Observe the market, react to opportunities but stay alert to risks. Rich experience being humbled by Mr Market. Money matters with your head and heart.

Market Observer

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Reminiscences on my experiences with FTX. Could have escaped 100% but ...

Reminiscences on my experiences with FTX. Could have escaped 100% but ...

In an earlier post, I wrote about how I made a stable income on FTX before the whole fraud unravelled. It is easy to learn the wrong lessons in investing because an investor can make money despite being very wrong. Customers of FTX who escaped with some profits should not

Reminiscences and reflections on my experience with FTX. Why I liked the platform until it collapsed

Reminiscences and reflections on my experience with FTX. Why I liked the platform until it collapsed

FTX has been exposed as a fraud and is now bankrupt. I have lost my funds on FTX, although I withdrew most of it before the collapse. I owe it to myself to reflect deeply on this event. I also owe it to my readers because I wrote 2 positive

A retired stockbroker reveals why most retail investors lose money

A retired stockbroker reveals why most retail investors lose money

I like to chat with retirees, particularly those who used to work in a job where they need to be a bit of a snake oil salesman. It is after they retire that they can be completely honest about their past. A few years ago, a retired stockbroker revealed to

Losing 99% of funds while shorting Luna, the biggest crash in crypto history

Losing 99% of funds while shorting Luna, the biggest crash in crypto history

This crypto startup firm, Uprise, lost 99% of its client funds while shorting Luna during its price crash. Luna crashed 99.98% within 1 week from Thursday, 5 May 2022 to the following Thursday, 12 May 2022. Just 1 week ago, Luna's market capitalization was USD28 billion. 1 week later,

My experience with Anchor protocol and thoughts about the TerraLuna ecosystem crash

My experience with Anchor protocol and thoughts about the TerraLuna ecosystem crash

The TerraLuna ecosystem crash this week was devastating to many crypto investors, from the small retail investors to the huge venture capitalists. No matter how smart you are, as long as you are active in financial markets, big losses from time to time are inevitable. Sometimes, one manages to escape

Software I developed for observing financial markets and why I developed them (part 2) - Stock market internals

Software I developed for observing financial markets and why I developed them (part 2) - Stock market internals

This is a continuation of the previous post [https://market-observer.addvaluedonoevil.com/software-i-developed-for-monitoring-financial-markets-stock-markets/] where I talked about the software I developed for observing stock indices. Stock indices alone are not representative of a country's stock market as only the big companies with large market capitalization are represented. The vast majority

Software I developed for observing financial markets and why I developed them (part 1) - Stock indices

Software I developed for observing financial markets and why I developed them (part 1) - Stock indices

There are two things that I can keep doing without feeling sick of them. One of them is observing financial markets, as the name of this blog "Market Observer" suggests. The other one is developing software. The next logical and fun thing to do would be to develop software that