The single most important thing to do when trading:

Survive.

Sadly, 99% of traders neglect this core principle.

Here's the formula that professional traders use to make and keep millions: There are countless ways to fail at trading, like emotions, overtrading, etc

But one of the most common, even for those who've made millions:

Placing bets too large for their account size.

This concept is called Risk of Ruin, a formula every trader needs to know.

I just finished re-reading The Laws Of Trading by Agustin Lebron.

It's one of the best books for trading I've read.

Here are the 6 laws you need to know: Before we jump into the laws that helped re-shape my trading,

Why did Agustin Lebron call them laws?

7 Books that serve as a crash course on automated trading (full of strategies).

1. Professional Automated Trading: Theory and Practice 2. Quantitative Momentum: A Practitioner's Guide to Building a Momentum-Based Stock Selection System

By Jack Vogel, Wesley Gray

A crash course in Mathematical Trading Strategies by a 3.48 trillion dollar company.

It's over an hour long.

So, here are some of the best parts (in less than 6 minutes): Pairs Trading.

How quant firms made millions exploiting a single flaw in the market.

• No technical analysis
• No fundamental research

Just a single trick, to execute orders before everyone else. That became so powerful the CME had to step in.

Here's how they did it: First publicly mentioned in a US Patent on Jun 28, 2018.

It has over 40 pages full of technical language.

I'm going to break it down into simple language- please forgive any oversimplification,

But this is one of the most creative exploits I have ever seen.

The 4 most destructive biases for systematic traders.

1. Look-ahead bias Look-ahead bias:

Happens when you use information that would not be available at the time of the trade.

These can sometimes be easy to spot:

- Using the close of the next bar to determine a buy or sell signal.

But what do you think is the issue with this logic?

I asked seven of my 7-figure algorithmic trader friends:

What is one sentence they wish they had heard earlier in their career?

Here are 7 sentences that could have got them there 2x faster: 1. "A good trading rule should be testable, relatively simple, and understandable,

Without those, you will likely be left with an overfitted rule."

3 simple Bollinger Band trading strategies quantified,

1. Bollinger Band Breakout This strategy involves:

• Longing when price breaks above the Upper Bollinger
• Shorting when price drops below the Lower Bollinger
• Exits positions when the price moves back within the Bollinger Bands

You can optimize based on the timeframe, period, and multiplier.

How hedge funds build momentum strategies that manage billions of dollars,

Explained simply, step by step: The market is fueled by supply and demand,

And momentum capitalizes on this dynamic.

When people are fearful they will push supply into the market,

When they are greedy they will push the price higher.

The number 1 killer of traders is a lack of alpha.

But what exactly is it?

Here's the late billionaire Jim Simons explaining alpha: Now with an understanding of what alpha is,

How do we find it?

There are 2 key approaches:

• Data-first
• Idea-first

Let's explore both.

In honor of Jim Simons,

Here are 11 lessons from the greatest trader of our time: 1. To be great, you need to be obsessed.

"What Jimmy liked to do more than anything else was think, often about mathematics. At the age of three, Jimmy doubled numbers and divided them in half, figuring out all the powers of 2 up to 1,024 before becoming bored."

14 sentences from billionaire hedge fund managers I can't stop thinking about.

1. “There is a time to make money and a time to not lose money.” 2. “Our biggest mistake was not realizing how illiquid markets could get so quickly.”

– David Tepper

This is Ken Griffin.

He is worth over $37 billion and is CEO of one of the most powerful hedge funds in the world.

In 2018, he hired a team of scientists to predict weather forecasts,

The result? Citadel makes a record-breaking $16 billion.

Here's the crazy story: In 2022, Citadel made $16B in profits, becoming the most successful hedge fund ever at the time.

Their strategies range from market-making to quant models,

But one especially caught my eye.

They employed a team of 20+ scientists to predict the weather:

It's my 23rd birthday.

I've gone from losing thousands trading, wanting to quit, to making it back, and more.

But it was only possible by learning from those ahead of me.

Here are 8 sentences that unlocked my progress: 1. "The paranoid survive"

Look at this guy.

He was known as the "algo arms dealer".

He built some of the most sophisticated algorithms on the market until one day they stopped working.

Discovering Wall Street firms were cheating.

Here's the crazy story: Haim Bodek origiinally worked for Hull Trading Company,

Which was later acquired by Goldman Sachs in 1999.

He quickly became the global head of Electronic Volatility trading at UBS in 2006, until he started his own company.

Trading Machines was officially founded in 2007.

Regret: I should have read these two books earlier.

It could have saved me a year of failing.

Here's why and their key lessons in 60 seconds:

1. Practical Speculation by Victor Niederhoffer

Is an incredible book on using the scientific method in markets.

It transforms discretionary technical analysis into measurable strategies,

Essential for evolving into a systematic trader.

Here are 3 Quant strategy types taught by a PhD professor worth $26,160.

For free: Quantitative momentum trading strategies,

Broken down into their simplest form.

(Credits to Liu Peng)

11 sentences from a 7-figure quant trader that changed my trading journey forever:

1. "Focus on a portfolio of strategies; no single strategy will save you." 2. "Strategy parameters should fight to survive; do not add parameters that don't make a measurable difference."

These 8 books you'd never think of reading,

But you really should...

1. The Wealth of Nations 2. The Almanack Of Naval Ravikant: A Guide To Wealth And Happiness

The 6 biases that plague most traders from achieving success.

1. Recency Bias Our minds tend to retain recent information,

Leading to cases of overreacting and distributing our decision-making process.

The best solution is to focus on 100s of trades, instead of the past few.

90% of traders fail due to a lack of edge,

When they thought they had one.

Here's how to identify and prove your edge with these 7 tips: 1. “Past performance is the best predictor of success.”

- Jim Simons

This is the foundation of 90% of edges,

Bringing the importance of having access to quality historical data to test your ideas on.