Miyerkules, Mayo 2, 2012

Case Study : Chapter 3

Questions to consider

1. Peter Gumble, European editor for Fortune magazine, comments, "Kerviel is a stunning example of a trader breaking the rules, but he's by no means alone. One of the dirty little secrets of trading floors around the world is that every so often, somebody is caught concealing a position and is quickly - and quietly - dismissed... [This] might be shocking for people unfamiliar with the macho, high-risk, high-reward culture of most trading floors, but consider this: the only way banks can tell who will turn into a good trader and who even the most junior traders to take aggressive positions. This leeway is supposed to be matched by careful controls, but clearly they aren't foolproof." What is your reaction to this statement by Mr. Gumble?
Answer:
 Well trading nowadays has its ups and downs, but trading is a crucial part of our worlds daily living, trading is now a part of our daily lives as for our food, shelter and day to day consumption. We just need to be vigilant and aware to avoid fraud and be fooled by others.
here are the "22 RULES OF TRADING";
1. Never, under any circumstance add to a losing position.... ever! Nothing more need be said; to do otherwise will eventually and absolutely lead to ruin!
2. Trade like a mercenary guerrilla. We must fight on the winning side and be willing to change sides readily when one side has gained the upper hand.
3. Capital comes in two varieties: Mental and that which is in your pocket or account. Of the two types of capital, the mental is the more important and expensive of the two. Holding to losing positions costs measurable sums of actual capital, but it costs immeasurable sums of mental capital.
4. The objective is not to buy low and sell high, but to buy high and to sell higher. We can never know what price is "low." Nor can we know what price is "high." Always remember that sugar once fell from $1.25/lb to 2 cent/lb and seemed "cheap" many times along the way.
5. In bull markets we can only be long or neutral, and in bear markets we can only be short or neutral. That may seem self-evident; it is not, and it is a lesson learned too late by far too many.
6. "Markets can remain illogical longer than you or I can remain solvent," according to our good friend, Dr. A. Gary Shilling. Illogic often reigns and markets are enormously inefficient despite what the academics believe.
7. Sell markets that show the greatest weakness, and buy those that show the greatest strength. Metaphorically, when bearish, throw your rocks into the wettest paper sack, for they break most readily. In bull markets, we need to ride upon the strongest winds... they shall carry us higher than shall lesser ones.
8. Try to trade the first day of a gap, for gaps usually indicate violent new action. We have come to respect "gaps" in our nearly thirty years of watching markets; when they happen (especially in stocks) they are usually very important.
9. Trading runs in cycles: some good; most bad. Trade large and aggressively when trading well; trade small and modestly when trading poorly. In "good times," even errors are profitable; in "bad times" even the most well researched trades go awry. This is the nature of trading; accept it.
10. To trade successfully, think like a fundamentalist; trade like a technician. It is imperative that we understand the fundamentals driving a trade, but also that we understand the market's technicals. When we do, then, and only then, can we or should we, trade.
11. Respect "outside reversals" after extended bull or bear runs. Reversal days on the charts signal the final exhaustion of the bullish or bearish forces that drove the market previously. Respect them, and respect even more "weekly" and "monthly," reversals.
12. Keep your technical systems simple. Complicated systems breed confusion; simplicity breeds elegance.
13. Respect and embrace the very normal 50-62% retracements that take prices back to major trends. If a trade is missed, wait patiently for the market to retrace. Far more often than not, retracements happen... just as we are about to give up hope that they shall not.
14. An understanding of mass psychology is often more important than an understanding of economics. Markets are driven by human beings making human errors and also making super-human insights.
15. Establish initial positions on strength in bull markets and on weakness in bear markets. The first "addition" should also be added on strength as the market shows the trend to be working. Henceforth, subsequent additions are to be added on retracements.
16. Bear markets are more violent than are bull markets and so also are their retracements.
17. Be patient with winning trades; be enormously impatient with losing trades. Remember it is quite possible to make large sums trading/investing if we are "right" only 30% of the time, as long as our losses are small and our profits are large.
18. The market is the sum total of the wisdom ... and the ignorance...of all of those who deal in it; and we dare not argue with the market's wisdom. If we learn nothing more than this we've learned much indeed.
19. Do more of that which is working and less of that which is not: If a market is strong, buy more; if a market is weak, sell more. New highs are to be bought; new lows sold.
20. The hard trade is the right trade: If it is easy to sell, don't; and if it is easy to buy, don't. Do the trade that is hard to do and that which the crowd finds objectionable. Peter Steidelmeyer taught us this twenty five years ago and it holds truer now than then.
21. There is never one cockroach! This is the "winning" new rule submitted by our friend, Tom Powell.
22. All rules are meant to be broken: The trick is knowing when... and how infrequently this rule may be invoked!










Courtesy of Master Trader Dennis Gartman's 22 Rules of Trading.
link: http://www.dacharts.com/articles/_22rulestrading.htm
 
2. What explanation can there be for the failure of SocGen's internal control system to detect Kerviel's transactions while Eurex detected many suspicious transactions?
Answer:
"Socgen was brilliant in their achievement, they were the world leader in derivatives," Decque said. "Maybe when you are that good, you think you will never fail."


link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/business/worldbusiness/05iht-05bank.9745008.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all





Discussion Questions

1. Do you think that Mike Lynn acted in a responsible manner? Why or why not?

Answer:
 Mike Lynn was not a responsible man,
Cisco looks as though, not only do they write bad code, but that they are dumb enough to give it to folks who will make it public.ISS looks as though they can't control their employees.
Michael Lynn looks like an untrustworthy gloryhound.Instead, he should have leaked it quietly to Josh Wright or someone similar and asked them to submit it via bugtraq and Cisco's own bug tracker. Or done it anonymously himself.This will get the problem solved more quickly and with less fuss, no lawsuits, he keeps his job, Cisco still fixes the vuln, he reports it through the ISS-Cisco partnership and ISS looks good. ISS releases a signature for their IPS in advance of the patch, Cisco announces that they've found a vuln and fixed.
courtesy of http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/07/cisco_harasses.html

2. Do you think that Cisco and ISS were right to pull the plug on Lynn's presentation at the Black Hat conference? Why or why not?
Answer:
 The "stipulated permanent injunction" faxed to Rick Forno contains an interesting paragraph:

"Lynn... acknowledges that ISS did not authorize him to present [his talk] and which he had notified ISS he would not present. In particular, ISS had directed no presentation or live demonstration would be made which included disassembled Cisco code and the 'pointers'. (ISS and Cisco stipulate that they had prepared an alternative presentation designed to discuss Internet security, including the flaw which Lynn had identified, but without revealing Cisco code or pointers which might help enable third parties to exploit the flaw, but were informed they would not be allowed to present that presentation at the conference)."
link: http://taosecurity.blogspot.com/2005/07/iss-pursues-lynn-presentation-copies.html

3. Outline a more reasonable approach toward communicating the flaw in the Cisco routers that would have a led to the problem being promptly addressed without stiring up animosity among the parties involved.
 Answer:
 I guess we can wrap up the Cisco and ISS vs. Mike Lynn and Black Hat saga by mentioning the new Cisco security advisory released today: IPv6 Crafted Packet Vulnerability, which states: "(IOS) Software is vulnerable to a Denial of Service (DoS) and potentially an arbitrary code execution attack from a specifically crafted IPv6 packet. The packet must be sent from a local network segment. Only devices that have been explicitly configured to process IPv6 traffic are affected. Upon successful exploitation, the device may reload or be open to further exploitation."Assuming these details is correct and who knows now?  This is not an earth-shattering discovery. However, this may have been a sample vulnerability Mike demonstrated to explain his technique. He may have picked this vulnerability because he thought it would not affect much of the Internet, but he needed to let people know that his technique was already in use by malicious parties. 
link http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/products_security_advisory09186a00804d82c9.shtml

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