Author: Amber Hestla

The Truth About Risk in Trading

The Truth About Risk in Trading

The weather is finally turning, which means more time outside and fewer walls between my kids and any bad decisions they might make, like kicking a soccer ball into the dining room chandelier. Over the weekend, I took them to a new park with an obstacle course. It did not take long to spot the […]

Research concept with businessman looking at forex charts on dark grey concrete wall

Why Fear Alone Won’t Make You Money

If you have followed my work for any length of time, you have become familiar with Hetty Green. When I first began writing about her, she was largely absent from mainstream investment conversations. That has started to change. Her name appears more frequently, but the explanation for her success remains incomplete. My work is grounded […]

How to Measure Fear in the Market

How to Measure Fear in the Market

If you spend enough time studying markets, patterns begin to emerge that have very little to do with price and everything to do with behavior. I recently revisited a historical overview of early market participation and the development of Wall Street. While it presents itself as a timeline, what stands out is not the sequence […]

Businesswomen analyzing investment charts in meeting room, Accounting concept, soft focus, vintage tone

The Hidden Edge in Market Crises

As Women’s History Month comes to a close, I find myself thinking about a name that rarely appears in discussions of financial history: Hetty Green. Her story is worth revisiting because it illustrates a practical lesson about how wealth is built during periods of financial stress, a lesson      that becomes particularly clear when […]

Focus on Profits From Rotation Without Predicting Market Winners

Focus on Profits From Rotation Without Predicting Market Winners

Paradigms shape how we interpret markets. Traders and long-term investors operate under very different ones, and I find trading paradigms are easier for me to understand. Long-term investors believe they can identify future leaders. In the 1980s, they bet on Commodore as personal computers reshaped the world. In the 1990s, they backed Motorola. Later, many […]

Teacher presenting investment strategy and benefits to become a successful business investor

How People Turn Cognitive Discipline Into Trading Edge

Long before I managed trades each week, I managed uncertainty for a living. As an intelligence analyst, my job was not to predict the future. It was to make careful, structured decisions when the information in front of me was partial, unclear, and at times intentionally misleading. That difference matters. Trying to predict feels powerful […]

Here’s A Better Volatility Indicator Than VIX

Here’s A Better Volatility Indicator Than VIX

This week, I found myself thinking about how I actually discovered my edge in trading. It was not luck. It was not a hot tip. It was a process. There were three clear steps. First, I noticed something in the market that aligned with how I naturally think and trade. I was not trying to […]