I've been thinking that finding and entering trades is like hunting. Hunting a wild animal for example. Taking a risk. Ive been thinking that exiting is like gathering - bringing in crops for example, taking profits. Some people, like me, are natural hunters, and make great entries but have more trouble with exits (people with attention deficit disorder are natural hunters - seeking change and action). Some people are better at exits, and get scared at entries. They are the gatherers - they like stability and growth. Any thoughts on the above? I know Jack Hershey commented on this once.
I agree a little bit with the hunter analogy, in the sense that generally speaking a person has two options in life (assuming that they aren't already wealthy at birth) - work for someone else, or take the risk of working for themselves.
good analogy, this is excatly how i treat my discretionary trading; im lying low in the grass like a tiger with bulging eyes watching the herds flow by, then when i see a weak prey within my grasp i POUNCE and grab that thing by the neck and dig my teeth in. i think trading is just modern day hunting, instead of having a spear i have a computer.
======= NZ; Actually an excellant comparison, in many ways. 1]Saw a hawk dive bomb on my bird feeder once,WOW what speed.It had observed the feeding place before. 2] Most game like markets moves best early & late; can move anytime. 3]Whitetail deer prefer what wildlife managers call,edge; the place where woods converge on a soybean /corn field 4] Hit rate on mechanical sporting clays for an olympic champ can be 98 or 99 out of 100; much ,much, much, lower on live gamebirds . Wisdom is the principal thing.
I can see the analogy when hunting for entries. But, staying in the trade and managing the position, well, that's where I think the reptilian part of our brains take over. This is the part of the brain that makes you want to cut the winner short, IMO an ingrained emotional response: get what I can NOW. Lack of patience and lack of discipline. Same with a loser but in reverse: don't get out NOW, wait to see if it turns around... After the entry my thought process is simple but difficult at the same time: - If I go neg then my anxiety for getting out grows until I either take a pre-emptive stop or walk away with a worst case stop in place. - If I go pos then I force myself to ignore my thoughts and I focus on moving my stop to the next logical price "decision" point. I guess you could compare this to zeroing in on the kill...
Thanks for the responses so far. And as for above - one could transform to a kill rather than gather mindset on exits though not sure it is the same emotionally (as have already taken the initial shot (entry)).
Your analogy suggests "food" represents "profit" and you must take risk to get it. This part is true. But your "gathering" analogy is false. Once the animal has the food, it eats it with little risk. Entering a trade is meaningless until you (or your trading system) incorporates an exit strategy for a profit or loss. In other words, the fusion of entering and exiting a trade represents the capturing of food for you to eat at your pleasure. All that talk about understanding entry without exit is the same as seeing prey as food and doing nothing about it.