Hacker News Reader

Comment by nine_k | Hacker News Reader

That could also be problematic: you mighth need to know what the average joe loser does instantly, or maybe even before the fact, to turn an actual profit.

Though doing the contrarian move is sort of common wisdom: "sell when everyone is buying, buy when everyone is selling", of course if you understand what to sell/buy in either case.

View on HN

> you mighth need to know what the average joe loser does instantly, or maybe even before the fact, to turn an actual profit.

As in, run a day trading service and analyze anonymized trading data?

There was an SEC enforcement action a few years ago where they went against a platform trading company that catered to especially unsophisticated and risk taking clientele. They never actually put on any of the trades their clients were "making." They just pocketed the money and when the clients inevitably lost it all, the outcome was the same for the client.

> They never actually put on any of the trades their clients were "making." They just pocketed the money and when the clients inevitably lost it all, the outcome was the same for the client.

Whoa. That is so elegant in it's simplicity. Evil, certainly, but elegant.

And now I'm imagining more elaborate versions that incorporate the Baltimore Stockbroker scam to convince the clients to invest (and lose) even more money...

I think you're right. By the time you know what everyone is buying/selling with any certainty, the boat has already sailed.

I mean, if you just want to be contrarian, watch your holdings for what's going up over whatever period, and sell that --- that's what everyone is buying.

Look over the whole market for whst is going down, and buy that, that's what everyone is selling. Every finance information outlet ever tells you the day/month/year's biggest winners and losers, and most people aren't watching that and taking the contrarian position, or the winners and losers would be pretty boring.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com