Part 3... I'm bored again and I'm going to rant from a new perspective. Still personally undisciplined... mechanical in trades. I smoke cigarettes, drink alot, and love women and can't trade size under discretion... but can do size with systems. ... yeah... I'm really bored...
Does having an optimal psychological state guarantee success in trading or any other? Quick Answer: YES Now... how do you reach that point? Do you go through some NLP or some other way to reach it? I'm really skeptical about that. I truly believe that you can't intentionally reach that state. It's like a man trying to understand woman. We are not them and we will never be the other ( well physically you can but that still doesn't make you a woman... you can only look like one... ). I think that's the same with trading. You can only know what an orange tastes like until you've tasted it. It might be a deal with "Trading Coaches". They give you ways to understand what an orange tastes like. They can have you taste a lemon and say it's a little sweeter. But a mind can only assume and imagine. It might prepare you to identify the taste of an orange when you do have it. That might be the best they can do. So... under my limited logic, you need to trade successfully before you gain the successful state of mind. You have be able to do what is required to be successful before you are in it... Sounds weird... "Trading in the Zone" is just a resultant of cumulative experiences. But knowing is better than not. Being able to pinpoint an experience is important. Pressuring and "trying" to be someone which you assume and imagine to be is just a waste of time. It just causes stress and makes you blind from what you really need to do, make money trading... Personally, it's a good sign when you forget about all that psychology BS and just trade. You just look back and say, "Hey... I've got something relative to what Mark Douglas says"... and then forget about it the next minute. It might be better and faster if you don't even think about trading psychology. Just find an assuming edge and trade it. Know the nature of the edge and trade it. Don't trade it if you don't feel like it. Miss a good opportunity that you didn't want to take. Regret it. Make a trade you didn't feel like taking and be right. Embrace it. Why does learning from your experience in life, which is working out because we're still alive, be different from how we learn to trade?
Ahhh.... another Wednesday... it's freagin' cold in Chicago and, again, I'm bored my ass off so I'll write another entry in my journal. Maybe something about edge.... but also about Gann Analysis. I kinda left off with my last set of journal with trying to computerizing Gann Analysis as a trading system. Well... I had some interesting conclusions. To be straight out... that shit doesn't work. LOL... but doing so made me a better Gann "Analyst" but also a better Gann "Trader". As any programmer starts, you need to clarify what you're doing. I did it and tested it... and it didn't have edge. I was going through the results and telling myself, "This trade is good, this trade is bad." What started off with a 150 line system soon started becoming 300, then 1000... increasing exponentially. Eventually, I was curve-fitting the results of the combinations of techniques. Honestly, I didn't want to deny that Gann Analysis didn't have edge in itself. Or let me say... how I percieved what Gann Analysis is, didn't have edge. Well... after a few months of trying to find the Holy Gann Grail. I just accepted the fact and changed how I percieved what Gann is. New conclusions from statistics and eventually I got to put all those together and reached a higher understanding of what Gann Analysis is... Anyways... so what about others? There's an ever going debate between system traders and discretionary traders. Some use moving averages crossovers and system traders know that they don't have edge in itself. I've had this but why do people take their trading style so personally? Traders let go of their attachment towards trades as they move on but I guess their attachment moves toward their trading style. Traders start off having a fear of losing a trade. They move on but start having a fear of losing edge. Soon, they let that go and move onto fear of losing their creativity... and so forth... I guess these are steps you have to take or you just choose to stay in. But don't get me wrong, technically, system trading does have limits. The human brain is the most efficient piece of hardware ( maybe that might be also fear of denial toward human intelligence ) . I've traded using discretion to a relatively successful level. ( again... relatively ) There are feels that you get that I couldn't understand... but anyways... Open Mind and Acceptance is always good. ... Always has been good to me
another 0 value rant journal from you. if you're bored why dont u go look at some porn sites instead.
I found the anti-psychology post to be the most insightful thing I have read on ET this year. Keep it up gann!
Edge can be a lot of things... But it all comes down to knowing what you are doing. I think a lot of traders just sit on front of the screen and start analyzing the methodology rather than trade the market. They're trying to find something when they have to be reacting. It might be something like, "Oh... I've seen this pattern... I think it'll work, let me trade it..." They lose money and get lost with what they initially intended to do. It's largely lack of discipline but also a lack of clarity in what they do. But to be honest... how can you have confidence and be disciplined if you don't have clarity? Just what Van Tharp says, first you need to have a plan. Mark Douglas says, you need to find a high probability edge. Before you learn to react, you have to know what to react towards.
WD, have you shared even ONE specific edge on ET in all of your 1700 posts? Au contraire... you've taken special care to make sure you didnt........... Instead you go around spewing foolishness out of boredom and trivialities like the ones above.....