the only point you got wrong is that you should not invest with a big fund or bank but you should be the one making markets or investing for others. Adds to the happiness factor, bank account, aside other perks. But you would not know that because if you had any outstanding performance to show for your work just, lets say over 2-3 years, those guys would start knocking on your door. Better yet, you would run your own fund. Apparently you are not in that position at the moment. I am out of here, hope you learn a lot from the "top" traders here such as J.Hershey, stock777, and marketsurfer. I am sure their record speaks for themselves ;-)
The best traders have built their minds to have a trading spectrum of knowledge and skills that ultimately becomes fully differentiated. If a Q is posed they go get it from their mind. Who is the best trader? We all know because we read the news and we see TV interviews. She made the news because she is the perfect "before and after" story. You have to go pretty far down the column to find out anyting about trading technique. New question. Who is the best trader in ET. Historically past traders set records now unmatched by ET standards. Using ET standards is not a good idea. To see a record of learning from scratch and becoming good is easy to do. And it the better way for a noobie like gloria to go about it. Et's invited guests are not a good idea for the noobie to follow. There is no beginning to replicate. ET is not a place where a person can convince, teach or convert another to his way of thinking. I have enjoyed a great life in the trading community. That has not been happening here except in a few instances. The instances are terrific and they are happy and memorable for me. So thanks to you folks. So many years ago I decided to not wreck ET. Not many people recognized my restaint. The future will be no different. For those who wish to leave the fear, anxiety and anger world, concentrate on how the mind works and how learning lets the mind be built. For most long term high post members of ET, it is too late to build your mind towards a fully differentiated knowledge and skills trading spectrum. the best path is to do the what how and why route. When that is not possible do the loaf of bread, get the slices and get the refrigerator of ingredients. As an invited expert trader, I tried to pass on the former and wound up giving the later. Some did get the former but most wouldn't take the latter. Perfect happening. The way learning works is through repetition. If not reps then you see gibberish. Going through the six levels of skills and knowledge is full of traps and any trap kills the future learning. Finally, there is what you mind tells you as you learn. You receive aha's , AHA's and RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCES. This mental feedback, is simply amazing in the latter stages of asembling the spectrum and then resolving weaknesses. This part of this post has not been put in books as yet. As a person's mind is getting built, the brain works every night while you sleep. At first the brain cannot process all that it has had put in it the day before. BUT at some point for a few of the masses, it does get skilled enough to merge the unconscious with the conscious completely during the period of sleep available. What is waking up like under this circumstance? I mentioned it a few times in my past posts when it was in the space. My current team had its first member have the experience earlier this week. He volunteered his experience and afterwards we all discussed the neurology. I suggested that the group read Dr Hu and I explained the three operator model* of perception involving sensing and inference. *O-1 space, O-2 shape, O-3 delta of O-2. Since these are the three most powerful operators I work in the context of NLP, a less than 20 day shortcut. the best traders have fully differerentiated minds for the trading approach they perfected via iterative refinement. See BF.
I am all ears if you can discover a better way to describe market action than TA-- particullarly to the average person. The marketsurfer character tries to take complex ideas and make them actionable by everyone. Sometimes without much success. surf
TA is just for "after fact " brag! when someone is talking TA, he/she is braging or lying, just ignore them. for example, yesterday AAPL 475, very amazingly, that is just the breakout level, and some one said "billinoaire built a huge position ..." then someone will say: he, TA works, look it break out from 475. plus there is a nice double bootom there around 385~390!yes, it should go up! what a joke! under the skin, nothing is new, that is called "buy low and sell high". someone just thought AAPL under 500 is cheaper, they buy. it doesnt matter who is that guy! like today CREE dropped, and I thought 61.5 call at 0.5 is too cheap, buy and sell it at 1.1, think1.1 is expensive. common sense
What is it with you fund fanatics and your inability to understand not every one feels the need to aspire to, or make do with pretending to be a wall street big shot? If a trader can make the same per annum retail as the job they left it for, they gain the freedom and flexibility of being their own boss and can be happy with that. If they can make 10-20-30 times as much per annum they get to fund a lifestyle they could not have dreamed of with their return from the labor market. To some the market is a means to an end, a comfortable lifestyle and no debt. To others, they imagine them selves as the next Soros and that's fine, apart from the fact again and again the people we see recommending funds and talking down to retail traders are them selves failed traders who could not to save their lives get a job of importance at a fund and would be laughed out of town by investors if they advertised their own fund. Sad.
What you say is all well and good, Sheda. However to suggest folks spend 18 hours a day trying to read charts and tht one day they will have a breakthrough is. Simply fantasy. Far smarter in all ways is to seek out a real pro trader for mentoring and if you don't know anyone willing-- join a successful prop firm to learn edge. I suggest either route to you and the other clearly hurt and struggling traders reading this. Remember, I use to be one of you TA fans. I learned how bogus it was after joining with a few hyper succesful traders and money managers, and a prop firm. Im a slow learner and took a lot to cure me from the disease of TA, but if i can do it, anyone can So I understand and care about you. Surf
Anyone who has never seen a chart after reading what you say surf would think a chart looks like this and that they have to connect every single dot in order, from youngest to oldest before they can make a trade: http://d1jqu7g1y74ds1.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Glittering-Metropolis-of-Stars.jpg We have been though your prop firm edges, even you can not replicate them outside of the firm, so to say go there and learn is dishonest. Go there and learn their system in their environment, if your good enough to remain you are in luck. You are evidence that when you leave you leave with nothing. As for finding a good mentor, very sound advice. For the 90% of us who are never going to, tough luck, stop whining like a bitch and get on with it.
Jack, Could you please post this document? You've mentioned the value of the "Dr. Hu" document many times over the past several years but it is nowhere to be found here in ET or elsewhere. If I recall correctly, you were going to post it earlier this year. Would you consider trying again to post it? -river