How to know when you've "made it" as a trader

I am blessed with excellent pattern recognition skills. In reading a recent conversation between Xspurt and Pigsky in the “Simplicity in TA” thread, a pattern suddenly jumped out at me, a pattern that’s taken some time to unfold, yet it appears quite solid and has led me to hypothesize how you can tell when you’ve truly made it as a trader:

When an ET member insinuates that you’re a truck driver.

I know, I know, I know what you’re thinking… you’re thinking “That’s not f*ckin’ pattern recognition! That wacky Australian truck driver, NoDoji (a.k.a Anekdoten), is suffering the ET equivalent of seeing the virgin Mary in a tortilla!”

I respectfully ask that you cast aside your prejudice for just a few moments while I present my case…

I) Recently, an ET member notices a consistently profitable futures trader posting regularly in the P/L thread and the following conversation transpires:

Now, notice below how ET members have insinuated that a full 60% of these positively influential traders are truck drivers:

Jack Hershey isn’t among the alleged truck drivers; however, Jack Hershey had a major influence on my trading, so that places him a mere one degree of separation from me.

But wait! There’s more! Several respected ET members have highly recommended Acrary as a superior source of trading knowledge. And sure enough…

As you can see, we have ample enough evidence backing my hypothesis to get positive peer reviews in any well-respected trading journal, but there is yet further evidence presented recently from our dear Pigsky who posts:

I consider Bighog my mentor, and I know he’s a good trader because I spent over 500 hours on the phone with him trading over a 7-month period.

So, with that I rest my case, and I sincerely hope that all aspiring traders reading and posting on ET have the fortitude to put in the hard work necessary to reach a level of trading prowess that compels at least one of your fellow members here to insinuate you’re a truck driver.

Xspurt, I’ll miss all your excellent technical price action analysis, and would like to offer you what I’ve come to believe is the greatest compliment one ET member can give another:

I heard you’re freakin’ truck driver!



P.S. Bighog is not fat

 

LOL.... Until I moved to AZ my driver's license was in the truckdriver classification.

All our tractors were set up for city primarily rather than over the road. They were all tandem rigs with cab over cabins In the trade they were known as MAC puppy dogs. Our colors were British forest green and yellow.

A trailer handles 1200 laced tires @ 5 dollars a tire pick up fee. 15% of used tires go back into service by being recapped. We built loads to order and raised our price to recappers 25 cents per tire per shipment. Our graders would go to other warehouses to get recapable tires as well. When loaded they drove to a nearby truck stop to get their bill of lading, since we did not want other competitors to know our markets.

High school football linesmen cannot make it through an eight work day lacing tires; it is an art.

Selling into the recap market is more profitable than hauling tire outlet old tires. It takes two hours to load a custom recapable load.

At one time our corporation held the world's record for stored laced used tires (over two years of annual US production of new tires) You gave seen our tires on TV when one W. Va cove of them was set on fire by an arsonist from Baltimore. The fire had a net profit of under 100K after all fire fighters were reimbursed. At that time licensed, insured inspected trailers rented for 50 bucks a month. Flat beds were used to pick up OTR used tires (6 a load) which were 50 ply and on up. we sold them by good quarters to vulcanizers. Un-repairable tires were sold to the tugboat industry of which Moran is a good example on the East coast.

When I came to AZ I only retained my OTR equipment operator's licenses. Truckers rule. Owning the buyer/seller box in the string of boxes is the most profitable. Trucking companies usually own that box in any industry. Street smart has a real deep meaning it turns out.

footnote:

The real money is in converting used tires into #4 fuel oil. The yield per 22.4 pound tire is 2.4 gallons. The machi9nery operates off the grid as an energy feedback loop. The best shredders use 1/7 the energy of the nearest competitors.

 

Before I began day-trading, my ten-year career was a trucking operation that removed waste tires from anywhere they needed removal to the end streams of recap, shredding or recycled use such as go-cart track edges, etc.

I handled literally a million tires in my time... on the trucks, laced up and unloaded from the trucks. It was a world-class cardio & strength workout, while being paid for the effort. That niche industry opportunity got regulated out of existence here in NY for all but the huge operations, who were at the very core of pushing for such tightened regs to muscle small companies out.

If not for that, I'd probably have a dozen trucks right now and never did more than dabbled with trading. Funny how life takes its twists and turns.

Lord knows I never understood more than two words you posted about trading, but I do know trucks & tires talk

 

... and for all those who aren't... the real key patterns can be objectively measured and agreed upon by everyone who knows how to read strategic price

 

Nice thread, NoDoji, and I will get those videos up from Jack today. I am hosting a premium place on 4shared and I will keep it up so the next gen can download them and get the mental process going.

 

Welcome back 'NoD'! We miss your posts.

 

while I'm glad that you are back I remain highly skeptical about what he publishes in the P&L thread, those blotters /whatever you call them/ have no date, no time stamps on them/, he could've 'produced' them in one day while he was profitable and then publish them
under different dates.. I don't know why he does that this way / dolphins10/.. personally can't say whether he is profitable or not so statistically it'd be wiser to bet he isn't

 

NoDoji I wanted to thank you for your help. I've let go totally of my contrarian ways and am going with the trend in my trading.
Amazing to watch the bars print, and feel the joy of patience finally paying off.
Thanks!
Ian

 

Hi Ian,

You're welcome! I thank Bighog, Geez, and Al Brooks for turning on the lights for me. It took about another year before I removed my blindfold, but sure enough, when I did, there was indeed light!

Amazing to watch the bars print, and feel the joy of patience finally paying off.

I still feel this way daily. All it took was the foundation of a well-researched plan, something 95% of the aspiring traders I've spoken with don't have.

I had the pleasure of spending a few hours with a trader today who had done the work necessary to be consistently profitable. Although his plan is very different from mine, the end result is quite similar. Price action is price action, no matter how you slice it and the easy money is definitely found on the with-trend side of a rising or falling 20-bar moving average in your chosen time frame.

Look forward to seeing you at a truck stop sometime

 

I think it kid of bothers "her" she didn't get more out of her last "truckstop". everyone is on to you and nobody cares.

pretty funny you spend "500 hrs" with this trader, 500 hrs with that..

you still fade the 5min TL??

i would think after all that you'd have smthg better going on?