HINDSIGHT

Market games

Short games built on real prices and honest statistics. Each one ends by comparing you with what chance alone would do, and states its own limits.

• Noise Hunt: Why most backtests lie: Search a price chart for a winning trading rule. You will find one. Then bet on whether it is real.
• Real or Random?: How random real prices look: Ten pairs of charts. One is a real stock, one is a random walk. Can you beat a coin flip?
• The Star Manager: Skill, luck and fees: Two hundred fund managers, three years of track record. Hire the best, then live with it: keep, switch or give up, one year at a time.
• How Bad Can It Get?: Value at risk and its blind spot: Set a worst-day limit for a real portfolio, then let the next real year test it. Count the breaches, and see what the days beyond your limit look like.
• Portfolio Challenge: Risk you cannot sit out: Three real stocks, $100,000 and a year of history replayed day by day. Hit the target within your limits, or play for the best Sharpe ratio.
• Size the Bet (coming soon): You have a small, real edge and a long run of trades ahead. Bet too little and you crawl; bet too much and one bad streak ends the game. Find the size that survives.
• Calm or Storm? (coming soon): A real stock's last month: will next month be calmer or stormier? Unlike the price itself, volatility clusters, so here a good forecast is actually possible.

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