I trade like I play golf ?

Another example of the similarities – you hit the ball into the woods – now what do you do next ?

The percentage play is to hit it out sidewards and take your punishment on the chin – and aim to make bogey, or maybe even par.

But I’m guessing 80% of most hackers (including me) will attempt the miracle 150 yard shot through the middle of the bushes/trees because they see a little 5 foot channel through. Hope reigns supreme.....

This is the trading equivalent of hoping your loser turns into a winner when everything tells you it has well and truly curled up its toes. You may even move your stop to give that hope a little longer……versus taking a small loss, admitting your wrong, and move on to the next trade.

 

Interesting comparison. You are right about golf to an extent. My point though is in golf it matters greatly what happened to those 15% of bad shots. There is a huge difference in missing a fairway slightly and hitting it deep into the woods.

 

I remember one of my golf rounds that had the potential to be a lot more:

I was one under on the front side. Then, Par, Eagle, Birdie, Birdie..to start off the back nine. All of a sudden, I am 6 under with 3 holes to play.

Then I hit it to 2 ft on # 16, and I am scrambling to find out what the course record is..

Thats when the whole thing started to unravel. I missed a gimmie on the 16th, hit it into the water on the 17th, and made a bogey on the last hole which was supposed to be an easy par 5 which I usually birdie.

I ended up with 3 under. Which should've easily been 8 under had I made my birdie putt on 16th and made the birdie on the 18th par 5 like I usually do.

This really reflects my trading. I usually am up a lot going into the afternoon, and I end up blowing it all, and give trades a bit more room and I end up giving it all back to the market.

 

Well said, and I totally agree. Since recovering from an injury, I've been hitting long irons off the tee instead of driver. Why? I'm staying out of the trees and not spending time hacking out. Grinding it out, if you will. What is the result? I've become a better putter to shave strokes for lack of distance. The driver will come in the future, as for now, it is all about preserving a score.

Evertime I go to the range, I think of the simlarities between golf and trading...excellent thread!

 

JGF,

Cheers.

I couldn't use a driver or a 3 wood for the first 8 years of my golfing life - every time I touched them this John Dalyesque swing appeared out of the blue and I hit every other fairway but my one.

My Ping 1 Iron kept me going during those dark years

 

The books 'Trading in the Zone' and 'The Inner Game of Golf' are interchangeable. Anybody who trades and plays golf will know what I mean. Both disciplines require great self knowledge, technique and confidence which can only be acquired through hours of constructive practise and a passion to conquer all personal demons. It seems to me that trying to play a hole as if one is Tiger Woods is as foolhardy as an inexperienced trader(less than five years) trading as if one is a master trader. However in golf as in trading I have experienced days when I am truly "in the zone"where playing the shots I visualise and taking the trades which are all winners appear to be an effortless skill. While I learn much from these rare experiences I learn more from identifying and recognising where my faults lie..

 

Ok here is another – less psychological maybe but pretty close.

I love my Ping clubs almost as much as I love Esignal.

I started off with a crappy set of beginner golf clubs, as we all do, but when I bought my full set of Ping clubs (on my second set now) it gave me much more confidence to get to it. It also said to me I couldn’t blame the clubs anymore it was now all down to my swing.

I’m a pretty tall guy and having the Ping custom fit service at the Ping factory in the UK is pretty cool. Everything is customised to your grip, stance, swing type etc.

Now many of my golfing friends go one of two ways:

1) Go to the local discount centre and spend $300 on a set of clubs, bag, shoes, 100 golf balls, trolley etc etc. To be honest I’m sure its lucky dip whether the clubs suit them

2) Have two sets of club (or maybe more), 5 putters, 3 drivers and always the latest model

The trading equivalent for me is Esignal – now I know there are a lot of Esignal haters out there and I haven’t used much else so I am probably on thin ice here - but here goes.

Esignal gives me confidence, I’ve customised it to my ‘game’ and I can tweak it painlessly.

The other exaggerated trading software extremes are the following:

1) Yahoo/Quote type packages – cheap and cheerful but flaky at times and not easily customisable. I have total respect for the guys making money trading with these and I know there are good traders doing so.

2) The 4 monitor, 20 window per screen type of trading setups, with 2 second charts etc. To me more is less in so many ways – but I guess that is personal preference.

The last analogy is that when I drive my BMW car I just feel 100% confident and comfortable with the thing. Trading and golf are hard enough as it is that having tools that give you that little extra confidence edge is going to be a good investment in the long term.

 

I'm just happy to shoot a bogey round, and trading I'm just happy to lose less than 1% on a position....


....in the end I'm just happy