How Pros Really Think About Risk, Probability, and Markets, with Kris Abdelmessih

Listen on The Move

In this wide-ranging and intellectually rich conversation, host Pierre Daillie sits down with veteran options trader, market maker, and probabilistic thinker Kris Abdelmessih for a deep exploration of how markets really work beneath the surface—and how investors can think more clearly in a world dominated by uncertainty, noise, and emotion.

Drawing on more than two decades of experience spanning Susquehanna International Group, proprietary commodity trading, and portfolio management at Parallax, Abdelmessih explains why options markets reveal truths that stock prices alone cannot, how poker shaped his understanding of risk and decision-making, and why probabilistic thinking—not prediction—separates professionals from amateurs.

The discussion moves seamlessly from trading pits and market structure to behavioral bias, prediction markets, volatility, and education, culminating in a thoughtful explanation of Moontower, Abdelmessih’s platform designed to help investors understand whether options are cheap, expensive, or inappropriate for a given thesis.

This episode is less about “what to buy” and more about how to think—about risk, information, and the difference between being right and making money.

🔑 Three Key Takeaways

1️⃣ Options Markets Are the True Information Market

Stock prices are two-dimensional snapshots. Options markets, by contrast, embed the market’s full probability distribution—revealing not just where investors think prices may go, but how violently and under what conditions. This makes options markets a powerful lens for understanding hidden risks and asymmetric outcomes.

2️⃣ Good Decisions Can Still Lose—And That’s the Point

Drawing parallels between poker and trading, Abdelmessih emphasizes that outcomes are noisy, even when decisions are sound. Professionals focus on expected value, risk sizing, and repeatability, not short-term wins or losses. This mindset is critical for surviving low-signal environments like financial markets.

3️⃣ Prediction Markets and Volatility Thinking Will Matter More

Markets aggregate information better than opinions. From CEO resignations to geopolitical outcomes, prices often reveal consensus faster—and more accurately—than pundits. Understanding volatility, probability, and conditional outcomes will become increasingly important as prediction markets and derivatives continue to evolve.

⏱️ Timestamped Chapters

00:00 – Why investing is emotional, not rational

01:15 – Kris Abdelmessih’s career path: SIG, commodities, Parallax

05:10 – From Cornell to trading floors: curiosity as a career catalyst

24:30 – Poker, probability, and Bayesian thinking at Susquehanna

29:20 – Why being “right” doesn’t matter in markets

37:00 – Market making vs. portfolio management: different risk shapes

43:00 – Trading oil, gas, and the chaos of pit trading

48:00 – Why specialization is both powerful and dangerous

58:30 – What Moontower is—and why most investors misuse options

1:02:00 – How options reveal hidden distributions in stock prices

1:08:00 – Prediction markets, truth, and market-based consensus

 
More on Kris Abdelmessih
Kris Abdelmessih on Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristopher-abdelmessih-63b1b1/
Moontower.ai - https://www.moontower.ai/
Moontower Substack - https://moontower.substack.com/

 #OptionsTrading #MarketStructure #ProbabilisticThinking #Volatility #RiskManagement #BehavioralFinance #PredictionMarkets #InvestingMindset #FinancialEducation #InsightIsCapital