Trader Risk Management Lore: Rules of Thumb

Rule No. 1- Do not venture in markets and products you do not understand. You will be a sitting duck.

Rule No. 2- The large hit you will take next will not resemble the one you took last. Do not listen to the consensus as to where the risks are (that is, risks shown by VAR). What will hurt you is what you expect the least.

Rule No. 3- Believe half of what you read, none of what you hear. Never study a theory before doing your own observation and thinking. Read every piece of theoretical research you can-but stay a trader. An unguarded study of lower quantitative methods will rob you of your insight.

Rule No. 4- Beware of the nonmarket-making traders who make a steady income-they tend to blow up. Traders with frequent losses might hurt you, but they are not likely to blow you up. Long volatility traders lose money most days of the week.

Rule No. 5- The markets will follow the path to hurt the highest number of hedgers. The best hedges are those you alone put on.

Rule No. 6- Never let a day go by without studying the changes in the prices of all available trading instruments. You will build an instinctive inference that is more powerful than conventional statistics.

Rule No. 7- The greatest inferential mistake: "This event never happens in my market." Most of what never happened before in one market has happened in another. The fact that someone never died before does not make him immortal.

Rule No. 8- Never cross a river because it is on average 4 feet deep.

Rule No. 9- Read every book by traders to study where they lost money. You will learn nothing relevant from their profits (the markets adjust). You will learn from their losses.

Fundamentally Flawed

Déjà vu

Remember the decade of 1990’s in Japan? I am sure any of the less initiated, however, in his right frame of mind would unmistakably remember the 13% deluge of the capital assets from 1990 to 2003. Or say the 15 year flat spot in the US markets from 1960 to 1975.

Cut to the present: Massive levels of debt underlying the world economic system are about to unwind in a profound and persistent way. It’s an optimistic era of too much liquidity; too much leverage and too much financial engineering slowly giving way to fundamental reasoning.

Who takes the responsibility?

Who do you think is to be blamed??? Is it

(a) that American slob who took mortgage that he couldn’t afford

(b) the US regulators; or

(c) the I-Banks – who repackage sub primes and transfer credit risk into the hands of unsophisticated funds

Now you can’t blame that poor sod who took that loan from that next door broker who pushed the loan down his throat! The smart quants at bulge bracket I-banks took that loans and built tower of securitized debt with models that are fundamentally flawed while the US regulators were caught sucking their thumbs!

Stripped by Leveraged liquidity!

Say the bank has – $100 and issues loan worth $100. Now it collateralizes (CDO / CMO call it what you may!) the loan and immediately receives say $98 which it loans out to another borrower. This continues and the bank finances itself multiple times using nothing but that initial amount of $100. According to Satyajit Das a dollar of ‘real capital’ supports $20 - $30 worth of loans.

Fundamentally Flawed – painful unwinding!!!

Now when we look at the recent doubling of default rates (in contravention to that predicted by the geniuses at I-Banks) the pass-troughs (MBS etc…) began to collapse. Now valuing these papers would put rocket science to shame. Through last couple of months billions of dollars of these securities have been ‘orphaned’. That is it cant be sold off or used as collaterals (well, apart from the fact that, the day before Fed started accepting ABCP’s as eligible collateral).

This has had a big effect on the big bad world of PE. Yeah! I'm talking about private-equity takeovers, leveraged buyouts and corporate stock buybacks -- the works. So the structured finance market is coming undone; not only will those pillars of strength for equities be knocked away, but many recent deals that were predicated on the easy availability of money will likely also go bust.

The current market volatility is much more profound than a simple "correction" in prices. It is a gigantic liquidity bubble unwinding -- a process that can take a long, long time.

While you might think that the U.S. Federal Reserve can help prevent disaster by lowering interest rates dramatically, as it did Wednesday, well at best it may help smoothen the transition!’

Some off the cuff thinking leads to believing that post crises environment will be:

(I) Declining supply of underlying assets (i.e. Mortgages, Loans etc…)

(II) Move from structured to more plain vanilla products

(III) Less leverage more desirable

(IV) Lower returns on credit structured products due to lower demand

(V) Regulatory overhaul

(VI) Well… and… hmmm… some other new crises… !!!!

“Sorry everyone” - the latest resignation email

The M&A drought notwithstanding - there are obviously deals out there to keep some poor souls chained to their desks day in, day out.

The latest in the genre of IB resignation emails has hit London - and this time it’s a UBS banker who has made a snap career change and dispatched a heartfelt missive to his colleagues. Sent at 7.02am on a Sunday morning after a long, long night, one healthcare banker in the New York office had had enough.

—– Original Message —–
From: Mauldin, Jonathan-IBD+
To: XXXXXXXXXXXXX
Sent: Sun Sep 16 07:02:32 2007
Subject: Sorry everyone

I’m leaving the bank now.

‘m not made to do this. If I put my mind to something as much as I do here to mindless text editing, copy and pasting, and getting yelled at for stuff other people can’t/won’t/don’t do, I would be much better off.

It’s 6:43 a.m. on a Sunday, and I have at least 14 more hours of work to do today that will not be fulfilling, useful, appreciated, recognized, or paid for. Sorry this is last minute, but it’s just not worth doing more

My blackberry is on my desk

Apparently that failed staffing request was fatal (no, not as in I’m going to kill myself, hehe, I’m just going to go enjoy life). There is no happiness here.

I took all my personal stuff. No one needs to contact me for anything (except for a drink for those of you with my personal number). I will only be at my New York address a few days longer.

Good luck y’all,

Jonathan Napier Mauldin
UBS Investment Bank
Global Healthcare Group
299 Park Avenue, 36th Floor
New York, NY 10171

(P) 212.821.5273
(F) 212.821.5482
Jonathan.Mauldin@ubs.com

P.S. I’ll be waiting for some smart-ass associate to send a
“best-practice e-mail for how to quit properly”. Thank you XXXX,
XXXXX, and XXXXX for your previous e-mails. I will be sure to keep
your tips in mind.

Dealbreaker has been on the case with Mr Mauldin (who was maudlin). He told them: “After my 120th hour this week on the job, I decided to peace out. I hadn’t had a day off in three weeks (day off meaning a Saturday or Sunday either), and I got yelled at at 6 in the morning.”

A downtrodden employee deserving of our sympathy or a whinging little toe-rag who knew what came with the big pay cheque? You decide.

This entry was posted by Helen Thomas on Wednesday, September 19th, 2007 at 9:20

Pursuit of love and happiness

In one vibrant paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson managed to compress theory that justified the struggle for independence and a précis of a revolutionary “All men are created equal”; they enjoy “unalienable Rights; these rights include “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

How did he appreciate to incorporate the word “pursuit” in his famous declaration? It is such an unmistakable truth of mankind. We can only pursue happiness… however, achieving it is which we can strive for but never achieve.

Many people get confused with the notion that being in love is being happy and vice-a-versa, however, that isn’t true. Maybe Gordon Gecko was right. What is love…?? It is the oldest running myth created by man to prevent him from jumping out of windows! It’s nothing but a haunting illusion…

... And what is Love
but a captivating illusion
in a forbidding reality?
life is nothing
but a mutual benefit
association

... and those who use us
often bring welcome relief
from the weight
that bears us down

Life becomes so much easier
when you accept the fact
that nothing you have
is really yours.

Not even the ones you love

For they are like the waves
that break gently upon the shore
soaking your feet in their cool embrace
as you walk along the sand.
Alone....

Goodbye to Love

Twilight time
Me and you and a dog named boo
Dream lover, Whispers in the wind
It just feels right tonight

How can I tell her?
It sure took a long long time
I’d love you to want me

It does not matter anymore
It’s all in the game
I would come back to you, would you?
Would you still love me tomorrow?
I would do it again

It’s all in the game… the game of life
The winner takes it all, and the loser has to fall

(Source: Titles of songs by Lobo)

The Holy Trinity predicament!

The RBI governor YV Reddy has overcome several intricate problems that would have flummoxed the best of the best in the business of managing the finances of a country such as ours.

Circa 1997, the Asian Financial crisis ravaged the entire South Eastern economies. So much so that Russia defaulted on its debt (fallout was LTCM bailout). However, India was spared, thanks to the astute policies of the then Finance Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and his round table. Unlike the SE Asian countries that had the deadly combination of pegged exchange rate and CAC (Capital Account Convertibility), India followed managed float.

The vicious cycle of external funds:-

FDI à $$ à RBI buys $$(to manage USD/INR) à inflow of Rupee à increasing liquidity à inflation à increasing CRR / interest rates à increasing FDI / FII to tap high yields

What RBI can do is follow global best practices from say China and Singapore. What if RBI stops buying dollars from the open markets? It starts accumulating USTs or starts buying into sovereign issues of Euro and UK. This will help in diversifying the reserves in other currencies and hedge against depreciating dollar.

Another solution on which the government needs to act fast is creating our very own investment arm. Let’s name it ‘Global India Alpha Fund’J. On the lines of Teamasek it will be managed by professionals and would not be run like an typical politburo office. It will identify global opportunities and invest in them. At the same time support Indian India inc. in global acquisition.

It does not equate the problem of inequality of the ‘Impossible Trinity’ but comes real close to it. We have INR within a manageable band, free capital movement (on a good pace to Full capital account convertibility) and at the same time an independent monitory policy (though not fully independent).

Hedge Funds Delta going toxic waste and gamma going out of whack!!

One of the best articles I have read recently on Sub-Prime woes: on a humorous note: Hedge Funds Delta going toxic waste and gamma going out of whack!!

Hedge-Fund Guy Atones for His Subprime Bond Sins:

Mark Gilbert2007-08-15 19:34 (New York)Commentary by Mark Gilbert Aug. 16 (Bloomberg) --

Dear investor,

we'd like to take thisopportunity to update you on the recent performance of our hedge fund,Short-Term Capital Mismanagement LLP. As you know, market selection for the entire fund is guided by aproprietary investing tool we like to call ``a dartboard.''Once the asset classes are decided, individual security selections aregenerated by digitizing our unique hexagonal cuboid models. Unfortunately, it transpires that our hexagonal cuboids are not asunique as we thought. Hundreds of other hedge funds possess identicaldice. The technical term for this is a ``crowded trade.'' You may alsosee it referred to as ``climbing on a bandwagon already headed for thewall.'' As our alpha generation collapses, our beta has turned negative,our delta hedging has gone toxic and, trust me, you do not want to hearabout our gamma. We can't even find our epsilons in the dark with bothhands. You will appreciate that accurate pricing is essential forevaluating our investment strategies. This has proven to be extremelychallenging in recent days. Previously, we have relied on Bob, the salesguy at Hokey-Cokey Bank. Bob assured us the securities were still worth100 percent of face value, so everything was cool. Bob sold thecollateralized debt obligations to us in the first place, so he knowswhat he's talking about. Bob, however, appears to have had a nervous breakdown, judging bythe maniacal laughter that greeted our requests for price verificationthis week. Our efforts to implement an in- house CDO valuationframework, using a technique the ancients knew as ``making things up,''proved unsatisfactory.

Where's the Bid?

Currently, all of the portfolios we manage are undergoing arigorous screening known as ``crossing our fingers and praying that wedon't have to try and find a bid in the market.'' This is supplementedby a cross-market statistical analysis originally developed by the U.S.military called ``don't ask, don't tell.''This ``unmarking-to-unmarket'' procedure has been the benchmark for thehedge-fund industry for the past, ooh, 72 hours. We have, of course, been in touch with the rating companies toupdate our default-probability scenarios, particularly on the AAA ratedinvestments we own. They recommended a forecasting method usingstochastics to regress the drift-to-downgrade timescales for the past100 years and throw them forward for the next five minutes. Thetechnical term for this is ``induction,''though those of you of a less quantitative bent may know it as``guessing.''

AAA or Toast?

We are pleased to report that, contrary to what current marketprices might suggest, all of our top-rated securities remain absolutelyAAA. Provided, that is, the future performance of the underlyingcollateral is identical to its history.Otherwise, the rating companies say our investments are likely to bereclassified as ``toast.'' We have also been checking our back-up credit lines with ourfriends in the investment-banking world. As soon as they return ourcalls, we'll be able to update you on our emergency liquidity position.We are sure they are fine. Some of you have written to us asking for your money back, citingclauses in the fund documentation called redemption rights. Frankly, wenever expected you to actually read that prospectus, which cameprepackaged when we bought the Microsoft Hedge-Fund Guy software. Wecertainly have no idea what all those long words mean. We have filed your letters in a special drawer in the filingcabinet marked ``trash'' for now. Do you have any idea how much troubleyou all would be in if we actually sold this stuff in the market today?At these crazy prices? Fuhgeddaboudit. You'll thank us later.

Not a Rescue

Speaking of crazy prices, we know you'll be thrilled to learn thatwe've invited a bunch of our rich pals into the fund to participate inthis once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. But this is not a rescue. Do noteven think the word rescue. This is an opportunity. Not a rescue. Anopportunity. In fact, we think this is such a fantastic opportunity, we'veagreed to forgo our usual management fee, and we'll only take half ourusual slice of the profits. Provided there are any profits to slice.You, of course, are absolutely invited to participate in this offer bysending us yet more of your money on exactly the same revised terms asour rich pals. Finally, a word for all of you who have been kind enough to inquireabout my personal financial situation. I am relieved to report that mydirectors and officers insurance is fully paid up.Furthermore, my Bentley Continental was paid out of the 2 percent fee welevied when you wrote your first check to us, so I will still be able totrundle into the parking lot each morning in an open-necked shirt toignore your telephone calls and e-mails.

Yours, Hedge-Fund Guy.