I like the court room analogy best. Could you convince a court you have an edge? Since im purely a systems trader.... its trivial. I have a pile of objective #'s I can show. But I still go through the emotional swings of watching it trade. Up, down, up down...aaaahhhh.... It was so much eaiser when all I did was buy and hold and never watch Then again...that never made me a dime peace axeman
Ohhh... don't get me into this... Well... there's not much to say about edge... but there's a few points... 1. Edge or mojo can just be an illusion you create relative to the market and your performance. I can well say, "My system's got mojo!" on a winning trade in the same way as, "I've got mojo"... 2. Mood and psychological inconsistancy comes from lack of clarity in what you do. I don't mean it only in a sense of trading rules or systematic conditions.... It's to have a solid state of mind in which you relate to the market, which in extension leads to rules and conditions. When I say solid, it doesn't mean static. 3. One more thing is I don't trade what I feel. This is regardless of systematic or discretion. Though, the feelings( irrational bias included) and emotions have some effect on what I do, I do have a core thinking process which minimizes the effect of feel or emotion, minimize not eliminate... who actually can...??? Thinking process meaning logic, rational, objective motivation, knowledge, risk diverse and etc.. But all the above comes from the acceptance of "what" you are... Not who... If someone asks me who I am, my answer is "Who ever you think I am" 4. Opposites are BS. Is the world black or white? 0 & 1 ? No, it's gray. It's rather pre-mature and stupid to say, "I'm going to fade" or "I'm going to do the opposite" The world, market, and people doesn't work that way. That is one reason trading system fade because of the nature of defining 0 or 1... It is a rather stupid nature of most people to only look at things as, "Good / Bad(Evil)", "Right / Wrong", "Win / Loss", "Strong / Weak" and other duality. There is a thing called quality. For example, let's say "I killed a man" ... that statement in itself is "Evil". But by adding why, "I killed a man to protect myself" ... OK... well that's not that "Evil" as the first statement... Then... "I was almost mugged by a guy with a gun and after a little struggle, he accidentally shot a guy walking by." ... another different conclusion to "Did you kill the guy? Would he have died if you didn't struggle with the mug? Who's fault is it? Mug or you?" etc. etc. For some reason, most guys in ET are accustomed to classifying any statement into 2s. I know Ying and Yang but... but do they call it YingYangism? No it's Taoism... The Tao is just everything and every part of us being in a gray area of both extremes. It is the symbolism of nature. // Before some unknowledgable Eastern Philosophy wannabe tries to debate me about Tao, make sure you read I-Ching and understand how it was derived from Taoism... ... So all in conclusion... What can a person do to lose all that??? Sheesh... I'm no vendor... why should I even give you that? But... a friendly advice is not to think about what most average traders think about. Kinda like "Don't worry, Be happy... but staying alert" *dunka dunk dunk* PS. bdixon??? Were you that stalker at the Eurex Meeting? I'm no guru... C'mon... You scare me... I'm only human...
You might just have been on the brink of learning something really valuable. Instead, it looks like you talked a lot of people out of giving you a hand.
i have found the visualization of executing winning trades is critical, futhermore having positive mental expectations of each trade is key to success in this business. ( after you have mastered the mechanics, ofcourse ) i am not talking about basic positive mental attitude stuff here, this is way beyond chanting nonsense, etc. you create what you dwell on. i know this may sound flaky, but i often KNOW the night before the trading day, exactly how i am going perform during the day. it seems uncanny, but i have experienced this multiple times. i try to place myself into the state of mind needed to access these feelings and am working on quantifying same ( if possible ) . surfer
by the way, how is the last part even possible? you can account for your utter lack of certainty in regards to future movements. you can account for the possiblity of extreme scenarios with 0.5% probability of occurring. you can account for the likelihood of insane swings, both for you and against you, over the course of a long trading career. you can be wise in knowing your limitations and accepting them. but how can you account for what you don't know? if you anticipate the potential, how is it still an unknown rather than an uncertainty? if you expect the unexpected, how is it still unexpected? Mark Douglas has some solid psychological insights, but a lot of his philosophical stuff is soft imo. I reacted in frustration to the post in part because the topic was already addressed and in part because the quote felt like a soundbite, a throwaway comment designed to elicit a reaction. "Always be prepared" is a boy scout motto. Ok fine, so what does that mean? Where is the critical thinking? Look before you leap He who hesitates is lost Listen to the sound of one hand clapping
You will find after a while that old trader has a lot to share. This thread is about edge trading as you told us. Edge trading may be a solution created by a class of people who do not trade to make money by using the full potential of what the market offers to them. Besy trader is what best trader looks like when to person typing it for your benefit doesn't have his finger slip slightly to the right accidentally. I have difficulty typing because I am old and my hands are now malformed and less than half my fingers work. A guy mistyped quoting a person you have a lot to learn from. Anyone serious about making money should pass on edge trading and all its associated band aids. How you get past it is going to be a tough haul. As yet you are not focussed on the fundamental things you need to deal with. For old trader to leave the thread as a consequence of your poor behavior is a major dissappointment for a lot of people. You need to shape up pronto.
Interesting. I try to focus on aligning emotions with expectations and reinforcing emotions with knowledge. The long term goal is to be so fully aligned that proper emotions are experienced naturally and effortlessly, with zero struggle. Oddly enough, part of the quest to eliminate struggle is learning an appreciation for losing trades as well as winning trades. For example: If losing trades didn't exist, winning trades could not exist. If a perfect system were available to you, it would be available to everyone else as well and thus worthless. If the markets were certain instead of uncertain, there would be no potential for exponential gains. If trading were easy instead of hard, there would be no financial or personal fulfillment in it. That sort of thing.
I have deep respect for OldTrader. That, however, was Oddtrader. I have also read both of Mark Douglas' books. If you would like to read the review of Trading in the Zone that I wrote for Amazon, I can post it here. The besy thing was a joke. That's not why I was actually annoyed with the post. I find it interesting, however, that you are defending the post on the assumption it was OldTrader who posted it. Psychologists did an interesting experiment a while back- they took a quote from Abraham Lincoln, put 'Karl Marx' at the bottom, and asked Americans what they thought of the statement. Then they tried the same thing in reverse. You can imagine the results. Respondents were more swayed by the name than the actual statement. Now I have nothing against OddTrader. If he made a quality point, I would have responded positively. It was the content of the post itself that I was annoyed with. I'm not sure what you're talking about re edge trading. I think our definitions of edge are completely different. All I meant by "edge" was the set of things that allow for a justified confidence and an ability to compete and win in the markets over the long term. I don't know what "Edge Trading" is. Are they a prop firm? Excuse my ignorance, I'm not a daytrader. I admire your willingness to stick up for someone you admire, as do I. However, I suggest you make judgments based on quality of posts rather than misread handle names. I meant no slight to the aged re the typo thing either. I type at more than 80 wpm and write pages worth of stuff every day. I'll probably have arthritis by 40. Hoping they'll have better drugs by then.