Dear Practitioners,
This marks the inaugural launch of the Living Library.
The Living Library is a new layer within Asymmetrist: an applied space where written work, trader correspondence, and live market conditions are extended, and worked through in real time. It is designed less as commentary, and more as application—a place to take ideas out of their finished form and see how they behave when pressure is applied.
Below, you’ll find extensive chapter markers, a list of resources mentioned, and the option to jump directly to a written version of the piece if you prefer to read rather than listen. Both formats are intentional. You can listen, read, or move between the two as it suits you.
A note on access: the Living Library is available to paid subscribers only. You can listen here, or add the private feed to your podcast app using the options on the right-hand side of the page.
Over time, I want this to become a community-led application layer. If a line prompts a question, a disagreement, or a further thought, reply to this post or add it to the comments. I read them all, and I’ll continue folding those responses back into future Living Library entries.
In terms of cadence, the Living Library appears roughly twice a month, tracking Asymmetrist’s publication cycles. There are ten publication cycles across the year, and this is the first Living Library entry of Publication Cycle One. I’ll follow up with the second entry in this cycle.
Good reading—or listening—and good trading to you all,
Bogdan
Episode Summary:
In this first Living Library entry, I reflect on a shift that has taken place as we move from 2025 into early 2026: from markets dominated by headlines to markets that increasingly move between them. Using the “market of islands” framework, I explore what this change means for opportunity, positioning, and trader development across the career curve—why the greatest risk at this stage is often not getting a trade wrong, but missing the chance to evolve. Along the way, I draw on recent Asymmetrist work, reader questions, and live market examples to examine adjacent skills, installed thinking, and the longer arc of becoming a more complete trader.
