trading isn't as academic as reading a book or taking a course. markets are there to show people who they really are. markets tend to reward certain traits and punish others. the superior trader exhibits traits that the market god loves. the market god inflicts plague, famine and disease to traits it does not love. the markets will TEST you as a person. it will JUDGE you. at the end of the day, you will know who you are from your P&L. regardless of outcome, market is never wrong. if you fail, you are a failure. if you succeed, u are a success.
If the call was wrong then, by definition, the "feelings" that precipitated that call were not "right." I am just trying to clarify my position on your first point quoted above. I think we may be on a merry-go-round here. I'll step off now. Actually, I was referring to the fact that even my lowly trading method is probably not very amenable to computer coding. My earlier "gods" remark was not a reflection on programming. It was in response to your post on page 25 of this thread wherein you implied (or at least I inferred) that you cannot encode "feel." And while I agree, I was merely suggesting that it need not necessarily be "feel" in order for it NOT to be amenable to coding. I do not trade on "feel," and I suppose I should be envious of those who can do so successfully. Even so, I doubt that my approach could be encoded in full. (Most of my rules can be broken down specifically and numerically [if/then, etc.], but not all of them.) I may be wrong because I am not a programmer, but I am not comfortable enough discussing the specifics of how I trade with anyone in order to find out for certain.
I second that, I would like to see the drills. I just have a hard time understanding Grob's posts, although I genuinely believe he is helping people. In fact, I would be indebted if anyone could post a drill on execution, that's my biggest problem. Having moved from sim to real money, my execution has suffered.
Drills would actually do good. Maybe we could have the test sheet posted in the am with answers in the evening. Once every couple days could be a good tempo. New threads dedicated to certain lessons enabling easy historical referencing for future students. etc. Could be very useful.
I have no idea what you are trying to say. Are you saying that, when some guesses, based on "feel" or otherwise, that sometimes they are wrong? That is tautologous. Look at the original post. I said that I would be right 8 out of 10 times. That means that I am wrong 20% of the time!!! Ok. nitro
4 Levels of Trading Competence Level1: Unconsciously Incompetent. This is when a person is losing money and don't know why. He tries new systems, new newsletters, new gurus, new brokerage accounts, etc. Level 2: Consciously Incompetent. The person still don't know what he is doing. Still losing with occasional wins. Still no skill but learning from mistakes. A big win at this point may reinforce a wrong trading mindset and go back to level 1 after an inevitable blowout. Level 3. Consciously Competent. This person has learned well the trading rules and right trading mindset. He is now consistently profitable but still have to pay attention closely and consciously at executing trades. Level 4. Subconsciously Competent. This is the pinnacle of trading success! This person can execute trades subconsciously. The mindset and skill is now so ingrained that it comes out as natural as breathing. To the outside world, this person is an in-born genius or blessed with enormous luck. Nobody is born a trader as the traits required to be successful is not natural such as taking the loss at your stop loss point. This is, by nature, emotionally painful. But the true trader-at-heart learns to follow the trading rules without emotion, without regret. Successful trading requires knowing how to lose professionally. How to take a small loss at pre-determined stop loss levels. Knowing the rules is one thing. Following them is another.
This is an old one, don't know who wrote it originaly. 1. We accumulate information - buying books, going to seminars and researching. 2. We begin to trade with our 'new' knowledge. 3. We consistently 'donate' and then realize we may need more knowledge or information. 4. We accumulate more information. 5. We switch the commodities we are currently following. 6. We go back into the market and trade with our 'updated' knowledge. 7. We get 'beat up' again and begin to lose some of our confidence. Fear starts setting in. 8. We start to listen to 'outside news' and to other traders. 9. We go back into the market and continue to 'donate'. 10. We switch commodities again. 11. We search for more information. 12. We go back into the market and start to see a little progress. 13. We get 'over-confident' and the market humbles us. 14. We start to understand that trading successfully is going to take more time and more knowledge than we anticipated. Most people will give up at this point, as they realize work is involved. 15. We get serious and start concentrating on learning a 'real' methodology. 16. We trade our methodology with some success, but realize that something is missing. 17. We begin to understand the need for having rules to apply our methodology. 18. We take a sabbatical from trading to develop and research our trading rules. 19. We start trading again, this time with rules and find some success, but over all we still hesitate when it comes time to execute. 20. We add, subtract and modify rules as we see a need to be more proficient with our rules. 21. We feel we are very close to crossing that threshold of successful trading. 22. We start to take responsibility for our trading results as we understand that our success is in us, not the methodology. 23. We continue to trade and become more proficient with our methodology and our rules. 24. As we trade we still have a tendency to violate our rules and our results are still erratic. 25. We know we are close. 26. We go back and research our rules. 27. We build the confidence in our rules and go back into the market and trade. 28. Our trading results are getting better, but we are still hesitating in executing our rules. 29. We now see the importance of following our rules as we see the results of our trades when we don't follow the rules. 30. We begin to see that our lack of success is within us (a lack of discipline in following the rules because of some kind of fear), and we begin to work on knowing ourselves better. 31. We continue to trade and the market teaches us more and more about ourselves. 32. We master our methodology and our trading rules. 33. We begin to consistently make money. 34. We get a little over-confident and the market humbles us. 35. We continue to learn our lessons. 36. We stop thinking and allow our rules to trade for us (trading becomes boring, but successful) and our trading account continues to grow as we increase our contract size. 37. We are making more money than we ever dreamed possible. 38. We go on with our lives and accomplish many of the goals we had always dreamed of.