Investors Are Ignorant, Fade Their Conviction: Jason Shapiro

A ‘highlight clip‘ of actionable items from this podcast was released to premium subscribers on Oct. 24, with the full episode released the following day -- without ads or announcements. Become a premium subscriber by signing up here or on our Substack to take advantage of this and a host of other benefits. Jason Shapiro joins the podcast to discuss his trading strategy, based on the simple premise that most investors are wrong most of the time. This approach requires trades to be crowded, which is decidedly (and surprisingly) not the case right now -- with two possible exceptions. Content Highlights Most traders lose money. Shapiro seeks to capture these losses by going against the crowd (3:11); He does this by monitoring the Commitment of Traders report for extreme positioning, which he then fades (4:03); The thinking behind this? The crowd is wrong. "It's really that simple." The discounting method is not price but positioning (6:11); Shapiro monitors 37 different futures markets. Two examples of where this approach worked in the past (7:03); Right now "I'm seeing some pretty scary stuff, because you don't have anybody crowded" in major asset classes (8:24); One possible exception: lumber (11:08); Background on the guest (16:35); Patience is a virtue, especially for contrarians (27:28); "I have contrarian views on everything...that's how I develop my opinion." People are wrong because they want others to guide them (31:00); The set-up in cryptos is "massively dangerous" based on positioning in Bitcoin futures. This sets Bitcoin and cryptos up for a major drop... (36:36). (On this last point, Shapiro shared the following chart) For More About Jason Shapiro Website: CrowdedMarketReport.com; Twitter: @Crowded_Mkt_Rpt; LinkedIn: CMR-Publishing.

Om Podcasten

The Contrarian Investor podcast gives voice to those who challenge a prevailing narrative in financial markets. Each episode features an interview with a hedge fund manager, investor, economist or other market participant. The goal is to educate all listeners with an interest in asset allocation and ultimately to provide actionable ideas to the institutional investor community.