History As a Kind of Revelation

From Irving Bartlett’s episode on Booknotes:

“… I started out as pre-ministerial student. Then I was gone for four years during World War II, and I came back transformed. I realized that being a preacher meant being in the answer-giving business, and I seemed to be pointed more toward the question-asking business. Historians are people who ask questions of the past, and I've been doing that ever since. I suppose there's a connection, though. I look on history as a kind of revelation. That's where we [can look to] help find the meaning of life, lessons about the way we should live and so forth.”

Competitive People With Sharp Minds

From Jean Baker’s episode on Booknotes:

“… in the context of the time [Adlai Stevenson II] surely was [an anti-Semite]. Remember, this is a time in American history, and we're talking now about the '20s and '30s, when white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants talked an anti-Semitic vocabulary, and certainly this was part of his society and he shared it with them. When I also think that he--because he failed out of Harvard Law School, he always, I think, felt that Harvard had been one of the places where he had first met Jewish people and that they were more competitive than he. And that, also, was something that came up in his years in the New Deal with Jerome Frank and some of the really sharp minds of the New Deal. These people were Jewish. And I think Stevenson resented that.“

Nothing To Do With Ethnicity Or Religion

Anyone who has seen one season of Fauda knows that this is true:

“Well, I don't think there's any strong feeling between Arabs and Jews as such. It's strong feelings the Arabs have about the Israelis coming in to move them out of their land, to take their land away from them by force of arms, and--and the brutal way in which the Palestinians and the Lebanese have been treated ever since then. That's the--that's the source of the hard feelings. It has nothing to do with ethnicity at all or religion.“ — James Abourezk

Now Sized For Your Pup

“The sweater made famous in ‘The Big Lebowski’….”

Notes for Chat with Traders, Episode 184

Episode 184 ... Mike Mangieri (72:20)

• Met Mike Katz in 2000

• Applied for back office job at firm where Mike Katz was trader/broker

• Partners of firm had falling out, a new firm needed to be formed with Gary Roth providing capital

• Did all the grunt work with FINRA to get new broker dealer approved

• 2008-2009 world comes crashing to a halt

• Firm acting as a broker mainly at this point ... more and more redemptions

• Moved from being a brokerage firm to a proprietary trading firm

• 12 years later they're still standing

• Market went from two exchanges to totally fragmented

• Needed to understand all the new routes

• Doesn't talk specifically about how much capital they had or have

• Original partners: Gary Roth (deceased), Mike Mangieri, Mike Katz

• Looked for recent college graduates as new traders

• 2012-2014 got up to 20 to 40 traders, that was the sweet spot

• 30-40 traders in total at Seven Points now, including branch offices

• Seven Points not run like a factory, they build relationships with their traders

• Mike Katz trades and Mike Mangieri handles regulatory things, paying bills, etc.

• Calls around to the traders to see if their heads are right

• Easily watches risk / buying power / positions for all 30+ traders on a single monitor

• Halt risk is a constant worry at the firm

• Twitter has screwed up a lot of traders

• "Tell people I'm a dentist" (not a trader)

• Mangieri makes fun of Twitterers talking about the "process," that it's OK to blow up

• Youngsters follow rooms, "I short low floats, I use the pre-market high, I use that as my risk, then I short against there" .. always the same script

• Twitterers don't take ownership of their losses

• Twitterers standing in front of their Ferraris, laptop out at the Sistine Chapel

• "I killed it in the morning, so I flew to Italy for the weekend ... Asshole"

• Daily lockout numbers of $300 to $3,000

• Your Twitter friends are not going to write out your rent check

• Trading is the side hustle of guys who run chat rooms that have hundreds or even thousands of subscribers

• Everybody can hit a 90 mph fast ball in the batting cage, it's a different matter when it's coming from the mound

• Losses make you doubt everything

• There's a domino effect when you're losing money

• People get in a panic state ... I have to make it back as soon as possible

• You forget good news in 30 seconds

• You have to have a life outside of trading, otherwise you'll burn out

• Don't be on social media all night after being on there all day

• You can't live and breathe trading, you will burn out

• Figure out the max loss that you can take without sending yourself on tilt before things get dark

• You need someone in your life who holds you accountable for your losses

• Your mentor should not be trying to sell you a DVD

• Lockouts at Seven Points are very low

• Struggling traders are sized down quickly

• Trader A is comfortable trading 5000 shares... give him 7000 shares and he goes haywire

• You can only get a little bit bigger every day ... you can't double it overnight

• When you push the size on people, it'll screw them up

• Position size does not equal penis size

• No one wants to see a paper trader anymore ... don't try to apply at any firm if you haven't risked real money

• "I short low floats" ... why? They all regurgitate the same thing

• Don't be a one-trick pony

• You have to find people who fit in at the firm .. one bad apple ruins the bunch

• "I don't want to sit next to this guy."

• Guy who slams his keyboard constantly, he's probably going to have to go

• They put the new traders on demo at first, massive amount of journaling in TraderVue

• How do I find liquidity in this stock? What route do I take?

• Not a lot of hand-holding today

• Have to tell people even though they're hard working, they have to go

• Trading, whether at home or in an office, is a very high turnover business

• Most common problem is that people are too afraid to trade

• People take tiny gains because they're afraid

• People won't stop themselves when they're on tilt, you have to stop them

• Trader who has a new rule every day to prevent himself from doing something -- has has to go

• Used to be a million prop firms that used RealTick ... not the case anymore

• Twitter: @MMangieri34

Late Lamented Hipster Salad

People were embarrassed to order it because of the dumb name, but it was the best salad Wegmans ever had, and it’s sad that they discontinued it:

Movies Watched -- Rear Window (1954)

114 minute running time so Hitchcock probably could have trimmed about 15 minutes off, but this is considered a classic, deservedly so. The value of war buddies, Princess Grace slumming in Greenwich Village, burly Raymond Burr as bad guy. Recommended, “green go.”

Vinny Canby wrote in 1983 that the movie is still a joy. He makes the good point that: “Air-conditioners would mean closed windows, and ‘Rear Window’ is completely dependent on open windows.”

I’m not much on rear window ethics.

Movies Watched -- The Iron Ministry (2015)

80 minute running time … a documentary and sort of a performance art piece in a way… filmed on trains in China between 2011 and 2013 … I lived in China from 2005 to 2015 and I also spent my junior year abroad there and did a year of post-grad study … anyway, I’ve experienced everything that the filmmaker captures — the sights, the sounds (including Kenny G. and a lot of phlegm being coughed up), the textures … and I love the earthy humor of the Chinese. People who’ve never been there may find it fascinating (and appalling).

J.P. Sniadecki (born in 1980) speaks really good Chinese, even better than mine (which at its height was pretty good). Looks like he did a year of language study at 华师大 (his junior year abroad) and a year at 清华 … he may have been living full time in China from 2008-2010 (it’s a blank on his resume).

I watched all the bonus material, which must have been stuff he cut out so the film wasn’t overly long … enjoyed it all, but makes me happier than ever that I’m not in China now.

个位旅客

Movies Watched -- Flame and Citron (2008)

In Danish and German. 136 minute running time so at least 30 to 40 minutes too long… Danish resistance in WWII … the story of two guys, heroes of the resistance … it’s OK, not bad, it just isn’t great and it’s overly long … it’s a John Farr recommendation, which means it’s never *terrible,* but still, I wasn’t super thrilled, especially given the length. Has Mads Mikkelsen and his weird, effeminate mouth in it, as well as a bunch of other Danish stars whom I half recognize. You can skip it.

Look, a drawing of Conan O’Brien

TV Shows Watched -- Prime Suspect (1991)

Around 3.5 hour running time … I re-watched the original season of Prime Suspect that aired nearly 30 years ago now, and it stands the test of time, largely because of Helen Mirren’s performance … interesting to see younger Tom WIlkinson and a very young Ralph Fiennes … the rented garage with the clamps on the wall has long scarred my memory … deservedly considered a classic; see it if you haven’t. I don’t think I’ve seen one of the later seasons.

Someone at the Guardian said it well: “Bleak, brutal and beautifully rendered, this was British crime drama at its absolute best.“

George has always been a bit of a lad.