An original by Dr. Andrew Stotz, My Worst Investment Ever features investors and financial titans from around the world to share their heartbreaking tales of investment misfortune.
Listen and discover the best practices for risk management that will keep you in the game.
In This Episode…
Niels Kaastrup-Larsen is the managing director of DUNN Capital (Europe) and heads up the business development in Europe and Asia.
Niels has been in the managed futures business since 1990. Holding management positions at several leading commodity trader advisors and has helped investors place more than $2 billion in trend following strategies.
Niels is the founder and host of the world’s leading podcast within quant-based investment strategies, Top Traders Unplugged as well as the host of CME Group Managed Futures Podcast.
My Worst Invesment Ever
Doing What He Was Trained To Do
When Niels started as a young trader, his job was partly to provide liquidity to the clients of the bank he was working for. He would inherently be speculating during the day or even during the week by holding positions in bonds that his bank was making markets in.
And so, the mantra that many people know as buying low and selling high was really what he was trained to do – but on a discretionary basis.
Fear of The Unknown
When there were big changes, Niels found out very quickly how difficult it was to figure out where the low was because the low may be very different in reality to what he thought. Because of not knowing what he did not know, he certainly had quite a few painful days during that time.
Power of Momentum
What he did not know at the time when he was just a young trader was the power of momentum, and how important it is to follow the overall trend in the market, not trying to go against the market trend.
Lessons Learned
Your Gut Feeling Might Be Wrong
Our gut feeling is more of a warning system to keep us safe. But cannot be used as a guide or measure for making financial decisions.
Don’t Let Your Emotions Get The Better of You
These emotions would sometimes lead us doing the opposite of what we should. We end up becoming more risk-seeking towards the end of a bull market and be very conservative just before the bear market is coming to an end. So we end up being guided by emotions, which are complete disasters when it comes to making financial decisions.
For the full story, listen to the podcast below:
