Agreed. I call it semi art. Trading or any business is basically a number game and fundamentally a psychological game. Its both. Since most people are more analytical oriented i keep reminding on the art part than the numbers. This guy seems to be a genius for me because he is able to see the patterns by just looking at the numbers instead of chart. My mind cannot make pattern out of numbers. I purely rely on chart to see the patterns.
Maturity is what you define it as. Let it run until stopped out---Let it run until there is a reverse signal---Let it run to a predefined target etc. ---But always let trade run to maturity with your full position on. Scaling doesn't outperform over the long haul.
When you use words like "be creative", doesn't that take a degree of simplicity out of the process? When you say "most challenging part is defining what is favorable condition", doesn't that remove a chunk of simplicity from the process of trading? I very much agree with creativity being part of trading, but my creative accomplishments took a lot of time, sweat and sometimes tears to get there...NOT SIMPLE AT ALL! I only ask these questions for the newbies...for their own clarity of course, but I'm also curious about all this simplicity talk. Once again, trading can be simple (how could I say otherwise), but I'm sure there are examples out there of traders who use more complexity and make higher rewards for that complexity. My own example is this: My very best setup is not that complex, so I would say it looks pretty simple now, but only because I'm aware of it now...but it took me years to see it and included a lot of creativity to discover it...that doesn't sound simple to me. Here's something simple: buy low and sell high...it will make you rich!
Maturity is what you define it as? What do you say to a trader who does exactly what you say (let trade run to maturity/2% max loss on ea. trade), but has been averaging a 3% gain for the last 5 years because they have a 20% win rate? Would you say the trader needs to improve his/her "run to maturity" method? That he/she needs to try harder and get more creative? If yes, then things are now getting more complex..aren't they? Is this trader (3% annually) considered a successful trader...I don't think so...what would you say?
Well said Creativity is a simple process of learning something without fear of doing mistakes. The word "creativity" is unfriendly to most people. The psychology behind this discomfort is that people have "fear of failure" which prevents them to try something new or learn something new. Creativity is a spirit of learning by doing mistakes. Creativity means true learning. People learn things in such a way that they will not fail in the process of learning. Which simply means they chose to learn something within their ability and wont push themselves beyond for the fear of failure. This is not true learning. Creativity is a very very simple process of learning through mistakes. People have tremendous fear of failure. And avoid to push their limits. Creativity is simple. Fear of failure makes it look complex, unwanted, unachievable or not for me stuff. Fear of failure makes learning complex. Creativity means overcoming that fear of failure and learning with free will. Trading is really simple. Unlearning is not so simple. Because it needs creativity to unlearn which means overcoming the fear of failure and going beyond the existing skills. Creativity means pursuing our intuition and insights. Every person has intuition and insights. Which means everyone is potentially creative . Fear of failure is stopping people to pursue their intuition. Theoretically speaking creativity is simple. Yet human psychology makes it practically tough and time taking process. Thats why learning some basic psychology and philosophy may help traders. I don't shy to talk about them.
I challenge you to understand (if you haven't already) the Myers-Briggs personality type science (google it). I believe the theory behind it and have been testing it in real life for about 20 years now. Basically, we all have an innate preference that we are born with and tend to be good at. One example is introversion...you can't change it...good or bad...yes, you can improve it and be more extroverted, but you will never be a "pure" extroverted person. So, the qualities and faults of introversion are yours...for good. Intuition (theoretical) and sensing (the five senses preference)...you're either good at one or the other. Intuition dominant is basically the right brain creativity you tend to repeat in your posts frequently. A small % of the population has this natural ability. Like i said before, people can always improve, but only a small % can be like Einstein, Musk, Newton, Ben Franklin, etc. My point is...if you tell a left brain sensing dominant type person (like ISTJ) to get creative, they may take you up on that only so much. In theory, the ISTJ type has a strong preference for data, facts, details, and more of a "practical" approach. Basically, you can't expect everyone to get incredibly creative...it's just not a natural preference for most types of personalities. I know this science is controversial because people don't like to be labeled, classified, or categorized like this, but I know it's pretty accurate. I also know that many people can fit in as "tweeners"...they can exhibit preference/ability in both aspects that should be opposite of each other, but I have found when you look closely enough they still maintain dominance in one or the other. I've been trying to get people to be more creative my entire life...a lot of people just refuse to go "there"...Myers-Briggs explains this very well. I know a creative/intuitive "type" person immediately when I see them...they tend to ask more questions when I offer something speculative or theoretical in nature...sensing types get very bored or get a look of confusion. Check out the Myers-Briggs formula and see what you think!
I totally agree with a little reservation. I am an old ontology student, who studied and practicing "way of being", an ancient science of personalities and abilities. Ontology is an ancient science taught by Zen practitioners through out the history. I learnt ontology from some of them. Ontology can be seen as the mother/root of modern psychology. Beyond ontology and psychology, there is something called purpose of life, which is also part of Zen teachings. A person may have one or more of them in his life span. The purpose of life can be something in the early stage of a man and can change later. Purpose of life is more powerful than left brain, right brain theory. In other words purpose of life is the "cause" and the left/right brain orientation is the "effect". Suppose if a person's purpose of life is to pursue something which needs a left brain personality then he may adore such a personality, consciously or subconsciously. He may either pursue it till his retirement or pursue something different in the middle. There are chances that a person can have two different brain orientations due to two unique purpose of life, pursued sequentially. And there can be a transition period of being both left/brain oriented. It happened to me. I started my career as a programmer. I never considered myself as a creative personality till my late 30s. I was a very analytical, logical person and skilled programmer. If i would have taken a personality test it would have shown that I am an analytical personality. In early 40s I started pursuing sports coaching, trading and spiritual teachings. I shifted my career from software project manager to a trader and saw a transformation in my personality from analytical to creative. The purpose of my life was programming in the early part of life. Now it is trading and other creative stuff. Previously it was left brain and now i am right brain oriented. So the hierarchy is like this... 1. Purpose of life 2. Career 3. Left/right brain orientation 4. Personality Of course i have no proof for this except from my personal experience. I believe that if a trader's purpose of life is to pursue trading, then he will sooner or later nurture creativity. On the other hand if trading is not his life purpose then he may stick to his analytical personality which in my opinion will yield less. Finding the purpose of life is the primary challenge in anyone's life. If a person fails to find his purpose, then life may not be vibrant and lively. For some people finding the life purpose may be difficult. Best way is to do some meditation. Note : Purpose of life is a natural phenomenon and should not be tampered using modern psychology or other stuff. If tampered it can bring discontentment and depression in life.
Interesting discussion Once i was invited by friend of mine who is doing his PhD in sociology to come to the University.And he showed me this sets of drawings nicely displayed on the wall and asked me to give my interpretation of them.They can bee seen as two or sometimes three different things at the same time.I said i see this and his reply is i see this instead. To one picture his answer was nobody ever gave me this answer,but he agreed it can be seen as i described it. And this answer made me feel proud.It was the best thing from all that talk. You talk about this left brain,right brain types.I almost every time fall asleep on the right side.I can on the left but it takes a lot of time.
Before you start any kind of trading, what part of the consumer population do you belong to? Be honest now... http://www.marketwatch.com/story/on...e-coming-up-with-an-emergency-2000-2017-03-20
10 YEAR RULE I am kind reading this with my jaw dropped,wish i knew about this when going got tough and though got going. Would have less gray hair