For nearly a decade, anonymous trader Domer (@Domahhh) are at the forefront of profiting from the consequences of unknown future events.
Political and economic issues are Domer’s area of expertise, but he doesn’t shy away from fairly abstract events either. Dealing with Britney Spear’s Guardianship and the Consequences of Blocking the Suez Canal!
Now, at a time when he’s earning hundreds of thousands of dollars in PnL annually (on multiple exchanges), much of Domer’s winnings come from his ability to gain information superiority and reject efficient market hypotheses. It’s by ability.
Topic and Timestamp:
Note: Exact time depends on current ad.
- 03:50 – Quit full-time job: poker, stock trading.
- 10:35 – Prediction market mechanics: contract timing/pricing, exchanges.
- 23:25 – Forecast Market Growth: Larger Size Capacity.
- 28:45 – Investigative process: event filtering, information retrieval.
- 39:10 – Trading: market and actual prices, bet sizes, trading structures.
Links and resources:
Additional comments – Domer:
In order not to paint too rosy a picture, let me offer just one thing to clarify the stock a little more…
In terms of stocks, I specifically remember doing a YHOO/BABA trade where the BABA shares owned by YHOO are worth more than YHOO’s market cap. That was his first big run-up, and then he joined SAFM’s chicken company. I probably did some both negatives and positives that I don’t remember, but the big negative I did was with leveraged oil companies (very sensitive to oil prices). The stock collapsed and the shorts had the last laugh. To be precise, I ran from $35,000 to about $225,000 at my peak, and about $150,000 after about 18 months. These are rough approximations.
Another big negative reason I moved away from stock was tax treatment. As a retail trader short term trading my portfolio in the US it’s really crap and I have to jump through a lot of ridiculous hoops to qualify for a better tax regime. I realized that I had to time my sales accordingly, and that my income could fluctuate wildly, and my tax bill could fluctuate wildly. For example, in 2013 I paid a lot of taxes because my short-term gains on stocks were great. Then in 2014, when I made that negative play and recognized a loss, I couldn’t go back to 2013 and pay less. Carrying forward losses is also troublesome. The tax treatment of profits/losses was therefore another major reason to return to the comfort of the forecast market. I’m here. For example, when I saw the first COVID surge in China, I bought S&P puts and made a good deal. This is a great example of a low-risk, high-reward bet that I should have wagered more on!
One last thought I didn’t get a chance to mention is that with this TWTR/Elon deal it’s interesting to me that there’s almost a prediction market in the stock market right now. But this one in particular has gotten the public’s attention and stocks/options have moved a lot in response to Elon’s tweet. Similar! You can imagine someone talking to a friend like this: Done. What do you think, did that poop emoji change your mind at all?”