The Crowd Is Wrong

Today I’m Sitting Down With Jason Shapiro

There are traders I want to talk to because I want to know what they think about the market.

Then there are traders I want to talk to because I want to understand how they think.

Jason Shapiro falls firmly into the second category.

Today, I’m sitting down with Jason for a conversation I’ve been looking forward to for a while.

If you’ve followed my writing, you know how obsessed I am with the psychology behind markets.

Why do we believe what we believe?

Why do we become emotionally attached to trades?

Why is it so difficult to change our minds?

And maybe most importantly:

What happens when everyone believes the same thing?

Jason has spent decades thinking about these questions.

His approach to markets revolves heavily around positioning, sentiment, crowded trades and understanding when consensus has moved too far in one direction.

But there’s an important distinction here.

Being contrarian doesn’t mean blindly doing the opposite of everyone else.

If everyone is buying something, that doesn’t automatically mean you should sell it.

Markets can remain crowded for a very long time.

Great trends can become consensus trades and continue going much further than anyone expects.

The interesting part is understanding when positioning, narrative and price begin telling different stories.

That’s where I think this conversation is going to get really interesting.

Two Different Ways of Looking at the Same Problem

My own process is heavily rooted in trend following.

I want to own strength.

I want to find relative strength.

I want to identify trends and stay with them until the evidence tells me they’re over.

Jason approaches markets through a different lens.

And that’s exactly why I want to talk to him.

I don’t want to spend my life talking only to people who reinforce what I already believe.

Where’s the growth in that?

One of the greatest dangers in markets is building an intellectual prison around yourself.

You find a methodology that works.

Then you find people who agree with it.

Then you consume information that confirms it.

Eventually, without realizing it, you stop asking questions.

That’s dangerous.

I want people around me who force me to think.

Jason is one of those people.

We’re going to talk about contrarian trading, market positioning, sentiment, risk management, being wrong, surviving markets and what decades of trading teaches you that no textbook ever could.

I also want to explore where trend following and contrarian thinking overlap.

Because I suspect they’re not nearly as different as they initially appear.

Both ultimately require something most people struggle with:

The willingness to separate yourself from the crowd.

Sometimes that means buying something nobody wants.

Sometimes it means continuing to own something everyone thinks has gone too far.

And sometimes it means recognizing that the trade everyone has fallen in love with is beginning to crack.

The methodology might be different.

The psychological battle is remarkably similar.

This Is Bigger Than Today’s Market

We’ll obviously talk about what’s happening in markets right now.

But that’s not the conversation I’m most interested in.

Markets will change.

Today’s hottest trade will eventually become tomorrow’s forgotten chart.

I want to understand what allows someone to survive this business for decades.

What mistakes changed Jason’s process?

How does he know when he’s wrong?

How does he separate a genuinely contrarian opportunity from simply fighting a trend?

What does he see traders repeatedly get wrong?

And after all these years, what does the market still teach him?

Those are the conversations I want to have more of.

Not because they’ll tell us exactly where the S&P 500 closes next Friday.

Because they might make us better traders for the next 20 years.

I’ll be LIVE with Jason Shapiro today at 12am NYC time.

Bring your questions.

This should be a fun one.

The crowd is always convincing.

Until it isn’t.

Against All Odds Research

Stay Connected:

• YouTube: Against All Odds Research Channel (@againstalloddsresearch)

• Twitter: Jason P (@jasonp138)

• Substack: AAO Research

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