adopting this approach as an individual trader means regularly aggregating your total exposures and imagining the worst-case day. If that scenario is beyond your risk tolerance, you must dial things down. By targeting volatility, adjusting gross/net by regime, and avoiding secret correlations, you effectively bulletproof your process. No one can predict when the next crisis or spike will come. But if you run your risk deliberately (as if you're your own head of risk), you won't be caught overextended. When conditions are favourable, you can lean in (higher gross, with a net long tilt); when storms gather, you'll already be trimmed down to survive. This dynamic approach to risk is what separates institutional-level trading from mere pyjama speculation.
There's also a psychological component; gross exposure hurts your sleep in high vol environments. Even if you technically survive, being overexposed in wild markets rattles you enough to make terrible decisions. Trading at a size that allows you to stay rational is crucial.
The best defence is not to be over grossed by the time crisis hits. Prudent traders de gross early at signs of trouble. If you wait until the VIX is at 80 and credit spreads are blowing out, it's too late, you're selling into a vacuum.
Have leading indicators for when to trim exposure - volatility indices, liquidity metrics (like the MOVE index for bonds), or simple rules like "if my portfolio drops >5% from a peak, reduce all positions by half."
Many quant funds have automatic triggers - if daily portfolio volatility goes beyond X, they scale down positions across the board. This discipline enforces buying low-risk environments, selling high-risk environments, which tends to reduce drawdowns.
Run scenarios before the market does it for you. Overlay the 2008 crisis or 2020 crash onto your current positions, assume each asset moves as it did then, how much would you lose? If the answer is "I lose 50%+ of my capital," the portfolio is overleveraged for a worst-case scenario.
Sometimes stress tests reveal surprising concentrations. Maybe you'd survive everything except if one particular spread trade blew out. That's valuable insight to hedge or lighten that specific risk..
If you cut gross and risk pre-emptively, you'll navigate turmoil more calmly and even be in a position to capitalise on opportunities instead of being carried out.
Gross exposure is a double-edged sword. Use it when appropriate, but know when to sheath it. When volatility is low and stable, higher gross can enhance returns - it's like adding sail in gentle winds. But when the storm comes, you must reef those sails quickly, or risk capsizing.
The best traders are situationally aggressive, pressing bets in favourable conditions and aggressively reducing exposure when clouds gather. Do that, and you won't become another casualty of the leverage trap, selling at the worst possible time or begging for a bailout. Live to play another day.
Edge Decay
No trading edge lasts forever. Markets are adaptive, and once a profitable strategy becomes widely known or the market regime shifts, the edge can erode or decay. The challenge for traders is determining whether a drawdown is due to normal variance or your edge truly decaying, essentially, "is it me, or the market?". Here's how to tell and what to do. First, recognise that edge decay is inevitable in some form. Almost all trading strategies stop working sooner or later, they have to evolve. Markets are a zero-sum game; any inefficiency will attract arbitrageurs and competition. For example, if a certain pattern reliably yields profits, you can bet high-frequency algorithms will eventually exploit and neutralise it. Inefficiencies get arbitraged away, sometimes gradually, sometimes suddenly. So a key skill is detecting when your best setup stops working.
How to know if it's you vs the market? Start by examining if you have been executing your strategy with discipline. If not (you've deviated from rules, gotten emotional), poor performance may be self inflicted and you need fixing, not the setup. However, if you've traded it cleanly and still see a persistent drop in win rate or profit factor, the edge itself may be fading. Look for abnormalities - say your setup historically won 60% of the time, but in the last 30 instances, it's only 40%. Is that within statistical variance or a structural break? If it's a significant deviation that hasn't reverted, that's a red flag. Also, gather evidence beyond your own trading. Are other traders who use this strategy also struggling (if you have contacts or see chatter in forums)? Is market behaviour fundamentally different now (e.g. was a strategy that thrived in a trending, low vol market now floundering in a choppy, high vol regime)? For instance, many trend following systems had negative performance during certain range-bound years, not necessarily because the strategy "broke," but the market regime was hostile to trend following. In that case, the edge didn't vanish; it was just dormant until trends returned.
If you conclude the market has changed, then decide whether to repair it, rotate it, or retire it. These are the three R's when an edge weakens…
Repair it if the strategy can be tweaked to revive its edge? Maybe tighten the entry criteria, add a filter (only take the setup in a strong overall market trend or with rising volume), or adjust risk management. For example, if a breakout pattern stops working because false breakouts increase, you might add a rule to require confirmation (like waiting for a retest of the breakout level). Or if a mean reversion trade stopped working because the volatility regime changed, perhaps incorporating a volatility filter (trade only when VIX is above/below a threshold) could help. Be careful as "curve fitting" a fix can lead to temporary improvement that doesn't hold in real trading. The best repairs address a known cause. If you can identify why the edge decayed (say HFT bots now exploit it, or a fundamental change in market structure), you can sometimes adapt. Otherwise, you're just guessing with tweaks.
Rotate it as sometimes a strategy is sound, but current market conditions don't favour it. The smart move is to rotate it out of active use and shift to other strategies that are working now. Perhaps your momentum strategy is struggling, but a harvesting vol selling 0dtes is killing it. Keep the former on the bench and monitor. Many successful traders maintain several strategies and dynamically allocate capital to the ones showing strength. If you have only one setup, this is harder, which is why developing multiple trading approaches over time is valuable (trend following, mean reversion, arbitrage, options strategies, etc, so you're not a one-trick pony vulnerable to regime shifts).
Retire it if evidence is clear that an edge is gone for good, it may be time to put it to pasture. This is tough as we grow attached to our profitable patterns. But clinging to a broken setup is deadly; it's like a pro athlete not accepting retirement and tarnishing their legacy with poor performance (think Ronaldo). How do you know it's truly time to retire it? If the logic of the setup no longer makes sense in the current market structure, or if it's been unprofitable for a statistically significant period/trade count despite your best efforts to adapt, it's likely done. For example, a strategy exploiting a specific regulatory arbitrage would need retirement if a rule change closes that loophole. Or say you had an edge trading a particular stock or sector which is now gone (maybe that stock got acquired, or that sector's volatility died), recognise the end. I don’t think that retiring a strategy is necessarily failure, I’d say it’s evolution.
The main lesson is to stay vigilant and humble. Always ask yourself - If my edge disappeared, what would I do? Have an answer before it happens. Maintain a trading journal including notes on market context for wins and losse, this can help identify if losses are stemming from execution errors (you deviated from plan) or strategy issues (you followed the plan and still lost, repeatedly). If it's the latter, don't ignore the signs. Moreover, diversify. I think that as a trader matures, they should accumulate multiple small edges rather than one big one. This way, losing one edge isn't career-ending. It's like a business with multiple product lines: if one product goes obsolete, the business adapts. Finally, be ready to innovate continuously. Keep learning new techniques, markets, or styles.
In conclusion, edge decay is not an if, but when. Don't take it personally when a beloved setup stops printing money. Recognise it, verify it, and then take action: repair if possible, rotate to thriving strategies, or retire and replace it. This ensures you evolve with the market, rather than becoming a relic of a bygone market phase. Adaptation is the only permanent edge.
As It’s a Hot Topic… What CTAs Actually Do
"CTA" (Commodity Trading Advisor) is shorthand for professional systematic trend followers: the funds that trade futures across asset classes using algorithms. They are often mystified in retail trading circles, but what they do is quite straightforward at its core. Understanding how systematic trend followers work can not only demystify their role but also inform your own trading on timing and market mechanics.
At heart, CTAs deploy trend plus volatility filter strategies. They attempt to capture medium term trends in markets (could be equities, bonds, commodities, FX) while controlling risk via volatility targeting. A basic CTA system might look at a market's price over several look-back periods (1 month, 3 months, 1 year) and determine if the trend is up or down. For example, if the average risk-adjusted return over the past 3 and 6 months is positive, go long; if negative, go short. This is often done with moving averages, breakouts, or momentum indicators: all variations of detecting persistent price moves. But unlike a naive trend strategy, CTAs always incorporate volatility adjustments and risk management. They size positions such that each trade has equal risk contribution (risk parity) and scale positions down when volatility is high. For instance, if S&P futures become very volatile, the CTA will hold a smaller number of contracts to keep its risk in line. Conversely, when volatility is low, they can increase position size to maintain target risk. This results in a fairly smooth risk profile: CTAs aim for a consistent portfolio volatility (often around 10 to 15% annualised).
A hallmark of CTAs is that price beats narrative for them. They couldn't care less why oil is going up or the dollar is falling; if the price is trending, they're in. They are purely systematic, removing human bias. So while on CNBC, you hear debates about Fed policy or valuations, CTAs just follow the price. This sometimes puts them on the opposite side of conventional wisdom, like a CTA might be short equities because the trend flipped down, even as some talk about "great buying opportunities." This dispassionate approach has advantages: CTAs don't get married to a story; they'll flip long to short on a dime if the trend warrants. Price momentum dominates their decision-making, so fundamentals or news only matter as far as they affect price trends. This is why you'll see them pile into, say, a rallying index even if pundits call it overvalued: the narrative is irrelevant; price is the only truth for them.
One important effect, CTA flows can compound market moves. Since they all use variations of trend following, they often end up trading in the same direction around the same time. For example, imagine a sustained rally in gold, as gold breaks multi month highs like it is now, more and more CTA models generate buy signals. The CTAs start buying gold futures, adding a mechanical bid to the market. Their buying can extend the rally beyond what fundamentals alone might justify (at least in the short term). Similarly, in a downturn, CTAs will systematically sell into weakness (closing longs, going short), contributing mechanical offer pressure that can accelerate a dip. In essence, trend followers are trend amplifiers even though they are small. We saw this in late 2021–2022: as inflation soared and bonds and stocks both fell in a new regime, CTAs piled into short bond futures and short equity index positions (since trends were down). Their selling contributed to the relentless slide until a big reversal rally in Q4 2022 forced them to start covering in some fashion.
What does this mean for an individual trader? It means CTA positioning can affect timing, entries, and exits. If you know that CTAs are extremely long a market, it implies a lot of trend following money is already in. If that trend stalls, the risk is that CTAs will start flipping, creating a headwind. Conversely, if CTAs are heavily short and you see signs of a reversal, once the trend criteria flip, they'll be forced to buy back shorts, adding fuel to the rebound. In practical terms, many (including myself) monitor estimates of CTA positioning (lots of banks and research firms publish models tracking CTA exposures). For example, you might read that CTAs are max long crude oil which could caution you that the long trade is crowded by systematic players, so any bearish catalyst could see a swift drop as they all sell. Or if CTAs are near flipping from long to short in equities (say the S&P 500 is flirting with a moving average trigger), you know a breach might trigger an extra wave of selling.
Another thing CTAs do is volatility filtering: if markets get too choppy, many models reduce position size or avoid signals to filter out whipsaws. That means in extremely volatile periods, CTAs might actually lighten up, which sometimes can dampen further volatility. But once a new trend asserts, they'll scale back in.
Let's break down a hypothetical CTA trading day - they track a wide array of markets (dozens of futures: stock indices, bond futures, FX pairs, metals, energy, agriculturals). Their algorithm computes signals, often end of day. Suppose today the 3 month and 6 month trend for EUR/USD turned from positive to negative: the CTA system flips from long euros to short euros. So at the market close (or open of next day), they'll sell a bunch of EUR/USD futures to establish the short. Similarly, imagine the S&P 500 fell enough to hit a trailing stop: they reduce their long position or go flat. All these moves are fairly predictable by their rules. Sometimes you can literally see CTA activity in markets, often near the close or specific times, as they rebalance to maintain volatility targets (if market volatility jumped today, they might cut position sizes across assets to keep risk on target). This target vol mechanism means that after a big move day, CTAs may transact more. If S&P had a huge range day up, CTAs might buy more (trend confirmation) but also perhaps trim size a bit if volatility is now higher: it's nuanced.
Why this matters for timing - knowing CTAs chase trends, a breakout or breakdown can see follow-through due to their entries. It might justify holding a breakout trade longer because you expect CTA money to come in behind you. Conversely, be wary of false breakouts that snap back, those can nail CTAs in whipsaws, causing them to exit quickly and reverse flows. A classic scenario… a market breaks a major level and CTAs pile in, but then it reverses sharply, the CTAs will exit, exacerbating the reversal. If you can spot that reversal early, you're essentially front-running an avalanche of CTA exits.
Entry and exit considerations - If you prefer to trade counter trend, it's usually wise to wait for evidence that momentum is fading and perhaps that CTAs have mostly finished their buying or selling. Stepping in front of a strong trend too early is painful because CTAs (and other trend followers) will keep pushing it. But once the trend's over extension is clear and technical momentum wanes, betting on a reversal is extra juicy, knowing the trend following crowd will have to unwind. It's akin to catching a turning tide. On the flip side, if you trade trends yourself, you could mirror some CTA principles like using volatility-adjusted position sizing (so you don't get blown out in choppy periods), diversifying across markets, and being systematic in your rules. The success of CTAs over decades (many delivered equity-like returns with bond-like vol) shows the power of disciplined trend following. They've survived by sticking to their models and managing risk relentlessly.
One interesting note - CTAs often serve as "crisis alpha" providers, meaning they tend to perform in bear markets for stocks by shorting them. In the 2008 crisis, many trend following funds had one of their best years (same in 2022), because they flipped short across equities and commodities and rode the massive downtrend (and in 08 crisis were long bonds which were rallying). So, CTAs are sometimes viewed as market stabilisers as they provide liquidity by going short in panics and long in manias. Yet, as mentioned, they can exacerbate moves in the middle of trends.
In the current era, CTAs collectively manage hundreds of billions of dollars. That means their trading can noticeably impact large markets due to the leverage they gear. For example, research might estimate that if S&P 500 crosses a certain price, CTAs would need to sell $50 billion of equity futures. That's actionable info for a short term trader, you could ride that wave or at least avoid fighting it.
Summarising what CTAs actually do in a nutshell… They use systematic trend following rules: buy rising markets, sell falling markets. They apply volatility filters and position scaling to target a steady risk level. They ignore narratives, focusing only on price and technical signals. Their flows can reinforce trends (creating self-fulfilling momentum) and occasionally overshoot prices relative to fundamentals. They cut positions during extreme volatility and aim for diversification across many markets. They represent a significant chunk of volume in futures, so their strategy shifts can move markets.
For a trader, being aware of CTA behaviour provides a sort of "map" of mechanical flows in the market. It's a part of the puzzle beyond just fundamentals and retail trading. In essence, CTAs are the embodiment of "the trend is your friend" mantra, codified into algorithms. Knowing that they will be our friend until the trend bends (and then they might all rush for the exit) helps you plan your own entries, exits, and expectations. Price momentum matters, and CTAs are both witnesses to and contributors of that momentum. By aligning with or at least respecting what they do, you avoid getting run over and perhaps hitch a ride on the trend-followers’ train.
If I Had to Start Over
Imagine starting fresh with only $25k and your hard-won knowledge. What would I do differently?
First, with $25k and nothing else, I'd prioritise capital preservation. $25k is a solid stake, but not so large that you can weather huge hits. The game would be to avoid blowing that stake at all costs. This means strictly limiting risk per trade: perhaps 2% (so $500 risk per trade) or even 1% until consistency is proven. A newbie mistake is risking way too much on each trade, trying to get rich quickly from a small account. I'd remind myself that even with $25k, compounding at a reasonable rate can grow it, whereas a blown account goes to zero. So position sizing and risk management tools come first. I'd use a position size calculator religiously, set hard stop losses on every trade, and maybe use bracket orders to enforce them (so I can't cancel out of fear/greed).
I would likely focus on a few simple, proven setups that match my personality and can be executed with discipline. For instance, one setup could be a trend pullback - identify a strong trend (maybe by a moving average filter) and buy on a pullback to support or a moving average, with a tight stop below. Another could be a breakout with a retest, so, instead of buying initial breakouts, let price break out, then buy on the retest of the breakout level if it holds. I'd also consider a reversal setup like a double bottom with bullish divergence, but only at key technical levels, since it's lower probability. The key is to pick a small repertoire of setups that I deeply understand and have seen succeed historically, rather than chasing every hot pattern I see on Twitter. Each setup in my playbook would have clearly defined entry, stop, and exit rules.
I'd also structure my trading day. For example, if day trading, only trade certain hours (say the first 2 hours and last hour of market for volatility, and no forcing trades mid-day if nothing's happening). Overtrading is a common newbie issue. A habit of patience, maybe even setting a rule like max 2 trades a day could protect me from churn. On swing trades, a habit might be to only check prices at designated times, to avoid micro-managing and emotional tinkering.
Tools-wise, aside from journals and charting, maybe use an alert system (so I don't stare at screens all day). For example, set price alerts at levels of interest, then I can step away until the alert triggers, which should in turn help prevent boredom trades. I'd also use risk management tools like OCO orders to automate profit taking vs stop, so I don't second-guess exits as much. Modern brokers have lots of features, so I'd familiarise and use them (bracket orders, trailing stops, etc).
In short, starting over, I'd keep it simple and systematic. Focus on mastering a few setups and execution, rather than chasing every opportunity. That likely means in the first 3 to 6 months, I might be quite inactive waiting for the right trade. That's fine. It beats losing money on noise daily. Also, I'd track performance rigorously from day one: treating it like a fund.
Most importantly, I’d focus on the psychological side of the game.
The first go around, many of us learn these lessons the hard way.
So let’s pull it together…
Process over outcome - focus on refining your process (routine, risk rules, setup criteria) rather than fixating on each trade's result. A robust process yields long-term results; a sloppy process can win short term but will bite later.
Discipline is paramount - while strategies and markets may change, the discipline not to violate your rules is a must. Your process should evolve, but your discipline should not. It should remain as rigid as steel. If you said you'll cut a loss at -2%, do it every time. If your rule is not to trade during news, stick to it. This consistency builds the steady mindset that separates long-term winners from gamblers.
Risk management first - I hammered on volatility targeting, gross exposure, anti fragility: the common thread is to always know your downside and keep it in check. That means position sizing appropriately, diversifying sensibly (watch those hidden correlations), and using stops or hedges to guard against tail risk. By running risk deliberately, you ensure you're around for the next opportunity.
Press your edge when it's real - don't stagnate… when you truly have a great trade idea, don't be afraid to size up within your risk limits. Squeeze more from your best ideas by letting winners run and even adding to them when confirmed. Conversely, cut losers and avoid the overtrading trap. Fewer high-quality trades beat dozens of low-quality ones.
Longevity mindset - this isn't a get-rich-quick scheme. Trading is a career, not a lottery ticket. That means actually looking after yourself - sleep properly, exercise, manage stress, and don't bet the farm on every trade. Compounding is incredibly powerful, but it only works if you stay in the game long enough to let it work.
Cut the noise and excessive indicators.
Cut ego and emotions from decision-making. We all have impulses, but you must design systems to mitigate emotional trades. No revenge trades or doubling down out of prides. The market humbles those who can't humble themselves.
Cut unsustainable habits. If you find yourself overleveraging to chase a loss, or neglecting sleep to monitor positions 24/7, step back and recalibrate. Those patterns lead to burnout and eventually blow up.
So ask yourself with each big or small trading decision… Am I acting in line with a durable process, or on a fleeting emotion?
This manual isn't about an overnight transformation; it's more about systematic evolution. Start with one area that resonates most. If you're struggling with position sizing, implement the conviction scoring system. If you're getting whipsawed by regime changes, focus on volatility targeting and gross exposure management.
If you enjoyed it, feel free to drop a like.
Have a good day,
Fed
We are truly blessed by your knowledge and experience, thank you again for sharing them.
Its taken me a while to get to read this but its v v good