📖Paul Tudor Jones

Learn from Past Sells

🌿 Intermediate★★★★☆

Post-mortem every sell decision to improve.

💬

After every sell, review the outcome. Did you sell too early, too late, or at the right time? Post-mortems on sell decisions improve future judgment.

— Market Wizards,1989

🏠 Everyday Analogy

Market cycles resemble seasons: planting, growth, harvest, and winter. Using one strategy in every season leads to repeated mistakes.

📖 Core Interpretation

Paul Tudor Jones sees markets as cyclical rather than linear. Understanding cycle position improves risk-taking decisions more than trying to call exact tops and bottoms.
💎 Key Insight:Reviewing sell decisions sharpens future timing.

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❓ Why It Matters

Ignoring cycles repeats the same mistakes: excessive optimism at peaks and excessive pessimism near troughs. Context matters for position sizing.

🎯 How to Practice

Monitor credit, valuation, earnings, and sentiment signals; reduce aggressiveness in euphoric phases and preserve flexibility in fearful phases.

⚠️ Common Pitfalls

Treating short rebounds as full cycle turns
Extrapolating peak conditions indefinitely
Becoming maximally defensive near valuation troughs

📚 Case Studies

1
Managing Risk Around LTCM (1998)
During the LTCM/Russia crisis, he reduced gross exposure, capped single-position risk, and limited leverage across correlated macro trades to avoid forced liquidation.
✨ Outcome:Preserved capital and avoided major drawdowns, demonstrating that strict sizing across related bets mitigates systemic shock risk.
2
Post-Crisis Commodities Uptrend (2010)
Jones followed emerging uptrends in commodities—especially gold and crude—driven by quantitative easing, negative real rates, and reflation expectations, pyramiding as prices confirmed strength.
✨ Outcome:Captured significant medium-term gains, then cut exposure as momentum faded, illustrating disciplined trend exit rules to preserve profits.

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