Re-Launch of the Income Trader – A Strategy for a Market with Compressed Extreme Moves

The word ‘RISK’ is a simple four- letter word; yet, the management of risk is critical in any investment or income generating strategy. When historical norms no longer hold, and markets can make moves within a span of days, or just a few weeks what used to take a whole year or years to make, it becomes critical for trading and investment practitioners to rethink old models and adjust given new information or market realities. Whilst increased volatility increases market risk as a whole, it also provides tremendous opportunities to make an abnormal return if you are on the right side of the market trend. For market participants, the question is – are you prepared to assume the increased risk that can provide the environment to make huge returns, and at the same time, if your thinking is wrong, assume huge losses. Or, is it wise in a period of high volatility to disengage and get back in when sanity returns to the financial markets This is a critical question that market participants have to answer and honestly face up to the conclusions they come up with. For most people detached from the market and not involved in any trade, there is always the false assumption with the knowledge of hindsight that they are prone to being risk takers. And given the choice, they will definitely take more risk rather than less and that somehow they harbor the wrongful notion that they would have been on the right side of the trade. Taking calculated and limited risk where the risk reward structure is favorable is always preferable to assuming tremendous amounts of risk in the hope of being right.

In an era of investment where crisis, whether real or imagined hit the market with such frequency, and cause extreme market moves within a compressed timeframe, what should one do Should we totally disengage, call it quits and look for new avenues Or, should we take cognizance of such realities and design our investment strategy for such markets The market, it seems is so structured in a way that now a tsunami or an earthquake or a plane crash is no longer a real