Two odd things happened to me last night driving the 5 hours home from a weekend in Canada. First, in a blinding rainstorm, I saw a small blip in my headlights for a moment...I thought it was a leaf blown in the wind. My girlfriend squealed that I had just hit a frog! I still don't know if it was a frog or a leaf...but that may have been the end of a frog's life. If you fail at trading, and you manage your life well, I don't think you will perish as the frog (perhaps) did. Risk in trading doesn't have to be absolute. A few hours later, around 1 am, I was now on the freeway, about an hour from home. I was tired, but I had caffeine enough to keep going. I noticed something strange in front of me...the headlights on the approaching car appeared to be on my side of the divider. They were...it was a narrow miss. I had an opportunity to be both the giver and receiver of potentially fatal random events. Having been on both sides, I am not sure trading has alot to do with frogs and freeways. I mean, what smart frog hunts bugs on a freeway anyway? Just a thought or two...
Having been on both sides, I am not sure trading has alot to do with frogs and freeways. I mean, what smart frog hunts bugs on a freeway anyway? Just a thought or two... Some people might characterize this parable with: ES TRADER=frog MARKET=freeway Michael B.
Yes, but don't frogs belong in ponds? And traders in markets? And, relative to the parable, isn't the freeway merely an obstacle to cross from the frog's point of view? I don't see the connection, I suppose.
As a newcomer to trading, I for one am comforted by the idea that it's not the strategy that makes the trader -- that success has much more to do with discipline, money management, risk management and position sizing. (I'm reading Tharp right now, who's very big on that idea.) If, as some say, trading is 90% psychological, then isn't it possible for someone with good self-discipline, who has taken time to educate himself, and who's suffered many of the small defeats along the way, to shorten the time span necessary to becoming a full time, profitable trader?
"The most important rule of trading is to play great defense, not great offense" Paul Tudor Jones Of course one needs an offensive play book but it won't be worth much if good defense didn't preserve your capital.
Maybe, but I've yet to find anything that compares with trading and having position on that is just a little larger than you are used to, that all your systems scream should be running, but it just sits there refusing to budge, but hasn't gone against you either. It's decision time. Do you scratch or do you let it run (possibly for a loss now)? It's then that turning to other clues gives you the answer to scratch or ride it out, and that takes experience. In that circumstance, 2 minutes seems like forever, and 5 seems like eternity. Natalie
Now you've done it. It wasn't enough to compare trading with samurai warriors, zen masters, Tiger Woods or Kobe. No. Now trading is being compared with winning the Nobel Prize.
I tell you if some chick ever started screaming like that when I'm driving, there better be some homeless dude sticking out the windshield.