I think his original comments were aimed at automated or mechanical systems. Thus, as soon as we start talking about maintaining focus, discipline, market experience et cetera as imprtant parts of the edge...we are talking about someone that's not using an automated or mechanical system. Simply, it's a discretionary trader regardless if its intuition or rule-base. Mark
What is an edge? Derick Jeter has it what is it? It's very hard to explain. Some rare folks can look at the market and actually feel some undercurrents of civility and form- they can make a plan of action and see it through, they approach each day and each week with an open tablet la rosa (mind) and whatever imprint is made by research we, (oops) they go in that direction. Investing is surfing in a tsunami. Once on the scent of an idea or angle then traditional weapons are used, TA, common sense, insider buying, major holders, a reason for movement,,, then every idea is hopefully tracked and watched... price points are established... entry areas and even exit areas are contemplated and the trade is made. As to the question how many of the day traders who pop and drop the days hot idea, how many of them make money? Well it's an distressing answer- to some degree I think they all do-- it's unbelievably easy if all you care about is five cent moves. At the end of the day, the end of the qtr and the end of the year, a proper investor with themes and understanding of the market as a whole will do a lot better. My best guess is over the years I have achieved approximately a 73% hit ratio. 73% of my trades achieve 20% or better returns every year despite usual market conditions. What of that other 27%? Well those break evens & losses have to be monitored carefully-- when I let them achieve root status and they dig deep into a portfolio and stay around my overall return goes down. I explained the Hot Hand fallacy because it has great importance in investing. You always ride the hot hand. Imagine you are on a basketball court watching me and there is no set number of shots I can take. you watch me clang a few off the rim as I warm up and limp around and then slowly as the old football muscles open up and the sense of numbness in my finger tips leaves for a while, the ball begins to rotate, the touch comes back and suddenly swish swish swish... it is during this slice of the event that you want to bet heavy on me. When the first shot comes off the fingertips and feels wrong... it's important to STOP> By controlling the number of shots (trades) and by shooting more (trading more) when you have the hot hand you will assemble a year's worth of hot runs and hopefully be sitting on the sidelines when you are cool. In investing it plays to have Warm hands. Are your hands warm Jack? Now personally I think it's rude to ignore people and put people on dumb down levels or what not; I can ignore my wife sometimes when she is in the room but only when she is asking me to do something I don't want to do... which brings us back to Jack. Yes he makes no sense! And in a bullying sort of grumpy old way. I have a friend who works with the FBI on character mock ups -- profiling-- of terrorists and such I gave him your post so I could get a better feel of you. Even he was slightly stumped. His name isn't Jack Hershey he told me. He is hiding his name; the first name is something else with a J most likely. Probably John. He lives a life of a solitary reader and writer, his expertise is something to do with human waste. Or Poop. There is a very strong sense of shit in his writings to you... BS a lot of that but actual human feces too. He is the kind of guy who might start a calamity and then profess to be a trained first responder. You would NOT want this guy in your local fire dept. Or monitoring water supplies!- Hope this helps. Now that's not much of a profile granted but that's what Ive got. As to John/Jacks's advice to dear Zhang. It was wrong headed and mean. Zhang is a good man and he has gone through great wrongs to get to where he is now. All he asks is some silly question about maintaining an edge-- he was hoping you would say green tea and the TV down low, so that he could respond with his better ways. Please see the enclosed video to get some idea of the beauty and art in this form of investing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXnD956hF6w Jack you asked me if I meditated, no strike that you told me that I did not, a typical first responder mistake... What you should know is you are never too old to wash your soul, to clean your kidneys or learn an energy punch. I have done all of this I have completed all the WU SHU moves of the deer. Today in fact I see Master Lee for an energy transfer. Master Lee used to be a fighter and now he wears white. He is a healer now and he transfers his healing energy to you the patient> I hope the tingling in my feet ebbs away and the lack of sensation in my fingertips melts faster than the snow on a hot day. May my organs respond to the claps and may I leave on that table paper all my vile poisons. May the earth rotate and the oil well be closed. May little children all over the world enjoy peace. May markets go up and may birds sing... may I be in that frame of mind after Master Lee places me into a deep meditation and rubs my third eye. Oh how lucky am I this man is still alive. RESPECT JACK you have to know how to give it when the time is right. I could teach you much about life and investing if you would like. I would gladly show you the way. All you have to do is ask. Open the door Jack, do not be afraid. You needn't attack a snake when you can walk away. Can you stack three tomatoes slap them with your palm and only break the middle one? I can't either but it's that kind of intensity and focus we all should be striving for. " Acts " are meant top be gotten together. Lets start this new fine day with some simple exercises by my man Zhang. And next time you want to be mean to a man from China, think twice Jack. And then think again, the mind is a terrible thing to waste. ~stoney
traderzhangSan, obviously if the system is not making money you turn it off - no sense in losing money. Most systems work well in the conditions they were developed/written and will need changing/optimizing from time to time. Its pretty easy really - when your P&L isn't what it used to be you simply look at your accounts. If the VIX spikes and you get tricked into positions due to increased vol then change the conditions or shut it down. Hopefully you have a few systems that do different things rather than betting all on one system.
The OP says: "it is well known some strategy work well in some market condition while not working in other condition." This poor statement requires that a GIVEN market strategy user of ANY strategy "KNOW THE MARKET CONDITIONS DURING THE USE OF A STRATEGY" Strategies that require the user to know the market conditions of use are an unbearable handicap for most potential traders and ceretainly must prevent all potential traders from using the strategy if other less or unrestricted strategies are available. MESSAGE TO THE OP: DO NOT NOW OR EVER USE ANY SUCH STRATEGIES IN THIS CLASSIFICATION. USE THE PRECEPT YOU STATED TO ELIMINANT ALL SUCH STATEGIES FROM CONSIDERATION. The OP solicites help with a contemporary situation he is experiencing. He says: "if you are a profitable trader and you strategies no longer make money, what will you do?" By recognizing that the strategies no longer work, the OP can recognize to not use the strategies and that they fit into a category that they do not work in the current market witch is the Depression phase of this Depression which is the period of the Depression parallelogram following point 3 of the Depression. this period has four separate sub categories of conditions that are well known to all TA practitioners who use parallelograms as containers of market trends. At this time all four categories are alternating according to their characterisitcs. So as an observer of another potential trader it may be determined that the OP who is no long making profits, is a victim of the market's continually changing sub nature in a market that is in its final multi year move from the established Right Trend Line and going on the long term way to failing to reach the contemporarily established Left Trend Line during the remainder of the current Depression, a long term market trend. The OP has two jobs to complete: 1. Remove capital from market risk. 1a. Maintain lifestyle by using the capital in non market applications and/or use wealth to maintain your lifestyle. 2. Learn to trade strategies that are independent of market conditions. 2a.Trade those strategies after they have been learned. To find the strategies needed, ask for them. Then associate with a local mentor that can transfer those strategies to you in a short period of time. Transference is a process. An convenient example of a means of transference is to use Windows daily by typing a 9 digit code to bring up the mentor's screen to see and duplicate his trades in real time for a portion of the day determined by your attention span and daily profits. Why does a person want to trade only strategies that are independent of market conditions? This is a critical thinking logical conclusion that is reached by discarding the consideration of strategies that are market condition dependent. A person can choose any strategy type he wishes. It takes two seps: 1. define the character of the strategy, and 2. Ask for and obtain the strategy and the associated training via a learning process. Human psychological conditions are are associated with various types and categories of trading strategies. The clearest divisions (as in Alexander's Method) relate to information theory. CW uases the half of IT that is called "Probabililistic". The emotional characteristics associated with this half are well known to be anxiety, fear and anger. The other half is named "Non Probabilistic Theory". It has non overlapping emotional characteristics. Most people find that they cannot change from one division of information theory to another. Most people are very dominant in their use of one division or another. I do not mentor people who cannot choose the non probalilistic operational division of information theory. An interesting example of information theory is coding Quant based financial ATS's. The crutches used are even more interesting. My prior post addressing the dilemma of the OP, addressed his critical thinking processes. Critical thinking usually resides in the non probabilisitc division of information theory where most of logic resides.
blah blah blah. jack when i come back lets see how a bunch of your ideas work out. Just leave them here for the people and don't charge for it. let's see what you can do, consider this an audition. I gave out 13 picks. I'm sure you will demure here as all teachers do when called upon to actually do something. But blast away. I would be willing to start fresh with new names when I come back if you like. No pressure, lets just see who can make the folks the most money. After all that's what this is all about-- a great ET post should have the following. (a) a point of view (b) a sense of humor (c) an actual idea or two that works for ET'ers and makes them money! It seems that (c) is the one most have trouble with. Jack Hershey show us your " C " and don't come back with E Mini mumble jumble and I only trade corn oil... companies Jack, industry, America, China, Brazil... that little thing called the stock market. Let's see what you got. If not for yourself, if not for me, if not for all these poor ET'ers who have listened to your ramblings for so long... if not for them- DO IT FOR ZHANG! Good Luck ~stoney
The list is picked up and conditionally added to an Excel which has additional columns that provide timing details. As the daily RTL's pass the one pager entitled "unusual volume" is used in conjunction with tiles on daily, then 30 min then 5 min for taking the entry or exit ACTION dictated on the columns of the Excel list. Picking up the list means going to a site and clicking on an icon. Then the list appears. The rules of ET apply here. You are not familiar with the ET rules and the IRS is in the same boat, too, apparently. Ask the management to waive the ET rules and then any number of people will post the lists, the Excel Universe and their consequent trades. The people who share the duties of prepping and maintaining the list, send it out by email to those who do the work. As an example, I suggested to the OP to do an action. What he then gets is a web sit with live trading daily. The daily debriefing which is 4 to 15 pages. For stocks he become part of the work crew and he does his part and gets all the info from that team. Each week he can pick up an audio of a four hour meeting of the group. The chat on that audio is from viewing a 52 inch screen which displays the topic at hand from any of the lap tops selected than are all around the hugeconference table in the center of that room. Often powerpoints are handed out before and after the meetings for future uses. Congratulations on your contribution of 13 whatevers. For me, the first 53 years of handouts have been the most fun. So get the list and the Universe and the prints of the trading results; why have you been so shy so far?????
Dear Jack- pardon me for being behind the times I don't excell or spreadsheet; I ran a retail store for ten years in NYC with nothing but napkins as records-- went under of course-- I can barely type at a keyboard and I only use Apple. I am deathly afraid of technology and have very bad luck with it. Every single time I try and download a porn thingy I get a virus. I might as well be having sex outside the marriage. Every single time I follow a link to a investing site someone tries to sell me something or fly a banner in my face. It's just really much easier if you would leave a small portfolio so we can track your picks. Now it's easy. Just look out into the future and tell us which stocks to buy to make money. It couldn't be any clearer. We don't need middle men who shuttle out messages and clandestine lists. You may deride my 13 whatevers but those are my babies, my stocks, I have in my retirement and trading accounts, my research and my reasoning. I gave a piece of me. Feel free to go back over the older posts and you will see many many more. I never stop. If you give enough free ideas away and don't feel like people are thankful you stop doing it. That's what happened a year ago. Lets go through this again. No timing details! that's the ULTIMATE COP OUT. I hate these mongers who say that looks good if it does this or that... it either is a buy or it isn't. Also unusual volume is of no use to me. It takes several green sticks of OBV to get me interested. There is no exit unless you sell. You cannot sell unless you have actually bought something. I fear I may be talking to someone who just paper trades, if that's the case I understand your need for so many levels of confusion... just the symbols and names and a very brief synopsis WHY. I've done that for each of my whatevers certainly you can too. Can't you? I NEVER CLICK ON ICON"S & never go to a site! That's just asking for your identity to be stolen; or a cookie placed in your machine. Once again it's just a few stocks, a well rounded portfolio, you don't need rules to do that! This constant use of the phrase Excel Universe really freaks me out. It makes you sound like a robot-- what if you did not have your Excel Universe... oh how did man survive without his Excel... It's rubbish. Just like cell phones. You need people to prep and maintain your picks. Boy let the words sink in Jack. they sound crazy. Yea I have a couple college interns here too-- hold on one is holding up a sign now- No No No DGIT until after this correction. OP. You use this a lot-- Original Poster? Why not call him Zhang and show some respect? Zhang has gone through an awful lot and he doesn't need to be confused further. Hey Zhang go Excel a button and hit it and some folks will tell you about the market and then ask them for a stock pick and then I don't know... The guy needs some money, he doesn't need to go to a web site that watches stocks go up and down-- he needs to start using an edge to make some $'s. I gave Zhang that edge if he chose to look. You would have Zhang enter a Star Trek set! each week he can listen to 4 hours of break eveners postulate on things on a 52 inch screen. SHOOT ME NOW! A huge conference table, a power point a topic at hand... and that topic is.... oh stop just some damn picks. Shortie gave me grief for explaining my research and style you have us walking through a Get Smart opening sequence just to witness a lot of nothing. Powerpoints handed out! I've got enough junk mail thank you... JUST SOME PICKS!!!!! Somehow this all feels like a big stall and we will never get those picks.~si
But some of us are lucky if we have found just one girl friend! If she quits putting out our only recourse is to massage her until she give in.