Free PDF Guide · 19 chapters · 3.2 MB
The 17 Biases
That Wreck Your Trading
10 backtest traps. 1 meta-bias under all of them. 12 behavioral biases that fire when real money lands on the exchange. Every chapter is a real case study — a strategy that failed, a number that was inflated, a trade that went sideways — and the cognitive bias that caused it.
Compiled from our essays at bearbullradar.com. Free. Written honestly. No upsell.
Inside the PDF
Three parts. One clear progression.
Traders get sabotaged at three levels: in the data (backtest biases), in the assumption that the past predicts the future (the meta-bias), and in their own head (behavioral biases). The guide covers all three in order.
The Backtest Traps
10 biases that lie to you through your backtest data. Methodology issues you can catch with discipline.
- • Survivorship bias
- • Look-ahead bias
- • Hindsight bias
- • Overfitting
- • Cherry-picking
- • Confirmation bias
- • P-hacking
- • Regime bias
- • Recency bias
- • Data-snooping
The Meta-Bias
The one bias no methodology fully defeats. Every backtest is a bet on regime continuity — that the future will resemble the past.
- • Hume's induction problem
- • Taleb's turkey
- • Why walk-forward is necessary but not sufficient
- • What we do about it anyway
You Versus You
Behavioral biases that live inside your head. They don't care how honest your backtest was. They fire when real money is on the line.
- • Loss aversion
- • FOMO
- • Sunk cost fallacy
- • Anchoring
- • Overconfidence
- • The broker-signal trap
Why this guide, when 100 others exist
Every chapter is a real case study.
Not abstract definitions.
Sandra's +510% strategy that shrunk to +28% when I stopped cheating. My $5,000 live run that lost 18% while the backtest said +44%. The memecoin that turned $180,000 into $40,000. Every bias is a specific failure with numbers attached.
Written for humans, not quants.
The main text uses plain language. Technical metrics (Sharpe, Calmar, walk-forward) are translated into what they actually mean for your portfolio. Raw formulas live in collapsible "For Quants" boxes if you want them.
Honest about its own limits.
Part II is three pages explaining why even the first 10 biases — once you've caught every one of them — still leave you with the induction problem. No trading guide I've read admits this. We lead with it.
Frequently Asked Questions
What do I pay?
Nothing. Your email. That's it. You get the PDF, you join the Bot-Letter (optional — one-click unsubscribe), and I get to know one more reader cares about bias-aware trading. Fair trade.
Is this just your blog posts stitched together?
Technically yes — structurally no. The PDF strips per-article disclaimers and CTAs, adds narrative transitions between parts, embeds chapter hero images and charts, and reads as one continuous book. If you've read every article already, the bound version is still worth keeping as reference.
Can I share it?
Yes. Forward the email, put the link in a Discord, print it for a trading buddy. The only ask: don't strip my name off the cover and resell it.
Will it be updated?
Yes. This is Edition 2 (April 2026). When we add new bias articles or correct errors — we will — existing downloaders get an update email with the new version. That's actually the second reason for the email capture: versioning.
What if I don't want the Bot-Letter?
The welcome email has an unsubscribe link at the bottom. Click it after you've downloaded the PDF. You'll still be a valid subscriber in our records for future PDF updates, just not getting weekly signal emails.
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