Arthur, Your winebibberous writings seem to point out emotion in your trading that may very well put you in a penultimate position. I'm sure you are a very ebullient person. However, I feel that your superabundant use of alcohol is creating an unencumbered state of mind and body making you feel proficuous. Your perfidious writings about yourself tend to make me feel that your trading account is less than auspicious.
I have not read the Alchemist. That's Paul Cohelo right? I've actually been meaning to read that book for a while. Why do you suggest it? It's fair to consider him mad, and I certainly don't care that much if Jack doesn't have a penny or is a multi-millionaire. I simply don't want to go that route. I don't idealize nobody, certainly not complexity, and never place any stock in perfection. Give me shit, piss, blood, and dirt. I do, however, take an interest in how people think and why people do what they do. As I said in the past, the minds that people bring to the task of living their lives is interesting to me. I think there are a lot of paths, and multiple ways to make money. I don't really look at S/R; others do. So it goes. So that said, it doesn't seem healthy to me for anyone to be really obsessed with a person, good or bad, to the degree that Jack seems to elicit here.
Let me just say that my system development and testing and trading prove to my satisfaction that not much of an edge over randomness is required to exceed the performance of random entry. Like your one-minute timing, an edge is a razor's edge. What I found harder than anything else in trading was to instantiate Mark Douglas' teachings in my trading "character", if there is such a thing. Took me nearly ten years. And I still struggle with destructive impulses every day.
agree. the setups are not as important as managing risk and managing the trade. most will never understand that. too bad for them. i've had some great winning streaks and some not so great streaks. after reading a several trading psych. books, including Mark Douglas, i finally got a coach to help me maintain the mind-set that helps me make money. best decision i ever made. it helped me actually do what the books suggest.
You bastard! You sent me to the dictionary on winebibberous and proficuous! Both delightful words! But should you ever be tempted to coin a word, never do so without the gold to back up your currency. As to my own bibbering, I am a Southerner born and ill-bred. We have a tradition we call "just sippin'!" which in today's parlance means to keep a buzz on.
Not sure I quite agree that the setup is not as important. At the end of "Zone" he says something like "Take a profitable system and follow it." That's like saying to an urban cook who wants to make soup, "Take one chicken." Man, I looked all over the fucking place for that profitable system to follow. Had to invent the accurst thing meself.
Ah, I see. That's the kind of insight I was hoping you would not deliver. The pain that came with a decaying edge when I was reading the tape and specialist behavior was difficult. Market "themes", (trending, chop, etc.) are usually clear after the fact of course, but they're fixed tendencies for the most part. What I have works quite well to capture imbalanced moves (perfectly for days like today) although identifying chop is difficult for me systematically and requires discretion. But it's the realization that changing the entry by one 3 minute bar drops the win ratio by 20% that unnerves me. The razor thin margin reminds me of how easily that difficulty can return. I unequivocally identify with the daily destructive impulses unfortunately.
Hey Samsara You seem well balanced, well done. Many are not.I was just trying to save you money if you were going down the Jack H route. Yes thats right Paul Cohelo.Make sure you get it. All the best John
Arthur, is it true that you invented gonzo journalism and Hunter S Thompson stole your writing style while you were out shooting with him one day? Runningbear
Many thanks John, I'll be sure to read it now. And wish I were balanced. Only hope for that is meditation and Buddhism. If I could just get off my ass...