Traders Where Is the Wolf? : A Speculator s Notebook on the Oil Market

Résumé

An atypical perspective sees what habit has rendered invisible. Researcher, boxer, painter: I have spent my life working on evasion, light, and attention. In the oil market, I found all three again, along with dogmas that no one had bothered to question anymore. Mine settled on a question that finance considers resolved: why does buying seem almost instinctive, while closing a position never does? This is where loss aversion comes from, and with it a form of risk management that is long overdue for a fresh look. The day I presented my trading performance curve, it had the same linear smoothness as Madoff s. I had produced the signature of the greatest fraudster of the century without having cheated by a single cent. At that moment, the question had to be confronted: why do specialists, economists, mathematicians, quants, and so many others theorize that such a curve is impossible? Nothing is asserted without evidence: the second part presents the complete body of work, protocols, records, and verifiable figures. The first tells the story without a single equation. Einstein said that you have not truly understood something until you can explain it to your grandmother. This book is written for her. One conviction alone: before you can win, you must know how not to lose. The wolf is never where people look for it.