Listen to Legends Lesson

Listen to Legends Lesson

If you remember in the Game Planning Program “Lesson 3: Risk-Reward, Penthouse or Poor House” we went over why famed investor Ray Dalio will only take trades with a min of 5:1 risk reward or better and for good reason. Below we will go over a few more key concepts that billionaire investors such as Ray Dalio, Kyle Bass and Richard Branson. Richard Branson a legendary traders? Continue on and you will see why!

Is the most reoccurring theme you will hear legendary traders bring up when asked what is most important with trading. Even if you have asked us about a trade idea, usually our first question is where's your out? What's your risk? It's always great when a trade works however we want to be prepared for the worst case. Richard Branson is far from a Wall Street trader, except he looks at business the same way traders look at stocks. Richard Branson’s first question when it comes to investments is “What's the downside? How can I protect against it?” When starting Virgin Airlines, which is probably one of the riskiest sectors to dabble in. He was able to negotiate a deal with Boeing, that if the business failed, he could return the planes. Removing his liability on the debts of some of the most expensive machines known to man. Talk about a risk free trade! In every trade we put on, our first goal is to limit as much downside as reasonably possible. We can't put our stop $.05 below our entry or remove all the risk however from proper chart reading and understanding how stocks move based off trading psychology we know that their are certain areas where the trade will fail and that's where we aim to exit if we're wrong. If we’re expecting a breakout and the stock is closing at the lows of days. Clearly we are wrong, instead of being stubborn, well just return our stock and move on. Same principle that Richard Branson set up with Virgin Airlines had it failed.

2. Asymmetrical risk reward

All of the legends above as well as virtually any successful trader has a focus on asymmetric risk reward. In plain English that means that we aim to make at least 5:1 risk reward. Now most new traders aim for 2:1, for a quick exercise, go grab a piece of paper or just the guide below to fill out and a % you think you would be right in your trades and base it off 2:1,3:1, 4:1, 5:1, 10:1 risk reward etc.

Let's say your right 40% of the time and we'll fill out 2 examples, if right you make $2 if wrong you would lose $1 with 2:1, $5 to $1 for 5:1 etc etc.

Now based off being right 40% of the time with these two different risk rewards, can you see how a 2:1 risk reward is like swimming with lead weights.

Now 40% is being very generous, as a full time professional trader with over 1,000 trades on average each year, we are usually in the 32-36% bracket. Let's go even lower and let's say that we're only right 20% of the time.

Most new traders have this air of confidence that we also had, where every trade is going to work because we're smart, right? In the beginning it's usually the exact opposite, 100% right, probably more likely to be 100% wrong. Having the proper risk reward gives you or I a fighting chance.

Want to hear of one of the craziest risk free trades out their that Billionaire Kyle Bass put on to prove his children a lesson on risk. The trade was in nickels, yes nickels the change you get that you usually toss in the top jar.

A nickel is what Kyle Bass determined as the only risk free trade ever. You buy a nickle for $.05 and you are immediately up 20% if you “illegal” melt the coin down and sell the raw metal. To prove a point Kyle Bass bought $1,000,000 worth of nickels and put them in his basement, he made $360,000 by doing that.

3. Asset Allocation